nd the Company was even obliged to accept an annual subsidy of
200,000 roubles from the Government. So late as February, 1867, it
received a loan of 1,000,000 roubles from the Imperial Bank. Probably
a few years more would have seen the total extinction of the Company,
and the reversion of all its rights and expenses to the Crown.

In 1866 the fleet of the Russian-American Company comprised two sea
steamers, six ships, two brigs, one schooner, and several smaller
craft for coasting and inland service. During the Crimean war the
Company's property was made neutral on condition of its taking no part
in hostilities. Two of its ships were captured and burned for an
alleged violation of neutrality.

The Company leased a portion of its territory to the Hudson Bay
Company, and allowed it to establish hunting and trading posts. A
strip of land bordering the ocean was thus in English hands, and gave
access to a wide region beyond the Coast Mountains. Not content with
what was leased, the Hudson Bay Company deliberately seized a locality
on the Yukon river when it had no right. It built Fort Yukon and
secured much of the interior trade of Russian America.

When our Secretary of State purchased the Emperor's title to the
western coast of America, there were various opinions respecting the
sagacity of the transaction. No one could say what was the intrinsic
value of the country, either actual or prospective. The Company never
gave much attention to scientific matters.

The Russian government had made some explorations to ascertain the
character and extent of the rivers, mountains, plains, and swamps that
form the country. In 1841 Lieutenant Zagoyskin commenced an
examination of the country bordering the rivers, and continued it for
two years. He traced the course of the Kuskokvim and the lower
portions of the Yukon, or Kvikpak. His observations were chiefly
confined to the rivers and the country immediately bordering them.
He made no discoveries of agricultural or mineral wealth. Fish and
deer-meat, with berries, formed the food of the natives, while furs
were their only articles of trade.

[Illustration: VIEW OF SITKA]

Russian America is of great extent, superficially. It is agreeably
diversified with mountains, hills, rolling country, and table land,
with a liberal amount of _pereval_ or undulating swamp. In the
northern portion there is timber scattered along the rivers and on the
mountain slopes; but the trees and their