gh, rugged, hospitable, hard-drinking old Russian;
somewhat of a soldier; somewhat of a trader; above all, a boon companion
of the old roystering school, with a strong cross of the bear.

Mr. Hunt found this hyperborean veteran ensconced in a fort which
crested the whole of a rocky promontory. It mounted one hundred guns,
large and small, and was impregnable to Indian attack, unaided by
artillery. Here the old governor lorded it over sixty Russians, who
formed the corps of the trading establishment, besides an indefinite
number of Indian hunters of the Kodiak tribe, who were continually
coming and going, or lounging and loitering about the fort like so many
hounds round a sportsman's hunting quarters. Though a loose liver among
his guests, the governor was a strict disciplinarian among his men;
keeping them in perfect subjection, and having seven on guard night and
day.

Besides those immediate serfs and dependents just mentioned, the old
Russian potentate exerted a considerable sway over a numerous and
irregular class of maritime traders, who looked to him for aid and
munitions, and through whom he may be said to have, in some degree,
extended his power along the whole northwest coast. These were American
captains of vessels engaged in a particular department of the trade.
One of these captains would come, in a manner, empty-handed to New
Archangel. Here his ship would be furnished with about fifty canoes and
a hundred Kodiak hunters, and fitted out with provisions, and everything
necessary for hunting the sea-otter on the coast of California, where
the Russians have another establishment. The ship would ply along the
California coast from place to place, dropping parties of otter hunters
in their canoes, furnishing them only with water, and leaving them to
depend upon their own dexterity for a maintenance. When a sufficient
cargo was collected, she would gather up her canoes and hunters, and
return with them to Archangel; where the captain would render in the
returns of his voyage, and receive one half of the skins for his share.

Over these coasting captains, as we have hinted, the veteran governor
exerted some sort of sway, but it was of a peculiar and characteristic
kind; it was the tyranny of the table. They were obliged to join him in
his "prosnics" or carousals, and to drink "potations pottle deep." His
carousals, too, were not of the most quiet kind, nor were his potations
as mild as nectar. "He is continuall