post to post continue, war discipline prevails; in a word, we are ready at any minute to receive our dear guests, who generally profit by the darkness of night to make an attack.”

The additional number in the garrison owing to the arrival of the Chamberlain and his suite made it more difficult to procure provisions for the winter. The hostile Kolosh made hunting and fishing dangerous. In the autumn there was but flour enough for an allowance of a pound a week for one month for the 200 men in the fort. For other food supply they were dependent on the fish caught in the bay, the dried yukali and sealion meat from Kodiak, and the dried seal meat from the Seal Islands.

Baranof bought the ship “Juno,” an American sailing ship of about 250 tons, from Captain George D’Wolf, of Bristol, Conn., with its cargo of flour, sugar and other articles, for the sum of 68,000 piastres (Spanish), equivalent to about the same number of dollars. This relieved the immediate necessity, but before spring the supply became so low that the scurvy, that dread malady of the seas and of outlying localities, attacked the garrison. This scourge often fell heavily on the early Russian expeditions, and in 1821 the Russian ship “Borodino” lost 40 men through its ravages in a voyage from Sitka to Kronstadt.

In March, Resanof sailed for San Francisco in the “Juno” to purchase breadstuffs and other supplies. He also wished to examine the coast with the view of making other settlements farther south, at Nootka, at the Columbia, or even farther south in California. He secured a cargo of the products of the south and returned to Sitka in June.

On his southward journey Resanof reconnoitred the mouth of the Columbia River, seeking a site for a future settlement. He was unable to enter the river owing to contrary winds; and the condition of his crew, debilitated by lack of proper food and suffering from scurvy, caused him to hasten on. He heard that a party of U. S. soldiers were building a fort there. This rumor doubtless came from the presence of Lewis and Clarke near the present Astoria.

While on this visit to San Francisco Resanof met the Spanish beauty, Dona Concepcion de Arguello, of whom one of the visitors said, “She was lively and animated, had sparkling, love-inspiring eyes, beautiful teeth, pleasing and expressive features, a fine form and a thousand other charms,” and he lost his heart to her. The romance of the Russian courtier and the fair Californian furnished to Bret Harte the theme for some of his most beautiful verse. Resanof, hurrying home to Russia to gain the Imperial permission to his marriage, died at Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and Dona Concepcion waited for years for the coming of her lover, not knowing that he lay dead under the Siberian snows. When the news of his sad fate came to her she donned the habit of a nun and devoted herself to charitable works.

This visit to California was the beginning of a trade that continued for many years, through all the period of Russian occupation. During the days of the gold discoveries in California large shipments of goods were made from Sitka to San Francisco, and after the sale of the territory to the United States great quantities of merchandise were shipped from the warehouses of the Company to the California metropolis, amounting to over a quarter of a million dollars in one year.

The breadstuffs for the colonies were procured from California, from San Francisco and from Ross Colony, or from Peru, until 1840, when a contract was made with the Hudson’s Bay Company under which the supplies were brought from the farms of the Nisqually or from Vancouver, in Oregon Territory.

Until the time of the arrival of the “Neva”, 1804, all trading goods were brought across Siberia to Okhotsk, and thence by sailing vessel to the colony, or were purchased from the American or English trading ships which came to the coast for furs. To the natives the English who came to these waters became known as “King George Men,” and the Americans were called “Boston Men,” the latter being from the great number of ships that sailed from the great shipping port of New England. From these traders goods were purchased by Baranof at lower rates than those cost which were brought from Russia. John Jacob Astor was one of the first to engage in the trade. He sent the ship “Enterprise” to Sitka in 1810, and the “Beaver” in 1812. From Washington Irving we have the description, through the account of the Captain, of the “Hyperborean veteran ensconsed in a fort which crested the top of a high rock promontory,” which is well known to all readers of stories of western life, and in which the impression of the character of Baranof as given to the reader is very erroneous. The traders exchanged their goods with the Russians for furs, sometimes going to the Pribilof Islands to receive the seal-skins; sailed to China, where the furs were traded for silks, nankins, and teas; they then voyaged on around the world to their home port.

The sloop-of-war “Diana,” the first Russian warship to reach Sitka, arrived in 1810 under the command of Captain Vasili M. Golofnin, who was widely known for his adventures while a captive in the Kingdom of the Nipponese, where he was carried about in a bamboo cage and exhibited to the populace. His description of his visit to Sitka is entertaining, and of it he says:

“In the fort we met nothing so unusual or costly as to be worthy of special remark; the fort consisted of solid log towers, and high strong palisades, with apertures or embrasures, in which were set guns and carronades of different calibres. The interior construction, barracks, storehouses, house of the commander and other buildings were made of thick logs and were very solid, these being very common in this place, around which grows, so to say, within reach of a windlass, a multitude of most beautiful trees suitable for structures of every description.

“In the house of Mr. Baranof were ornaments and furniture in profusion, of masterly workmanship and costly price, brought from St. Petersburg and from England, which corresponded with his position as the head official of a great company. What astonished us most was an extensive library in nearly all European languages, and many pictures of remarkable merit. I must confess, that I badly judge in painting, and only could know, that in the uncultivated wild border of America, there would be none except Mr. Baranof to value and understand them, unless there might happen to be educated travelers, or masters of United States trading vessels visiting this place, there would be no one to appreciate the fine art. Mr. Baranof, noting my astonishment, explained the riddle, saying, that the pictures attracting our attention were gifts of the Company and of distinguished persons in St. Petersburg, for the establishing of a library, and the Directory sent them out. On these works he commented with the following remarkable view: ‘Better that our directors had sent us a doctor, for in all the Company’s colonies there is not one doctor, nor one doctor’s assistant, nor one doctor’s pupil.’”

Golofnin soon left Sitka to return to St. Petersburg. His successful voyage, together with that of the “Neva” and the “Nadeshda,” encouraged the shipment of goods by sea from Russia, and from that time onward ships came regularly, laden with supplies of every kind for the post, and returned with rich cargoes of peltry.

By 1825 surgical and astronomical instruments of the best quality were sent to the colony, an apothecary shop of three rooms provided medicines, and four Creole boys, under the charge of a doctor, attended to the dispensing of the