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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by 
+Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
+
+Author: Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO ALASKA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Vachuska, Constanze Hofmann and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
+
+BY
+
+CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
+
+_Third Edition_
+
+
+ST. LOUIS, MO., 1914
+
+Published by B. HERDER
+17 South Broadway
+
+FREIBURG (BADEN)
+Germany
+
+LONDON, W. C.
+68 Great Russell Str.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Gummersbach.
+
+
+--BECKTOLD--
+PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO.
+ST. LOUIS, MO.
+
+
+
+
+                       To
+               KENNETH O'CONNOR,
+     First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers,
+Gen'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba:
+   IN MEMORY OF OUR HOME-LIFE IN THE BUNGALOW.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+The Author returns thanks to the Editor of the _Ave Maria_ for the
+privilege of republishing these notes of travel and adventure.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  Chapter.                                        Page.
+        I. Due West to Denver                         7
+       II. In Denver Town                            18
+      III. The Garden of the Gods                    29
+       IV. A Whirl across the Rockies                40
+        V. Off for Alaska                            47
+       VI. In the Inland Sea                         56
+      VII. Alaskan Village Life                      66
+     VIII. Juneau                                    74
+       IX. By Solitary Shores                        86
+        X. In Search of the Totem-Pole               98
+       XI. In the Sea of Ice                        111
+      XII. Alaska's Capital                         124
+     XIII. Katalan's Rock                           136
+      XIV. From the Far North                       148
+       XV. Out of the Arctic                        159
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Due West to Denver.
+
+
+Commencement week at Notre Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Multitudes of
+guests who had been camping for a night or two in the recitation
+rooms--our temporary dormitories--gave themselves up to the boyish
+delights of school-life, and set numerous examples which the students
+were only too glad to follow. The boat race on the lake was a picture;
+the champion baseball match, a companion piece; but the highly decorated
+prize scholars, glittering with gold and silver medals, and badges of
+satin and bullion; the bevies of beautiful girls who for once--once only
+in the year--were given the liberty of the lawns, the campus, and the
+winding forest ways, that make of Notre Dame an elysium in summer; the
+frequent and inspiring blasts of the University Band, and the general
+joy that filled every heart to overflowing, rendered the last day of the
+scholastic year romantic to a degree and memorable forever.
+
+There was no sleep during the closing night--not one solitary wink; all
+laws were dead-letters--alas that they should so soon arise again from
+the dead!--and when the wreath of stars that crowns the golden statue of
+Our Lady on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the
+wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into
+flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the
+plains of Indiana--then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched
+that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you
+which we did. The moon was very full that night, and I didn't blame it!
+
+But the picnic really began at the foot of the great stairway in front
+of the dear old University next morning. Five hundred possible
+presidents were to be distributed broadcast over the continent; five
+hundred sons and heirs to be returned with thanks to the yearning bosoms
+of their respective families. The floodgates of the trunk-rooms were
+thrown open, and a stream of Saratogas went thundering to the station at
+South Bend, two miles away. Hour after hour, and indeed for several
+days, huge trucks and express wagons plied to and fro, groaning under
+the burden of well-checked luggage. It is astonishing to behold how big
+a trunk a mere boy may claim for his very own; but it must be remembered
+that your schoolboy lives for several years within the brass-bound
+confines of a Saratoga. It is his bureau, his wardrobe, his private
+library, his museum and toy shop, the receptacle of all that is near and
+dear to him; it is, in brief, his _sanctum sanctorum_, the one inviolate
+spot in his whole scholastic career of which he, and he alone, holds the
+key.
+
+We came down with the tide in the rear of the trunk freshet. The way
+being more or less clear, navigation was declared open. The next moment
+saw a procession of chariots, semi-circus wagons and barouches filled
+with homeward-bound schoolboys and their escorts, dashing at a brisk
+trot toward the railroad station. Banners were flying, shouts rent the
+air; familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved benedictions from all
+points of the compass; while the gladness and the sadness of the hour
+were perpetuated by the aid of instantaneous photography. The
+enterprising kodaker caught us on the fly, just as the special train was
+leaving South Bend for Chicago; a train that was not to be dismembered
+or its exclusiveness violated until it had been run into the station at
+Denver.
+
+After this last negative attack we were set free. Vacation had begun in
+good earnest. What followed, think you? Mutual congratulations,
+flirtations and fumigations without ceasing; for there was much lost
+time to be made up, and here was a golden opportunity. O you who have
+been a schoolboy and lived for months and months in a pent-up Utica,
+where the glimpse of a girl is as welcome and as rare as a sunbeam in a
+cellar, you can imagine how the two hours and forty-five minutes were
+improved--and Chicago eighty miles away. It is true we all turned for a
+moment to catch a last glimpse of the University dome, towering over the
+treetops; and we felt very tenderly toward everyone there. But there
+were "sweet girl graduates" on board; and, as you know well enough, it
+required no laureate to sing their praises, though he has done so with
+all the gush and fervor of youth.
+
+It was summer. "It is always summer where they are," some youngster was
+heard to murmur. But it was really the summer solstice, or very near it.
+The pond-lilies were ripe; bushels of them were heaped upon the
+platforms at every station we came to; and before the first stage of our
+journey was far advanced the girls were sighing over lapfuls of lilies,
+and the lads tottering under the weight of stupendous _boutonnières_.
+
+As we drew near the Lake City, the excitement visibly increased. Here,
+there were partings, and such sweet sorrow as poets love to sing. It
+were vain to tell how many promises were then and there made, and of
+course destined to be broken; how everybody was to go and spend a happy
+season with everybody or at least somebody else, and to write meanwhile
+without fail. There were good-byes again and again, and yet again; and,
+with much mingled emotion, we settled ourselves in luxurious seats and
+began to look dreamily toward Denver.
+
+In the mazes of the wonderful city of Chicago we saw the warp of that
+endless steel web over which we flew like spiders possessed. The sunken
+switches took our eye and held it for a time. But a greater marvel was
+the man with the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of iron, who
+sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played with
+trainfuls of his fellowmen--a mere question of life or death to be
+answered over and over again; played with them as the conjurer tosses
+his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one
+click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction;
+the perfect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little
+world, but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it
+every moment in the hour, and every hour in the day, and every day in
+the year.
+
+It did not take us long to discover the advantages of our special-car
+system. There were nigh fifty of us housed in a brace of excursion cars.
+In one of these--the parlor--the only stationary seats were at the two
+ends, while the whole floor was covered with easy-chairs of every
+conceivable pattern. The dining car was in reality a cardroom between
+meals--and _such_ meals, for we had stocked the larder ourselves.
+Everywhere the agents of the several lines made their appearance and
+greeted us cordially; they were closeted for a few moments with the
+shepherd of our flock, Father Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame,
+Indiana; then they would take a bite with us--a dish of berries or an
+ice,--for they invariably accompanied us down the road a few miles; and
+at last would bid us farewell with a flattering figure of speech, which
+is infinitely preferable to the traditional "Tickets, please; tickets!"
