lish friends would say; perhaps the Governor would
be more amenable than she had represented. No
man could forecast events. It was enough to be
forearmed.

But his thoughts swung to a theme as little dis-
burdening. His needs, as he had confided to Con-
cha, were very pressing. The dry or frozen fish,
the sea dogs, the fat of whales, upon which the em-
ployees of the Company were forced to subsist in
the least hospitable of climes, had ravaged them
with scorbutic diseases until their numbers were so
reduced by death and desertion that there was dan-
ger of depopulation and the consequent bankruptcy
of the Company. Since June of the preceding year
until his departure from New Archangel in the pre-
vious month, he had been actively engaged in inspec-
tion of the Company's holdings from Kamchatka
to Sitka: reforming abuses, establishing schools
and libraries, conceiving measures to protect the
fur-bearing animals from reckless slaughter both
by the promuschleniki and marauding foreigners;
punishing and banishing the worst offenders against
the Company's laws; encouraging the faithful, and
sharing hardships with them that sent memories of
former luxuries and pleasures scurrying off to the
realms of fantasy. But his rule would be incom-
plete and his efforts end in failure if the miserable
Russians and natives in the employ of the Com-
pany were not vitalized by proper food and cheered