Disgust in my mouth, I tasted the waste of life, Alcaeus’, my own, my friends’.
— from Voices from the Past by Paul Alexander Bartlett

What would be fifty thousand dollars in modern money, it took to build and { 298} equip one of these sloops; but a cargo of sea-otter was to be had for the taking—barring storms that yearly engulfed two-thirds of the hunters, and hostile Indians that twice wiped Russian settlements from the coast of America—and if these pelts sold for one hundred and fifty dollars each, the returns were ample to compensate risk and outlay.
— from Vikings of the Pacific The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward by Agnes C. Laut