+
+At every town and village crowds came down to see us. We were evidently
+objects of interest. Even the nimble reporter was on hand, and looked
+with a not unkindly eye upon the lads who were celebrating the first
+hours of the vacation with an enthusiasm which had been generating for
+some weeks. There was such a making up of beds when, at dark, the parlor
+and dining cars were transformed into long, narrow dormitories, and the
+boys paired off, two and two, above and below, through the length of our
+flying university, and made a night of it, without fear of notes or
+detentions, and with no prefect stalking ghostlike in their midst.
+
+It would be hard to say which we found most diverting, the long, long
+landscape that divided as we passed, through it and closed up in the
+rear, leaving only the shining iron seam down the middle; the beautiful,
+undulating prairie land; the hot and dusty desolation of the plains;
+the delicious temperature of the highlands, as we approached the Rockies
+and had our first glimpse of Pike's Peak in its mantle of snow: the
+muddy rivers, along whose shores we glided swiftly hour after hour: the
+Mississippi by moonlight--we all sat up to see that--or the Missouri at
+Kansas City, where we began to scatter our brood among their far Western
+homes. At La Junta we said good-bye to the boys bound for Mexico and the
+Southwest. It was like a second closing of the scholastic year; the
+good-byes were now ringing fast and furious. Jolly fellows began to grow
+grave and the serious ones more solemn; for there had been no cloud or
+shadow for three rollicking days.
+
+To be sure there was a kind of infantile cyclone out on the plains,
+memorable for its superb atmospheric effects, and the rapidity with
+which we shut down the windows to keep from being inflated
+balloon-fashion. And there was a brisk hail-storm at the gate of the
+Rockies that peppered us smartly for a few moments. Then there were some
+boys who could not eat enough, and who turned from the dessert in
+tearful dismay; and one little kid who dived out of the top bunk in a
+moment of rapture, and should have broken his neck--but he didn't!
+
+We were quite sybaritical as to hours, with breakfast and dinner
+courses, and mouth-organs and cigarettes and jam between meals. Frosted
+cake and oranges were left untouched upon the field after the
+gastronomical battles were fought so bravely three or four times a day.
+Perhaps the pineapples and bananas, and the open barrel of strawberries,
+within reach of all at any hour, may account for the phenomenon.
+
+Pueblo! Ah me, the heat of that infernal junction! Pueblo, with the
+stump of its one memorable tree, or a slice of that stump turned up on
+end--to make room for a new railway-station, that could just as well
+have been built a few feet farther on,--and staring at you, with a full
+broadside of patent-medicine placards trying to cover its nakedness. On
+closer inspection we read this legend: "The tree that grew here was 380
+years old; circumference, 28 feet; height, 79 feet; was cut down June
+25, 1883, at a cost of $250." So perished, at the hands of an amazingly
+stupid city council, the oldest landmark in Colorado. Under the shade of
+this cottonwood Kit Carson, Wild Bill, and many another famous Indian
+scout built early camp fires. Near it, in 1850, thirty-six whites were
+massacred by Indians; upon one of its huge limbs fourteen men were
+hanged at convenient intervals; and it is a pity that the city council
+did not follow this admirable lead and leave the one glory of Pueblo to
+save it from damnation. It afforded the only grateful shelter in this
+furnace heat; it was the one beautiful object in a most unbeautiful
+place, and it has been razed to the ground in memory of the block-heads
+whose bodies were not worthy to enrich the roots of it. Tradition adds,
+pathetically enough, that the grave of the first white woman who died in
+that desert was made beneath the boughs of the "Old Monarch." May she
+rest in peace under the merciless hands of the baggage-master and his
+merry crew! Lightly lie the trunks that are heaped over her nameless
+dust! Well, there came a time when we forgot Pueblo, but we never will
+forgive the town council.
+
+Then we listened in vain at evening for the strumming of fandango music
+on multitudinous guitars, as was our custom so long as the _muchachos_
+were with us. Then we played no more progressive euchre games many miles
+in length, and smoked no more together in the ecstasy of unrestraint;
+but watched and waited in vain--for those who were with us were no
+longer of us for some weeks to come, and the mouths of the singers were
+hushed. The next thing we knew a city seemed to spring suddenly out of
+the plains--a mirage of brick and mortar--an oasis in the
+wilderness,--and we realized, with a gasp, that we had struck the
+bull's-eye of the Far West--in other words, Denver!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+In Denver Town.
+
+
+Colorado! What an open-air sound that word has! The music of the wind is
+in it, and a peculiarly free, rhythmical swing, suggestive of the
+swirling lariat. Colorado is not, as some conjecture, a corruption or
+revised edition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by
+the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven cities of
+Cibola: it is from the verb _colorar_--colored red, or ruddy--a name
+frequently given to rivers, rocks, and ravines in the lower country. Nor
+do we care to go back as far as the sixteenth century for the beginning
+of an enterprise that is still very young and possibly a little fresh.
+In 1803 the United States purchased from France a vast territory for
+$15,000,000; it was then known as Louisiana, and that purchase included
+the district long referred to as the Great American Desert.
+
+In 1806 Zebulon Pike camped where Pueblo now stands. He was a
+pedestrian. One day he started to climb a peak whose shining summit had
+dazzled him from the first; it seemed to soar into the very heavens, yet
+lie within easy reach just over the neighboring hill. He started bright
+and early, with enthusiasm in his heart, determination in his eye, and a
+cold bite in his pocket. He went from hill to hill, from mountain to
+mountain; always ascending, satisfied that each height was the last, and
+that he had but to step from the next pinnacle to the throne of his
+ambition. Alas! the peak was as far away as ever, even at the close of
+the second day; so famished, foot-frozen and well-nigh in extremity, he
+dragged his weary bones back to camp, defeated. That peak bears his name
+to this day, and probably he deserves the honor quite as much as any
+human molecule who godfathers a mountain.
+
+James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky., was a greater explorer than Pike; but
+Pursley gives Pike much credit which Pike blushingly declines. The two
+men were exceptionally well-bred pioneers. In 1820 Colonel Long named a
+peak in memory of his explorations. The peak survives. Then came General
+Fremont, in 1843, and the discovery of gold near Denver fifteen years
+later; but I believe Green Russell, a Georgian, found _color_ earlier
+on Pike's Peak.
+
+Colorado was the outgrowth of the great financial crisis of 1857. That
+panic sent a wave westward,--a wave that overflowed all the wild lands
+of the wilderness, and, in most cases, to the advantage of both wave and
+wilderness. Of course there was a gradual settling up or settling down
+from that period. Many people who didn't exactly come to stay got stuck
+fast, or found it difficult to leave; and now they are glad of it.
+Denver was the result.
