I voyaged with a pilot who had accompanied the expedition.
"Those scientists, now," he said, musingly, one day as he paced the bridge, with his hands behind him. "They were a real study for a fellow like me. The genuine big-bugs in that party were the finest gentlemen you ever saw; but the little-bugs—say, they put on more dog than a bogus prince! They were always demanding something they couldn't get and acting as if they was afraid somebody might think they didn't amount to anything. An officer on a ship can always tell a gentleman in two minutes—his wants are so few and his tastes so simple. John Burroughs? Oh, say, every man on the ship liked Mr. Burroughs. I don't know as you'd ought to call him a gentleman. You see, gentlemen live on earth, and he was way up above the earth—in the clouds, you know. He'd look right through you with the sweetest eyes, and never see you. But flowers—well, Jeff Davis! Mr. Burroughs could see a flower half a mile away! You could talk to him all day, and he wouldn't hear a word you said to him, any more than if he was deef as a post. I thought he was, the longest while. But Jeff Davis! just let a bird sing on shore when we were sailing along close. His deefness wasn't particularly noticeable then!... He'd go ashore and dawdle 'way off from everybody else, and come back with his arms full of flowers."
Mr. Burroughs was charmed with the sylvan beauty of Kadiak Island; its pale blue, cloud-dappled skies and deep blue, islanded seas; its narrow, winding water-ways; its dimpled hills, silvery streams, and wooded dells; its acres upon acres of flowers of every variety, hue and size; its vivid green, grassy, and mossy slopes, crests, and meadows; its delightful air and singing birds.
He was equally charmed with Wood Island, which is only fifteen minutes' row from Kadiak, and spent much time in its melodious dells, turning his back upon both islands with reluctance, and afterward writing of them appreciative words which their people treasure in their hearts and proudly quote to the stranger who reaches those lovely shores.
The name Kadiak was originally Kaniag, the natives calling themselves Kaniagists or Kaniagmuts. The island was discovered in 1763, by Stephen Glottoff.
His reception by the natives was not of a nature to warm the cockles of his heart. They approached in their skin-boats, but his godson, Ivan Glottoff, a young Aleut interpreter, could not make them understand him, and they fled in apparent fear.
Some days later they returned with an Aleutian boy whom they had captured in a conflict with the natives of the Island of Sannakh, and he served as interpreter.
The natives of Kadiak differ greatly from those of the Aleutian Islands, notwithstanding the fact that the islands drift into one another.
The Kadiaks were more intelligent and ambitious, and of much finer appearance, than the Aleutians.