On the 30th of July the steamer "St. Paul"  sailed out of the fog surrounding the island which bears the same name as herself, having on board a cargo valued at more than a million dollars, for San Francisco. In addition to the seal skins, she had in her hold last winter's take of land furs for the Alaska Commercial Company from the Yukon district. The latter, along with a hundred barrels of seal meat and a large quantity of oil, were discharged at Onalaska, where we arrived on the 1st of August, having been fog-bound outside for half a day. Every year the company brings down a large amount of seal meat, which is distributed gratuitously among the Onalaska people, along with seal oil, which is almost indispensable among these people for food. The oil is a real luxury, and is used liberally, when available, to soften their dried fish. When the large casks, containing two hundred and fifty gallons of oil each, were rolled up the wharf here, to be pumped into barrels for distribution, the tricklings from the pump were scooped up on Aleut fingers and sipped into Aleut mouths, as the gamins on wharves in the East suck the syrup that leaks from barrels of saccharine sweets. But seal meat and oil were not the only important shipments by the steamer " St. Paul" from the seal islands to Onalaska. There came down twenty Onalaska men who had been taken up last spring as laborers, and as Onalaska Aleuts are not so rich as those of the seal islands, their return with their earnings made quite an important event for this community. Yet this was not all that contributed to the importance of the occasion. The steamer brought down four young men from St. George's, and five from St. Paul's, looking for wives. It should be known that the fur-seal islanders are the crime de la crime of Aleut society. They earn more money and live better than any other Aleuts, and naturally they become fascinating fellows as soon as they land among the maidens of Onalaska.

Of course there are young women who desire to marry on the fur-seal islands, but the church will not permit marriages within the degree of third-cousin consanguinity, and, what makes the matter more oppressive, a relationship equally annoying is manufactured at the baptismal font. An Aleut may not marry the son or daughter, nor niece, nor nephew, nor any relation within the seventh degree of his or her godfather or godmother. This is the solemn truth, and although people ought to be glad to have relations, when they are rich, there is such a thing as having too many when they are poor. There is now on St. George's a marriageable young woman, unexceptional from an Aleut point of view, who is so related by ties of consanguinity with what we would call remote cousins, and so bewilderingly connected by baptism with godfathers and godmothers and their relations, that she cannot marry upon the island, although there are plenty of young men there who need wives, and who would like to have her. She got her temper up about it, and said she would never marry off the island, which is a noble sort of self-sacrifice highly worthy of admiration. When the seal islanders come down to Onalaska they lay siege to all the marriageable women in the settlement, and marriages begin at once. Those who cannot get wives here, and some such cases are reported, ask the Company to furnish them free transportation "out West" to Atka, three hundred miles a way. At the same time there is a surplus of female population on the fur-seal islands who won't marry anybody but a fur-sealer, because they have been brought up in an aristocratic way in frame cottages, and provided with wardrobes which enable them to change dresses seven times a day. Such are the advantages and disadvantages of female education among the fur-sealers.

There is not much of the spooney business in Aleut courtship. The steamer landed the wife-hunting seal-skinners on Friday. On Saturday one of them was asked, " Are you married yet ? " "Not yet, but I shall be tomorrow." "Who are you going to marry ? "   "I don't know yet."

On Sunday, two days after the arrival of the wife hunters, three of them were married, two couples at one time and one at another. The three couples would have been executed together but there were only four crowns among the church properties. Crowns and candles are indispensable at these weddings. When marrying a couple, the priest appears in full vestments, with the tall, slightly tapering coffee-pot-shaped velvet hat; and a choir of male voices chant nasal responses to the long service read by his reverence. The couples to be married are stood up in a row, the first step being to place a lighted candle, decorated with a crimson bow, in each hand. Then the reading commences, and continues till the priest shows signs of fatigue, when the attendant brings out blessed rings on a blessed tray, and each one puts on his or her ring, taken at random from the tray, man and woman being treated alike in this respect. After the rings there is more reading, with responses from the nasal choir; and when the priest becomes exhausted again the blessed crowns are brought out. On this occasion there were four crowns, two which were old and lusterless, and two which were not only new, but brilliant with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, or what looked like them, and answered every purpose just as well. There stood the two couples, like the kings and queens of a chessboard, with crowns upon heads which did not fit them.

Of the two couples in this case one bride, of a Russian appearance, was dressed in a light silk with a purple stripe; she had a blue bow at her throat, and a pink sash around her waist. Her hair had been braided damp over night, and hung in waves down her shoulders. Her eyes were downcast constantly during the ceremony, and her nose, long and straight, pointed sharply toward the floor in an ominous manner. She wore a cynical sort of smile, like that of an experienced circuit preacher when he knows that the other brother is getting nothing the better of him in the pending horse-trade. The crown which the groom of this couple wore was much too small for him, being a great, large-headed fellow with a thick neck, high cheek bones, and a twenty-pound fist, so that when he should have bowed he dared not, knowing that if he attempted it his crown would tumble to the floor. On the other hand the bride's crown was altogether too large for her, and, wearing her abundant hair down her back on that day only gave the crown a greater chance to settle. If she had worn it in a coil on the back of her head, or in a braid clubbed up behind, or in a pad on top d la pompadour, or en chignon, or watteau, or in any of the thousand and one styles known to modern capillary engineering, the crown might have been stayed in some sort of a genteel position. But it settled down too far at first, and every time she bowed in response to the words read by the priest, and every time she nodded in reply to the questions, if she would obey; &c, with the hardly ever smile upon her resigned face, the crown sunk lower and lower till it got down over her ears;   and when the priest  led  the couple, hand in hand, three times around the little stand that served as an altar on this occasion, she  looked  like  the most abandoned creature in the world, and as if she did not care who knew it. Of course the effect was all due to the crown coming down over her ears and to the Mephistophelean smile upon her countenance, which deepened as the crown descended, but it was enough to scare all thought of marrying in Onalaska out of the head of any reflecting man.

The other bride was a Japanese-looking Aleut, black hair, narrow, slanting eyes, and in person short and stout. She wore a gingham dress, and was not only very plain, but evidently not a person of high standing in society, in consequence of which she attracted little attention, but she was married as much as any of them. The third couple were joined similarly soon after, and next day the three seal-skinners paid five dollars each for the candles which had lighted them into the promising state of matrimony.

About the nicest-looking lot of Aleut women we saw on this cruise in Alaska were at Kyska for the summer, belonging, when at home, in Atka, and being at the time away with the otter hunters; and if the St. Paul and St. George fellows, could get among them, no doubt they would marry and return home with wives that would breed the most delightful jealousies and discords among the matrons of the fur seal islands, who are very proud, considering themselves the elite of Alaska society, but who are not all so good-looking as those of Atka; and that fact would place them at a decided disadvantage in the men's opinion, for a great many of these fellows appear to be sufficiently civilized to prefer beauty to brains in a wife.

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