+
+Denver! It seems as if that should be the name of some out-of-door
+production; of something brawny and breezy and bounding; something
+strong with the strength of youth; overflowing with vitality; ambitions,
+unconquerable, irrepressible--and such is Denver, the queen city of the
+plains. Denver is a marvel, and she knows it. She is by no means the
+marvel that San Francisco was at the same interesting age; but, then,
+Denver doesn't know it; or, if she knows it, she doesn't care to mention
+it or to hear it mentioned.
+
+True it is that the Argonauts of the Pacific were blown in out of the
+blue sea--most of them. They had had a taste of the tropics on the way;
+paroquets and Panama fevers were their portion; or, after a long pull
+and a strong pull around the Horn, they were comparatively fresh and
+eager for the fray when they touched dry land once more. There was much
+close company between decks to cheer the lonely hours; a very bracing
+air and a very broad, bright land to give them welcome when the voyage
+was ended--in brief, they had their advantages.
+
+The pioneers of Denver town were the captains or mates of prairie
+schooners, stranded in the midst of a sealike desert. It was a voyage of
+from six to eight weeks west of the Mississippi in those days. The only
+stations--and miserably primitive ones at that--lay along Ben Holliday's
+overland stage route. They were far between. Indians waylaid the
+voyagers; fires, famine and fatigue helped to strew the trail with the
+graves of men and the carcasses of animals. Hard lines were these; but
+not so hard as the lines of those who pushed farther into the
+wilderness, nor stayed their adventurous feet till they were planted on
+the rich soil of the Pacific slope.
+
+Pioneer life knows little variety. The _menu_ of the Colorado banquet
+July 4, 1859, will revive in the minds of many an old Californian the
+fast-fading memories of the past; but I fear, twill be a long time
+before such a _menu_ as the following will gladden the eyes of the
+average prospector in the Klondyke:
+
+     MENU.
+
+     SOUP.
+     A la Bean.
+
+     FISH.
+     Brook Trout, a la catch 'em first.
+
+     MEATS.
+     Antelope larded, pioneer style.
+
+     BREAD.
+     Biscuit, hand-made, full weight, a la
+     yellow.
+
+     VEGETABLES.
+     Beans, mountain style, warranted boiled
+     forty-eight hours, a la soda.
+
+     DESSERT.
+     Dried Apples, Russell gulch style.
+     Coffee, served in tin cups, to be washed
+     clean for the occasion, overland
+     style, a la no cream.
+
+In those days Horace Greeley, returning from his California tour, halted
+to cast his eye over the now West. The miners primed an old blunderbus
+with rich dust, and judiciously salted Gregory gulch. Of course Horace
+was invited to inspect it. Being somewhat horny-handed, he seized pick
+and shovel and went to work in earnest. The pan-out was astonishing. He
+flew back to New York laden with the glittering proofs of wealth; gave a
+whole page of the _Tribune_ to his tale of the golden fleece; and a rush
+to the new diggings followed as a matter of course.
+
+Denver and Auraria were rival settlements on the opposite shores of
+Cherry Creek; in 1860 they consolidated, and then boasted a population
+of 4000, in a vast territory containing but 60,000 souls. The boom was
+on, and it was not long before a parson made his appearance. This was
+the Rev. George Washington Fisher of the Methodist Church, who accepted
+the offer of a saloon as a house of worship, using the bar for a pulpit.
+His text was: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth! come ye to the waters. And
+he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk
+without money and without price." On the walls were displayed these
+legends: "No trust," "Pay as you go," "Twenty-five cents a drink," etc.
+
+Colorado Territory was organized in 1861, and was loyal to the Union.
+Denver was still booming, though she suffered nearly all the ills that
+precocious settlements are heir to. The business portion of the town was
+half destroyed in 1863; Cherry Creek flooded her in 1864, floating
+houses out of reach and drowning fifteen or twenty of the inhabitants.
+Then the Indians went on the war-path; stages and wagon trains were
+attacked; passengers and scattered settlers massacred, and the very town
+itself threatened. Alarm-bells warned the frightened inhabitants of
+impending danger; many fled to the United States Mint for refuge, and to
+cellars, cisterns, and dark alleys. This was during the wild reign of
+Spotted Horse along the shores of the Platte, before he was captured by
+Major Downing at the battle of Sand Creek, and finally sent to Europe on
+exhibition as a genuine child of the forest.
+
+Those were stirring times, when every man had an eye to business, and
+could hardly afford to spare it long enough to wink. It is related of a
+certain minister who was officiating at a funeral that, while standing
+by the coffin offering the final prayer, he noticed one of the mourners
+kneeling upon the loose earth recently thrown from the grave. This man
+was a prospector, like all the rest, and in an absent-minded way he had
+tearfully been sifting the soil through his fingers. Suddenly he arose
+and began to stake out a claim adjoining the grave. This was, of course,
+observed by the clergyman, who hastened the ceremonials to a conclusion,
+and ended his prayer thus: "Stake me off a claim, Bill. We ask it for
+Christ's sake. Amen."
+
+Horace Greeley's visit was fully appreciated, and his name given to a
+mountain hamlet, long after known familiarly as "Saint's Rest," because
+there was nothing stimulating to be found thereabout. Poor Meeker, for
+many years agricultural editor of the New York _Tribune_, founded that
+settlement. He was backed by Greeley, and established the Greeley
+_Tribune_ at Saint's Rest. In 1877 Meeker was made Indian agent, and he
+did his best to live up to the dream of the Indian-maniacs; but, after
+two years of self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, he was brutally
+betrayed and murdered by Chief Douglas, of the Utes, his guest at the
+time. Mrs. Meeker and her daughters, and a Mrs. Price and her child,
+were taken captive and subjected to the usual treatment which all women
+and children may expect at the hands of the noble red-man. They were
+rescued in due season; but what was rescue to them save a prolongation
+of inconsolable bereavement?
+
+When General Grant visited Central, the little mountain town received
+him royally. A pavement of solid silver bricks was laid for him to walk
+upon from his carriage to the hotel door. One sees very little of this
+barbaric splendor nowadays even in Denver, the most pretentious of far
+Western burgs. She is a metropolis of magnificent promises. Alighting at
+the airy station, you take a carriage for the hotel, and come at once to
+the centre of the city. Were you to continue your drive but a few blocks
+farther, you would come with equal abruptness to the edge of it. The
+surprise is delightful in either case, but the suddenness of the
+transition makes the stranger guest a little dizzy at first. There are
+handsome buildings in Denver--blocks that would do credit to any city
+under the sun; but there was for years an upstart air, a palpable
+provincialism, a kind of ill-disguised "previousness," noticeable that
+made her seem like the brisk suburb of some other place, and that other
+place, alas! invisible to mortal eye. Rectangular blocks make a
+checker-board of the town map. The streets are appropriately named
+Antelope, Bear, Bison, Boulder, Buffalo, Coyote, Cedar, Cottonwood,
+Deer, Golden, Granite, Moose, etc. The names of most trees, most
+precious stones, the great States and Territories of the West, with a
+sprinkling of Spanish, likewise beguile you off into space, and leave
+the once nebulous burg beaming in the rear.
