’And in this manner, through rough seas and great storms, I came to Unalaska.  There were two schooners there, but neither was the one I sought.  So I passed on to the east, with the world growing ever larger, and in the island of Unamok there was no word of the ship, nor in Kadiak, nor in Atognak.  And so I came one day to a rocky land, where men dug great holes in the mountain.  And there was a schooner, but not my schooner, and men loaded upon it the rocks which they dug.  This I thought childish, for all the world was made of rocks; but they gave me food and set me to work.  When the schooner was deep in the water, the captain gave me money and told me to go; but I asked which way he went, and he pointed south.  I made signs that I would go with him, and he laughed at first, but then, being short of men, took me to help work the ship.  So I came to talk after their manner, and to heave on ropes, and to reef the stiff sails in sudden squalls, and to take my turn at the wheel.  But it was not strange, for the blood of my fathers was the blood of the men of the sea.

’I had thought it an easy task to find him I sought, once I got among his own people; and when we raised the land one day, and passed between a gateway of the sea to a port, I looked for perhaps as many schooners as there were fingers to my hands.  But the ships lay against the wharves for miles, packed like so many little fish; and when I went among them to ask for a man with the mane of a sea lion, they laughed, and answered me in the tongues of many peoples.  And I found that they hailed from the uttermost parts of the earth.

’And I went into the city to look upon the face of every man.  But they were like the cod when they run thick on the banks, and I could not count them.  And the noise smote upon me till I could not hear, and my head was dizzy with much movement.  So I went on and on, through the lands which sang in the warm sunshine; where the harvests lay rich on the plains; and where great cities were fat with men that lived like women, with false words in their mouths and their hearts black with the lust of gold.  And all the while my people of Akatan hunted and fished, and were happy in the thought that the world was small.

’But the look in the eyes of Unga coming home from the fishing was with me always, and I knew I would find her when the time was met.  She walked down quiet lanes in the dusk of the evening, or led me chases across the thick fields wet with the morning dew, and there was a promise in her eyes such as only the woman Unga could give.

’So I wandered through a thousand cities.  Some were gentle and gave me food, and others laughed, and still others cursed; but I kept my tongue between my teeth, and went strange ways and saw strange sights.  Sometimes I, who was a chief and the son of a chief, toiled for men—­men rough of speech and hard as iron, who wrung gold from the sweat and sorrow of their fellow men.  Yet no word did I get of my quest till I came back to the sea like a homing seal to the rookeries.