Father Juvenal's pupils were removed to Pavlovsk and placed under the care of Father German, who had recently opened a school there.
The priestly missionaries were treated with scant courtesy by Baranoff, and ceaseless and bitter were the complaints they made against him. On the voyage to Iliamna, Father Juvenal complains that he was compelled to sleep in the hold of the brigantine Catherine, between bales of goods and piles of dried fish, because the cabin was occupied by Baranoff and his party.
In his foul quarters, by the light of a dismal lantern, he wrote a portion of his famous journal, which has become a most precious human document, unable to sleep on account of the ribald songs and drunken revelry of the cabin.
He claims to have been constantly insulted and humiliated by Baranoff during the brief voyage; and finally, at Pavlovsk, he was told that he must depend upon bidarkas for the remainder of the voyage to the Gulf of Kenai; and after that to the robbers and murderers of the Lebedef Company.
The vicissitudes, insults, and actual suffering of the voyage are vividly set forth in his journal. It was the 16th of July when he left Kadiak and the 3d of September when he finally reached Iliamna—having journeyed by barkentine to Pavlovsk, by bidarka from island to island and to Cook Inlet, and over the mountains on foot.
He was hospitably received by Shakmut, the chief, who took him into his own house and promised to build one especially for him. A boy named Nikita, who had been a hostage with the Russians, acted as interpreter, and was later presented to Father Juvenal.
This young missionary seems to have been more zealous than diplomatic. Immediately upon discovering that the boy had never been baptized, he performed that ceremony, to the astonishment of the natives, who considered it some dark practice of witchcraft.
Juvenal relates with great naïveté that a pretty young woman asked to have the same ceremony performed upon her, that she, too, might live in the same house with the young priest.
The most powerful shock that he received, however, before the one that led to his death, he relates in the following simple language, under date of September 5, two days after his arrival:—
"It will be a relief to get away from the crowded house of the chief, where persons of all ages and sexes mingle without any regard to decency or morals. To my utter astonishment, Shakmut asked me last night to share the couch of one of his wives. He has three or four. I suppose such abomination is the custom of the country, and he intended no insult. God gave me grace to overcome my indignation, and to decline the offer in a friendly and dignified manner. My first duty, when I have somewhat mastered the language, shall be to preach against such wicked practices, but I could not touch upon such subjects through a boy interpreter."