+
+Denver's theatre is remarkably handsome. In hot weather the atmosphere
+is tempered by torrents of ice-water that crash through hidden aqueducts
+with a sound as of twenty sawmills. The management _dams_ the flood when
+the curtain rises and the players begin to speak; the music lovers
+_damn_ it from the moment the curtain falls. They are absorbed in
+volumes of silent profanity between the acts; for the orchestra is
+literally drowned in the roar of the rushing element. There was nothing
+that interested me more than a copy of Alice Polk Hill's "Tales of the
+Colorado Pioneers"; and to her I return thanks for all that I borrowed
+without leave from that diverting volume.
+
+Somehow Denver, after my early visit, leaves with me an impression as of
+a perfectly new city that has just been unpacked; as if the various
+parts of it had been set up in a great hurry, and the citizens were now
+impatiently awaiting the arrival of the rest of the properties. Some of
+the streets that appeared so well at first glance, seemed, upon
+inspection, more like theatrical flats than realities; and there was
+always a consciousness of everything being wide open and uncovered.
+Indeed, so strongly did I feel this that it was with difficulty I could
+refrain from wearing my hat in the house. Nor could I persuade myself
+that it was quite safe to go out alone after dark, lest unwittingly I
+should get lost, and lift up in vain the voice of one crying in the
+wilderness; for the blank and weird spaces about there are as wide as
+the horizon where the distant mountains seem to have slid partly down
+the terrestrial incline,--spaces that offer the unwary neither hope nor
+hospice,--where there is positively shelter for neither man nor beast,
+from the red-brick heart of the ambitious young city to her snow-capped
+ultimate suburb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The Garden of the Gods.
+
+
+The trains run out of Denver like quick-silver,--this is the prettiest
+thing I can say of Denver. They trickle down into high, green valleys,
+under the shadow of snow-capped cliffs. There the grass is of the
+liveliest tint--a kind of salad-green. The air is sweet and fine;
+everything looks clean, well kept, well swept--perhaps the wind is the
+keeper and the sweeper. All along the way there is a very striking
+contrast of color in rock, meadows, and sky; the whole is as appetizing
+to the sight as a newly varnished picture.
+
+We didn't down brakes until we reached Colorado Springs; there we
+changed cars for Manitou. Already the castellated rocks were filling us
+with childish delight. Fungi decked the cliffs above us: colossal,
+petrified fungi, painted Indian fashion. At any rate, there is a kind of
+wild, out-of-door, subdued harmony in the rock-tints upon the exterior
+slopes of the famed Garden of the Gods, quite in keeping with the spirit
+of the decorative red-man. Within that garden color and form run riot,
+and Manitou is the restful outpost of this erratic wilderness.
+
+It is fitting that Manitou should be approached in a rather primitive
+manner. I was glad when we were very politely invited to get out of the
+train and walk a plank over a puddle that for a moment submerged the
+track; glad when we were advised to foot it over a trestle-bridge that
+sagged in the swift current of a swollen stream; and gladder still when
+our locomotive began to puff and blow and slaken its pace as we climbed
+up into the mouth of a ravine fragrant with the warm scents of
+summer--albeit we could boast but a solitary brace of cars, and these
+small ones, and not overcrowded at that.
+
+Only think of it! We were scarcely three hours by rail from Denver; and
+yet here, in Manitou, were the very elements so noticeably lacking
+there. Nature in her natural state--primitive forever; the air seasoned
+with the pungent spices of odoriferous herbs; the sweetest sunshine in
+abundance, and all the shade that makes sunshine most agreeable.
+
+Manitou is a picturesque hamlet that has scattered itself up and down a
+deep ravine, regardless of the limiting lines of the surveyor. The
+railway station at Manitou might pose for a porter's lodge in the
+prettiest park in England. Surely there is hope for America when she can
+so far curb her vulgar love of the merely practical as to do that sort
+of thing at the right time and in the right place.
+
+A fine stream brawls through the bed of this lovely vale. There are
+rustic cottages that cluster upon the brink of the stream, as if charmed
+by the music of its song; and I am sure that the cottagers dwelling
+therein have no wish to hang their harps upon any willows whatever; or
+to mingle their tears, though these were indeed the waters of Babylon
+that flow softly night and day through the green groves of Manitou. The
+breeze stirs the pulse like a tonic; birds, bees, and butterflies dance
+in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish--there is no dust
+there,--and everything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the
+hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during
+the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts; there is nothing
+like it--except more of it. There is not overmuch dressing among the
+women, nor the beastly spirit of loudness among the men; the domestic
+atmosphere is undisturbed. A newspaper printed on a hand-press, and
+distributed by the winds for aught I know, has its office in the main
+lane of the village; its society column creates no scandal. A solitary
+bicycle that flashes like a shooting star across the placid foreground
+is our nearest approach to an event worth mentioning.
+
+Loungers lounge at the springs as if they really enjoyed it. An amiable
+booth-boy displays his well-dressed and handsomely mounted foxskins, his
+pressed flowers of Colorado, his queer mineralogical jewelry, and his
+uncouth geological specimens in the shape of hideous bric-a-brac, as if
+he took pleasure in thus entertaining the public; while everybody has
+the cosiest and most sociable time over the counter, and buys only by
+accident at last.
+
+There are rock gorges in Manitou, through which the Indian tribes were
+wont noiselessly to defile when on the war-path in the brave days of
+old; gorges where currents of hot air breathe in your face like the
+breath of some fierce animal. There are brilliant and noisy cataracts
+and cascades that silver the rocks with spray; and a huge winding cavern
+filled with mice and filth and the blackness of darkness, and out of
+which one emerges looking like a tramp and feeling like--well! There are
+springs bubbling and steeping and stagnating by the wayside; springs
+containing carbonates of soda, lithia, lime, magnesia, and iron;
+sulphates of potassa and soda, chloride of sodium and silica, in various
+solutions. Some of these are sweeter than honey in the honeycomb; some
+of them smell to heaven--what more can the pampered palate of man
+desire?
+
+Let all those who thirst for chalybeate waters bear in mind that the Ute
+Iron Spring of Manitou is 800 feet higher than St. Catarina, the highest
+iron spring in Europe, and nearly 1000 feet higher than St. Moritz; and
+that the bracing air at an elevation of 6400 feet has probably as much
+to do with the recovery of the invalid as has the judicious quaffing of
+medicinal waters. Of pure iron springs, the famous Schwalbach contains
+rather more iron than the Ute Iron, and Spa rather less. On the whole,
+Manitou has the advantage of the most celebrated medicinal springs in
+Europe, and has a climate even in midwinter preferable to all of them.
+
+On the edge of the pretty hamlet at Manitou stands a cottage half hidden
+like a bird's nest among the trees. I saw only the peaks of gables under
+green boughs; and I wondered when I was informed that the lovely spot
+had been long untenanted, and wondered still more when I learned that it
+was the property of good Grace Greenwood. Will she ever cease wandering,
+and return to weave a new chaplet of greenwood leaves gathered beneath
+the eaves of her mountain home?
