Fifty years later, after Cook, the English navigator, had spread
authentic news of the wealth in furs to be had on the west coast of
America, there were sixty different fur companies on the Pacific coast
carrying {303} almost as many different flags. John Jacob Astor's
ships had come round the Horn from New York and, sailing right into the
Russian hunting-grounds, were endeavoring to make arrangements to
furnish supplies to the Russians in exchange for cargoes of the
fur-seals, whose rookeries had been discovered about the time sea-otter
began to be scarce. Kendrick, Gray, Ingraham, Coolidge, a dozen Boston
men were threading the shadowy, forested waterways between New Spain
and Alaska.[2] Ships from Spain, from France, from London, from
Canton, from Bengal, from Austria, were on the west coast of America.
The effect was twofold: sea-otter were becoming scarce from being
slaughtered indiscriminately, male and female, young and old; the fur
trade was becoming bedevilled from rival traders using rum among the
savages. The life of a fur trader on the Pacific coast was not worth a
pin's purchase fifty yards away from the cannon mouths pointed through
the netting fastened round the deck rails to keep savages off ships.
Pages:
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392