Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. From Yakutsk to the Lower Lena
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should happen to clash with the laws of heaven and the
ukases from St. Petersburg. Friction and collision can
easily be avoided by sharing the blessings.
But in these blessings—the mammoth-tusks, the fox-skins,
and the sables, etc.—the unfortunate natives have no share,
albeit they have been the means whereby their white rulers
have acquired them. Quite the contrary; the very process
of acquiring them, if it be not stopped or changed, will
sooner or later exterminate the greater part of these people.
To describe this process fully would fill a whole volume.
I must therefore limit myself to some of its principal
features. The natives are kept perpetually deep in debt
to the merchant king, who treats them as his own
property. They are to all intents and purposes his slaves. In
order to pay their debts for strong spirits of the worst
possible quality, for tobacco, tea, cloth, or whatever it may
be, the natives are often obliged to neglect to provide
for their own necessities by tending their reindeer herds,
collecting stores of dried fish etc., and have to devote
nearly all their time to hunting and trapping, or to making
dangerous excursions to the islands in search of
mammoth-tusks. The price of the natives’ furs as well as of the
trader’s goods are alike fixed by the latter individual, who
takes good care to make a double profit.
The poor natives are constantly kept on the verge of famine
and in nameless misery, being absolutely dependent on the
merchant’s “clemency”. This is, in short, the real cause
of the terrible cases of famine which so often occur among
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