+
+At the top of the village street stands Pike's Peak--at least it seems
+to stand there when viewed through the telescopic air. It is in reality
+a dozen miles distant; but is easily approached by a winding trail, over
+which ladies in the saddle may reach the glorious snow-capped summit and
+return to Manitou between breakfast and supper--unless one should prefer
+to be rushed up and down over the aerial railway. From the signal
+station the view reminds one of a map of the world. It rather dazes than
+delights the eye to roam so far, and imagination itself grows weary at
+last and is glad to fold its wings.
+
+Manitou's chief attraction lies over the first range of hills--the
+veritable Garden of the Gods. You may walk, ride or drive to it; in any
+case the surprise begins the moment you reach the ridge's top above
+Manitou, and ceases not till the back is turned at the close of the
+excursion--nor then either, for the memory of that marvel haunts one
+like a feverish dream. Fancy a softly undulating land, delicately wooded
+and decked with many an ornamental shrub; a landscape that composes so
+well one can scarcely assure himself that the artist or the landscape
+gardener has not had a hand in the beautifying of it.
+
+In this lonely, silent land, with cloud shadows floating across it, at
+long intervals bird voices or the bleating of distant flocks charm the
+listening ear. Out of this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclopean
+rocks, appalling in the splendor of their proportions and the
+magnificence of their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heavenward from breadths
+of level sward, and glow like living flames; peaks of various tinges
+overlook the tops of other peaks, that, in their turn, lord it among
+gigantic bowlders piled upon massive pedestals. It is Ossa upon Pelion,
+in little; vastly impressive because of the exceptional surroundings
+that magnify these magnificent monuments, unique in their design and
+almost unparalleled in their picturesque and daring outline. Some of the
+monoliths tremble and sway, or seem to sway; for they are balanced
+edgewise, as if the gods had amused themselves in some infantile game,
+and, growing weary of this little planet, had fled and left their toys
+in confusion. The top-heavy and the tottering ones are almost within
+reach; but there are slabs of rock that look like slices out of a
+mountain--I had almost said like slices out of a red-hot volcano; they
+stand up against the blue sky and the widespreading background in
+brilliant and astonishing perspective.
+
+I doubt if anywhere else in the world the contrasts in color and form
+are more violent than in the Garden of the Gods. They are not always
+agreeable to the eye, for there is much crude color here; but there are
+points of sight where these columns, pinnacles, spires and obelisks,
+with base and capital, are so grouped that the massing is as fantastical
+as a cloud picture, and the whole can be compared only to a petrified
+after-glow. I have seen pictures of the Garden of the Gods that made me
+nearly burst with laughter; I mean color studies that were supremely
+ridiculous in my eyes, for I had not then seen the original; but none of
+these makes me laugh any longer. They serve, even the wildest and the
+worst of them, to remind me of a morning drive, in the best of company,
+through that grand garden where our combined vocabularies of delight and
+wonderment were exhausted inside of fifteen minutes; and where we drove
+on and on, hour after hour, from climax to climax, lost in speechless
+amazement.
+
+Glen Eyrie is the valley of Rasselas--I am sure it is. The Prince of
+Abyssinia left the gate open when he, poor fool! went forth in search of
+happiness and found it not. Now any one may drive through the domain of
+the present possessor and admire his wealth of pictorial
+solitude--without, however, sharing it further. If it were mine, would I
+permit thus much, I wonder? Only the elect should enter there; and once
+the charmed circle was complete, we would wall up the narrow passage
+that leads to this terrestrial paradise, and you would hear no more from
+us, or of us, nor we of you, or from you, forever.
+
+On my first visit to Colorado Springs I made a little pilgrimage. I
+heard that a gentle lady, whom I had always wished to see, was at her
+home on the edge of the city. No trouble in finding the place: any one
+could direct me. It was a cosy cottage in the midst of a garden and
+shaded by thickly leaved trees. Some one was bowed down among the
+strawberry beds, busy there; yet the place seemed half deserted and
+very, very quiet. Big bamboo chairs and lounges lined the vine-curtained
+porch. The shades in the low bay-window were half drawn, and a glint of
+sunshine lighted the warm interior. I saw heaps of precious books on the
+table in that deep window. There was a mosquito door in the porch, and
+there I knocked for admittance. I knocked for a long time, but received
+no answer. I knocked again so that I might be heard even in the
+strawberry bed. A little kitten came up out of the garden and said
+something kittenish to me, and then I heard a muffled step within. The
+door opened--the inner door,--and beyond the wire-cloth screen, that
+remained closed against me, I saw a figure like a ghost, but a very
+buxom and wholesome ghost indeed.
+
+I asked for the hostess. Alas! she was far away and had been ill; it
+was not known when she would return. Her address was offered me, and I
+thought to write her,--thought to tell her how I had sought out her
+home, hoping to find her after years of patient waiting; and that while
+I talked of her through the wire-cloth screen the kitten, which she must
+have petted once upon a time, climbed up the screen until it had reached
+the face of the amiable woman within, and then purred and purred as only
+a real kitten can. I never wrote that letter; for while we were chatting
+on the porch she of whom we chatted, she who has written a whole armful
+of the most womanly and lovable of books, Helen Hunt Jackson, lay dying
+in San Francisco and we knew it not. But it is something to have stood
+by her threshold, though she was never again to cross it in the flesh,
+and to have been greeted by her kitten. How she loved kittens! And now I
+can associate her memory with the peacefulest of cottages, the easiest
+of veranda chairs, a bay-window full of books and sunshine, and a
+strawberry bed alive with berries and blossoms and butterflies and bees.
+And yonder on the heights her body was anon laid to rest among the
+haunts she loved so dearly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Whirl across the Rockies.
+
+
+A long time ago--nearly a quarter of a century--California could boast a
+literary weekly capable of holding its own with any in the land. This
+was before San Francisco had begun to lose her unique and delightful
+individuality--now gone forever. Among the contributors to this once
+famous weekly were Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin
+Miller, Dan de Quille, Orpheus C. Kerr, C. H. Webb, "John Paul," Ada
+Clare, Ada Isaacs Menken, Ina Coolbrith, and hosts of others. Fitz Hugh
+Ludlow wrote for it a series of brilliant descriptive letters recounting
+his adventures during a recent overland journey; they were afterward
+incorporated in a volume--long out of print--entitled "The Heart of the
+Continent."
