and who was made
chief manager in 1840. In 1846 he returned to Russia to accept the trust
of Commercial Counsellor in the head office of the Company in St.
Petersburg.

About fourteen miles to the southwest, across the bay and facing
Edgecumbe, with a beautiful view of the peak and islands, is the Hot
Springs, well known for their medicinal properties by the natives before
the advent of the Russians, and frequently resorted to by both as a
panacea for many ills. In the Place of Islands _(Chasti Ostrova)_
is reputed to be a spring with a sour taste, while almost within the
limits of the town of Sitka, Dr. Scheffer, a German physician who made a
sojourn in the place about 1815, claimed to have found a medical spring
whose waters were equal to some of the famed watering places of Germany.

CHAPTER IV

NATIVES

Most of the Sitkan Kolosh kept aloof from the Russian settlement after
the establishment of the new fort on Chatham Strait, near the entrance
of Peril Strait. All the kwans, the Khootznoos, the Hoonahs, the
Chilkats, the Auks, Stikines, Kakes and others, joined with the Sitkas
in the hatred of the Russians. Parties going out from the fort at Sitka
for hunting expeditions, for cutting of wood, for traveling to the Hot
Springs, had to be on their guard and with arms at hand prepared to
fight at a moment's notice.[9] Small groups were often cut off and
murdered. As it was impossible to decide which of the many kwans did the
act, and as there were those in each kwan who were peaceable, with whom
it was desired to keep the peace, revenge against any village was
inadvisable. Even as late as the date of the lease to the Hudson's Bay Co.
the Russian ships that sailed among the islands to trade with the Kolosh
were compelled to act with the strictest caution. Only a few natives
were admitted on board at a time, the trading was done in a space near
the stern, and was conducted under the muzzles of loaded cannon
concealed in the fore part of the ship.[10] The conditions were thus
until 1821, when the Sitkas were invited to reoccupy the site of the old
village and to live in what is now known as the "Ranche," under the guns
of the redoubt.

The Thlingit nation is a strange, warlike, shrewd people, physically
strong and enduring, and possessed of many excellent qualities. Hunters
and fishermen by nature and training, they are skillful boatmen, and in
those days they built wonderfully beautiful canoes of the red ceda