"So am I."
"What kind of place is Belkoffski?" I asked one of the sailors who rowed us ashore.
He grinned until it seemed that he would never again be able to get his mouth shut.
"Jou vill see vot kind oof a blace it ees," he replied luminously.
"Is it not a nice place, then?"
"Jou vill see."
We did see.
The tide was so low and the shore so rocky that we could not get within a hundred yards of any land. A sailor named "Nelse" volunteered to carry us on his back; and as nothing better presented itself for our consideration, we promptly and joyfully went pick-a-back.
This was my most painful experience in Alaska. My father used to make stirrups of his hands; but as Nelse did not offer, diffidence kept me from requesting this added gallantry of him. It was well that I went first; for after viewing my friend's progress shoreward, had I not already been upon the beach, I should never have landed at Belkoffski.
For many years Belkoffski was the centre of the sea-otter trade. This small animal, which has the most valuable fur in the world, was found only along the rock shores of the Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. The Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds. Sea-otter, furnishing the court fur of both Russia and China, were in such demand that they have been almost entirely exterminated—as the fur-bearing seal will soon be.