+
+In one of these letters Ludlow wrote as follows of the probable future
+of Manitou: "When Colorado becomes a populous State, the springs of the
+Fontaine-qui-Bouille will constitute its Spa. In air and scenery no more
+glorious summer residence could be imagined. The Coloradian of the
+future, astonishing the echoes of the rocky foothills by a railroad from
+Denver to the springs, and running down on Saturday to stop over Sunday
+with his family, will have little cause to envy us Easterners our
+Saratoga as he paces up and down the piazza of the Spa hotel, mingling
+his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air, unbreathed before, which
+is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range." His
+prophecy has become true in every particular. But what would he have
+thought had he threaded the tortuous path now marked by glistening
+railway tracks? What would he have said of the Grand Cañon of the
+Arkansas, the Black Cañon of the Gunnison, Castle Cañon and Marshall
+Pass over the crest of the continent?
+
+I suppose a narrow-gauge road can go anywhere. It trails along the slope
+of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole
+tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes
+water-courses; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated
+to remind one of the days when he played "snap-the-whip" and happened
+to be the snapper himself. This is especially the case if one is sitting
+on the rear platform of the last car. We shot a cañon by daylight, and
+marvelled at the glazed surface of the red rock with never so much as a
+scratch over it. On the one hand we nearly scraped the abrupt
+perpendicular wall that towered hundreds of feet above us; on the other,
+a swift, muddy torrent sprang at our stone-bedded sleepers as if to
+snatch them away; while it flooded the cañon to the opposite wall, that
+did not seem more that a few yards distant. The stream was swollen, and
+went howling down the ravine full of sound and fury--which in this case,
+however, signified a good deal.
+
+Once we stopped and took an observation, for the track was under water;
+then we waded cautiously to the mainland, across the sunken section, and
+thanked our stars that we were not boycotted by the elements at that
+inhospitable point. Once we paused for a few minutes to contemplate the
+total wreck of a palace car that had recently struck a projecting
+bowlder--and spattered.
+
+The camps along the track are just such as may be looked for in the
+waste places of the earth--temporary shelter for wayfarers whose homes
+are under their hats. The thin stream of civilization that trickles off
+into the wilderness, following the iron track, makes puddles now and
+again. Some of these dwindle away soon enough--or perhaps not quite soon
+enough; some of them increase and become permanent and beautiful.
+
+Night found us in the Black Cañon of the Gunnison. Could any time be
+more appropriate? Clouds rolled over us in dense masses, and at
+intervals the moon flashed upon us like a dark lantern. Could anything
+be more picturesque? We knew that much of the darkness, the blackness of
+darkness, was adamantine rock; some of it an inky flood--a veritable
+river of death--rolling close beneath us, but quite invisible most of
+the time; and the night itself a profound mystery, through which we
+burned an endless tunnel--like a firebrand hurled into space.
+
+Now and again the heavens opened, and then we saw the moon soaring among
+the monumental peaks; but the heights were so cloudlike and the cloud
+masses so solid we could not for the life of us be certain of the nature
+of either. There were cañons like huge quarries, and cañons like rocky
+mazes, where we seemed to have rushed headlong into a _cul de sac_, and
+were in danger of dashing our brains out against the mighty walls that
+loomed before us. There was many a winding stream which we took at a
+single bound, and occasionally an oasis, green and flowery; but, oh, so
+few habitations and so few spots that one would really care to inhabit!
+
+Marshall Pass does very well for once; it is an experience and a
+novelty--what else is there in life to make it livable save a new
+experience or the hope of one? Such a getting up hill as precedes the
+rest at the summit! We stopped for breath while the locomotive puffed
+and panted as if it would burst its brass-bound lungs; then we began to
+climb again, and to wheeze, fret and fume; and it seemed as if we
+actually went down on hands and knees and crept a bit when the grade
+became steeper than usual. Only think of it a moment--an incline of two
+hundred and twenty feet to the mile in some places, and the track
+climbing over itself at frequent intervals. Far below us we saw the
+terraces we had passed long before; far above us lay the great land we
+were so slowly and so painfully approaching. At last we reached the
+summit, ten thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above sea level--a
+God-forsaken district, bristling with dead trees, and with hardly air
+enough to go around.
+
+We stopped in a long shed--built to keep off the sky, I suppose.
+Gallants prospected for flowers and grass-blades, and received the
+profuse thanks of the fair in exchange for them. Then we glided down
+into the snow lands that lay beyond--filled with a delicious sense of
+relief, for a fellow never feels so mean or so small a pigmy as when
+perched on an Alpine height.
+
+More cañons followed, and no two alike; then came plain after plain,
+with buttes outlined in the distance; more plains, with nothing but
+their own excessive plainness to boast of. We soon grew vastly weary;
+for most plains are, after all, mere platitudes. And then Salt Lake
+City, the Mormon capital, with its lake shimmering like a mirage in the
+great glow of the valley; and a run due north through the well-tilled
+lands of the thrifty "saints," getting our best wayside meals at
+stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and
+west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer dust that
+makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far
+north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore
+to follow as is worth a week's travel merely to get one glimpse of; and
+at last Portland, the prettiest of Pacific cities, and heaps of friends
+to greet me there.
+
+Bright days were to follow, as you shall soon see; for I was still bound
+northward, with no will to rest until I had plowed the floating fields
+of ice and dozed through the pale hours of an arctic summer under the
+midnight sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Off for Alaska.
+
+
+If you are bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most
+conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon,
+and retaining your state-room until you land again in Portland, three
+weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board
+a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget
+Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at
+Port Townsend, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which
+makes its excursion trip monthly--at least it used to before the
+Klondyke hoards deranged the time-table and the times.
+
+If this does not satisfy you, you may take passage at San Francisco for
+Port Townsend or Victoria, and connect at either port with the Alaska
+boat. Those who are still unsuited had better wait a bit, when, no
+doubt, other as entirely satisfactory arrangements will be made for
+their especial convenience. I went by train to Tacoma. I wanted to sniff
+the forest scents of Washington State, and to get a glimpse of the brave
+young settlements scattered through the North-western wilderness. I
+wanted to skirt the shore of the great Sounds, whose praises have been
+ringing in my ears ever since I can remember--and that is a pretty long
+time now.
+
+I wanted to loaf for a while in Port Townsend, the old jumping-off
+place, the monogram in the extreme northwest corner of the map of the
+United States of America--at least such it was until the Alaskan annex
+stretched the thing all out of shape, and planted our flag so far out in
+the Pacific that San Francisco lies a little east of the centre of the
+Union, and the Hawaiian islands come within our boundaries; for our
+Aleutian-island arm, you know, stretches a thousand miles to the west of
+Hawaii--it even chucks Asia under the chin.
+
+But now let me offer you a stray handful of leaves from my
+note-book--mere suggestions of travel.
+
+At Portland took morning train for Tacoma, one hundred and forty-seven
+miles. Swarms of people at the station, and some ominous "good-byes";
+the majority talking of Alaska in a superior fashion, which implies that
+they are through passengers, and they don't care who knows it. Alaska
+boat left Portland two days ago; we are to catch her at Port Townsend,
+and it looks as if we should crowd her. Train crosses the Columbia River
+on a monster ferry; a jolly and restful half hour in the cars and out of
+them.
