They were of a fiercer and more warlike nature, and refused to meet the friendly advances of Glottoff. The latter, therefore, kept at some distance from the shore, and a watch was set night and day.
Nevertheless, the Kadiaks made an early-morning attack, firing upon the watches with arrows and attempting to set fire to the ship. They fled in the wildest disorder upon the discharge of firearms, scattering in their flight ludicrous ladders, dried moss, and other materials with which they had expected to destroy the ship.
Within four days they made another attack, provided with wooden shields to ward off the musket-balls.
They were again driven to the shore. At the end of three weeks they made a third and last attack, protected by immense breastworks, over which they cast spears and arrows upon the decks.
As these shields appeared to be bullet-proof and the natives continued to advance, Glottoff landed a body of men and made a fierce attack, which had the desired effect. The savages dropped their shields and fled from the neighborhood.
When Von H. J. Holmberg was on the island, he persuaded an old native to dictate a narrative to an interpreter, concerning the arrival of the first ship—which was undoubtedly Glottoff's. This narrative is of poignant interest, presenting, as it does, so simply and so eloquently, the "other" point of view—that of the first inhabitant of the country, which we so seldom hear. For this reason, and for the charm of its style, I reproduce it in part:—
"I was a boy of nine or ten years, for I was already set to paddle a bidarka, when the first Russian ship, with two masts, appeared near Cape Aleulik. Before that time we had never seen a ship. We had intercourse with the Aglegnutes, of the Aliaska Peninsula, with the Tnaianas of the Kenai Peninsula, and with the Koloshes, of southeastern Alaska. Some wise men even knew something of the Californias; but of white men and their ships we knew nothing.
"The ship looked like a great whale at a distance. We went out to sea in our bidarkas, but we soon found that it was no whale, but another unknown monster of which we were afraid, and the smell of which made us sick."
(In all literature and history and real life, I know of no single touch of unintentional humor so entirely delicious as this: that any odor could make an Alaskan native, of any locality or tribe, sick; and of all things, an odor connected with a white person! It appears that in more ways than one this old native's story is of value.)
"The people on the ship had buttons on their clothes, and at first we thought they must be cuttle-fish." (More unintentional, and almost as delicious, humor!) "But when we saw them put fire into their mouths and blow out smoke we knew that they must be devils."