They were not anaemic, these old "sea voyagers" of the Pacific, daring death or devil, with the red blood of courage in their veins, and the red blood of a lawless manhood, too. They were not men of milk and water type, with little good and less bad. Neither their virtues nor their vices were lukewarm; but _they did things_, these men; added to the sum total of human effort, human knowledge, human progress. Sordid their motives may have been, sordid as the blacksmith's when he smashes his sledge on the anvil; but from the anvil of their hardships, from the clash of the { 338} primordial warfare between the Spirit of the Elements and the Spirit of Man, struck out some sparks of the Divine. There was the courage as dauntless in the teeth of the gale as in the face of death. There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to follow it over earth's ends, though the quest led to the abyss of a watery grave. What did they want, these fool fellows, following the rushlight of their own desires? That is just it. They didn't know what they sought, but they knew there was something just beyond to be sought, something new to be known; and because Man is Man, they set out on the quest of the unknown, chancing life and death for the sake of a little gain to human progress. It is the spirit of the heroic ages, and to that era belongs the history of the Vikings on the North Pacific.
_Adventure_, first American ship built on Pacific, 233, 234, 238, 325.
Alaska, Bering's expedition on coast of, 26 ff.; Chirikoff's arrival at, 50-51; Benyowsky's visit to, 125; Cook explores coast of, 189-194; Gray's trip to, 238; Vancouver's survey of southern coast of, 286-290; Baranof's career in, 318-337. _See_ Sitka.
Aleutian Islands, Bering's voyage of discovery among, 26-41; sea-otter's habitat on, 42, 53, 56, 63, 66-67, 69-70, 82-83; fur hunters of the, 67-78, 81-84, 321-323, 328-330.
Aleut Indians, as otter-hunters, 69-78; harsh treatment of, by Russians, 79, 8l-88; Russian hunters massacred by, 91-95, 100-104; punishment of, 105; in Sitka massacre, 307-310, 332; accompany Baranof on voyage of vengeance, 311-314; with Baranof in Prince William Sound, 322 ff.
Alexander Archipelago, Chirikoff in the, 46-52.