+
+A very hot and dusty ride through Washington State,--part of it pretty
+enough and part of it by no means so. Cars full of screaming babies,
+sweltering tourists, and falling cinders that sting like dumb
+mosquitoes. Rather a mixed neighborhood on the rail. An effusively
+amiable evangelist bobs up almost immediately,--one of those fellows
+whom no amount of snubbing can keep under. Old Probabilities is also on
+board, discoursing at intervals to all who will give ear. Some quiet and
+interesting folk in a state of suspense, and one young fellow--a regular
+trump,--promise better things.
+
+We reach Tacoma at 6.30 p. m.; a queer, scattering town on Commencement
+Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. Very deep water just off shore. Two
+boys in a sailboat are blown about at the mercy of the fitful wind; boat
+on beam-ends; boys on the uppermost gunwale; sail lying flat on the
+water. But nobody seems to care, not even the young castaways. Perhaps
+the inhabitants of Tacoma are amphibious. Very beautiful sheet of water,
+this Puget Sound; long, winding, monotonous shores; trees all alike,
+straight up and down, mostly pines and cedars; shores rather low, and
+outline too regular for much picturesque effect. Tacoma commands the
+best view of the Sound and of Mt. Tacoma, with its fifteen thousand
+perpendicular feet looming rose-pink in the heavens, and all its fifteen
+glaciers seeming to glow with an inner tropic warmth. There are eighteen
+hundred miles of shore-line embroidering this marvellous Sound. We are
+continually rounding abrupt points, as in a river,--points so much alike
+that an untutored eye can not tell one from another. Old Probabilities
+industriously taking his reckonings and growing more and more
+enthusiastic at every turn--especially so when the after-glow burns the
+sea to a coal; it reminds him of a volcanic eruption. There are some
+people who when they see anything new to them are instantly reminded of
+something else they have seen, and the new object becomes second rate on
+the spot. A little travel is a dangerous thing.
+
+Pay $3.25 for my fare from Tacoma to Port Townsend, and find a moment
+later that some are paying only $1 for the same accommodations.
+Competition is the mother of these pleasant surprises, but it is worth
+thrice the original price--the enjoyment of this twilight cruise. More
+after-glow, much more, with the Olympian Mountains lying between us and
+the ocean. In the foreground is a golden flood with scarlet ripples
+breaking through it--a vision splendid and long continued. Air growing
+quite chilly; strong draughts at some of the turns in the stream.
+Surely, in this case, the evening and the morning are not the same day.
+
+At 9.30 p. m. we approach Seattle--a handsome town, with its terraces of
+lights twinkling in the gloaming. Passengers soon distribute themselves
+through the darkness. I am left alone on the after-deck to watch the
+big, shadowy ships that are moored near us, and the exquisite
+phosphorescent light in the water--a wave of ink with the luminous trail
+of a struck match smouldering across it. Far into the night there was
+the thundering of freight rolling up and down the decks, and the ring of
+invisible truck-wheels.
+
+Slept by and by, and was awakened by the prolonged shriek of a steam
+whistle and a stream of sunlight that poured in at my state-room window.
+We were backing and slowing off Port Ludlow. Big sawmill close at hand.
+Four barks lie at the dock in front of it; a few houses stand on the
+hill above; pine woods crowd to the water's edge, making the place look
+solemn. Surely it is a solemn land and a solemn sea about here. After
+breakfast, about 8.30 o'clock, Port Townsend hove in sight, and here we
+await the arrival of the Alaska boat. What an odd little town it is--the
+smallest possible city set upon a hill; the business quarter huddled at
+the foot of the hill, as if it had slid down there and lodged on the
+very edge of the sea! The hotels stalk out over the water on stilts. One
+sleeps well in the sweet salt air, lulled by the murmur of the waves
+under the veranda.
+
+I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty
+steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and
+reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed
+leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes
+near to being pretty, yet stops just short of it. But there is a kind of
+unpretending prettiness in the bright and breezy heights environed by
+black forest and blue sea.
+
+A revenue cutter--this is a port of customs, please remember--lies in
+the offing. She looks as if she were suspended in air, so pure are the
+elements in the northland. I lean from a parapet, on my way down the
+seaward face of the cliff, and hear the order, "Make ready!" Then comes
+a flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and a crash that shatters an
+echo into fragments all along the shore; while beautiful smoke rings
+roll up against the sky like victorious wreaths.
+
+I call on the Hon. J. G. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of "The Northwest
+Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." Find him
+delightful, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian
+relics; himself full of the liveliest recollections of Indian life, and
+quite an authority on Indian tongues and traditions; find also an old
+schoolmate, after long years of separation, and am most courteously
+entertained. What a drive we had over the hills and along the beach,
+where the crows haunt the water's edge like sea-birds! It has been
+repeatedly affirmed that these crows have been seen to seize a clam,
+raise it high in the air, let it drop upon a rock, and then pounce upon
+the fragments and feast furiously. But I have never seen one who has had
+ocular proof of this.
+
+There was a very happy hour spent at Colonel Douglas' quarters, over at
+the camp; and then such a long, long drive through the deep wildwood,
+with its dense undergrowth, said to be the haunt of bear, panther, wild
+cat, deer, and other large game. Bearberries grew in profusion
+everywhere. The road, kept in splendid repair by the army men, dipped
+into a meadow full of savage mosquitoes; but escaping through two gates,
+we struck again into the forest, where the road was almost overgrown
+with dew-damp brush, that besprinkled us profusely as we passed.
+
+We paused upon the slope above Port Discovery Bay; saw an old fellow on
+the porch of a wee cottage looking steadfastly into the future--across
+the Bay; with pipe in mouth, he was the picture of contentment,
+abstraction and repose. He never once turned to look at us, though few
+pass that way; but kept his eyes fixed upon a vision of surpassing
+beauty, where the vivid coloring was startling to the eye and the
+morning air like an elixir. Nothing but the great summer hotel of the
+future--it will surely come some day and stand right there--can rob the
+spot of its blissful serenity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+In the Inland Sea.
+
+
+We were waiting the arrival of the Alaska boat,--wandering aimlessly
+about the little town, looking off upon the quiet sea, now veiled in a
+dense smoke blown down from the vast forest fires that were sweeping the
+interior. The sun, shorn of his beams, was a disk of copper; the
+sun-track in the sea, a trail of blood. The clang of every ship's bell,
+the scream of every whistle, gave us new hope; but we were still
+waiting, waiting, waiting. Port Townsend stands knee-deep in the edge of
+a sea-garden. I sat a long time on the dock, watching for some sign of
+the belated boat. Great ropes of kelp, tubes of dark brown sea-grass,
+floated past me on the slow tide. Wonderful anemones, pink,
+balloon-shaped, mutable, living and breathing things,--these panted as
+they drifted by. At every respiration they expanded like the sudden
+blossoming of a flower; then they closed quite as suddenly, and became
+mere buds. When the round core of these sea-flowers was exposed to the
+air--the palpitating heart was just beneath the surface most of the
+time,--they withered in a breath; but revived again the moment the water
+glazed them over, and fairly revelled in aqueous efflorescence.
+
+"Bang!" It was the crash of an unmistakable gun, that shook the town to
+its foundations and brought the inhabitants to their feet in an instant.
+Out of the smoke loomed a shadowy ship, and, lo! it was the Alaska boat.
+A goodly number of passengers were already on board; as many more were
+now to join her; and then her prow was to be turned to the north star
+and held there for some time to come. In a moment the whole port was in
+a state of excitement. New arrivals hurried on shore to see the lions of
+the place. We, who had been anxiously awaiting this hour for a couple of
+long summer days, took the ship by storm, and drove the most amiable and
+obliging of pursers nearly frantic with our pressing solicitations.
+
+Everybody was laying in private stores, this being our last chance to
+supply all deficiencies. Light literature we found scattered about at
+the druggist's and the grocer's and the curiosity shops; also ink,
+pens, note-books, tobacco, scented soap and playing-cards were
+discovered in equally unexpected localities. We all wanted volumes on
+the Northwest--as many of them as we could get; but almost the only one
+obtainable was Skidmore's "Alaska, the Sitkan Archipelago," which is as
+good as any, if not the best. A few had copies of the "Pacific Coast
+Pilot. Alaska. Part I. Dixon's Entrance to Yakutat Bay,"--invaluable as
+a practical guide, and filled with positive data. Dall and Whimper we
+could not find, nor Bancroft at that time. Who will give us a handy
+volume reprint of delightful old Vancouver?
+
+We were busy as bees all that afternoon; yet the night and the starlight
+saw us satisfactorily hived, and it was not long before the buzzing
+ceased, as ship and shore slept the sleep of the just. By and by we
+heard pumping, hosing, deck-washing, the paddling of bare feet to and
+fro, and all the familiar sounds of an early morning at sea. The ship,
+however, was motionless: we were lying stock-still. Doubtless everybody
+was wondering at this, as I was, when there came a crash, followed by a
+small avalanche of broken timber, while the ship quaked in her watery
+bed. I thought of dynamite and the _Dies Irae_; but almost immediately
+the cabin-boy, who appeared with the matutinal coffee, said it was only
+the _Olympian_, the fashionable Sound steamer, that had run into us, as
+was her custom. She is always running into something, and she succeeded
+in carrying away a portion of our stern gear on this occasion.
+Nevertheless, we were delayed only a few hours; for the _Olympian_ was
+polite enough not to strike us below the water-line, and so by high noon
+we were fairly under way.
+
+From my log-book I take the following: This is slow and easy sailing--a
+kind of jog-trot over the smoothest possible sea, with the paddles
+audibly working every foot of the way. We run down among the San Juan
+Islands, where the passages are so narrow and so intricate they make a
+kind of watery monogram among the fir-lined shores. A dense smoke still
+obscures the sun,--a rich haze that softens the distance and lends a
+picturesqueness that is perhaps not wholly natural to the locality,
+though the San Juan Islands are unquestionably beautiful.
+
+The Gulf of Georgia, the Straits of Fuca, and Queen Charlotte Sound are
+the words upon the lips of everybody. Shades of my schoolboy days! How
+much sweeter they taste here than in the old geography class! Before us
+stretches a wilderness of islands, mostly uninhabited, which penetrates
+even into the sunless winter and the shadowless summer of Behring Sea.
+
+As for ourselves, Old Probabilities has got down to business. He has
+opened an impromptu peripatetic school of navigation, and triumphantly
+sticks a pin into every point that tallies with his yard-square chart.
+The evangelist has his field-glass to his eye in search of the
+unregenerated aborigines. The swell tourists are much swollen with
+travel; they loosen the belts of their Norfolks, and at intervals affect
+a languid interest in this mundane sphere. There are delightful people
+on board--many of them--and not a few others. There are bevies of
+girls--all young, all pretty; and all, or nearly all, bubbling over with
+hearty and wholesome laughter.
+
+What richness! A good, clean deck running the whole length of the ship;
+a cosy and cheerful social hall, with a first-class upright piano of
+delicious tone, and at least a half dozen creditable performers to
+awaken the soul of it; a good table, good weather, good luck, and
+positively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in
+the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on
+board this ship; the telegraph, with metallic tick, can not once startle
+us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off; wars and
+rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of
+a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the
+possibility of a rain-shower this afternoon, or the solution of the
+vexed question, "Will the aurora dazzle us before dawn?" We do not
+propose to wait upon the aurora: for days and days and days we are going
+to climb up the globe due North, getting nearer and nearer to it all the
+while. Now, inasmuch as everything is new to us, we can easily content
+ourselves for hours by lounging in the easy-chairs, and looking off upon
+the placid sea, and at the perennial verdure that springs out of it and
+mantles a lovely but lonely land.
+
+Only think of it for a moment! Here on the northwest coast there are
+islands sown so thickly that many of the sea-passages, though deep
+enough for a three-decker to swim in, are so narrow that one might
+easily skim his hat across them. There are thousands of these
+islands--yea, tens of thousands,--I don't know just how many, and
+perhaps no man does. They are of all shapes and sizes, and the majority
+of them are handsomely wooded. The sombre green of the woods, stretching
+between the sombre blue-green of the water and the opaline sheen of the
+sky, forms a picture--a momentary picture,--the chief features of which
+change almost as suddenly and quite as completely as the transformations
+in a kaleidoscope. We are forever turning corners; and no sooner are we
+around one corner than three others elbow us just ahead. Now, toward
+which of the three are we bound, and will our good ship run to larboard
+or to starboard? This is a turn one might bet on all day long--and lose
+nearly every time.
+
+A bewildering cruise! Vastly finer than river sailing is this Alaskan
+expedition. Here is a whole tangle of rivers full of strange tides,
+mysterious currents, and sweet surprises. Moreover, we can get lost if
+we want to--no one can get lost in a river. We can rush in where pilots
+fear to tread, strike sunken rocks, toss among dismal eddies, or plunge
+into whirlpools. We can rake overhanging boughs with our yard-arms if
+we want to--but we don't want to. In 1875 the United States steamer
+_Saranac_ went down in Seymour Narrows, and her fate was sudden death.
+The United States steamer _Suwanee_ met with a like misfortune on
+entering Queen Charlotte Sound. It is rather jolly to think of these
+things, and to realize that we were in more or less danger; though the
+shores are as silent as the grave, the sea sleeps like a mill-pond, and
+the sun sinks to rest with great dignity and precision, nightly bathing
+the lonely North in sensuous splendor.
+
+It is getting late. Most of us are indulging in a constitutional. We
+rush up and down the long flush decks like mad; we take fiendish delight
+in upsetting the pious dignity of the evangelist; we flutter the smokers
+in the smoking-room--because, forsooth, we are chasing the girls from
+one end of the ship to the other; and consequently the denizens of the
+masculine cabin can give their undivided attention to neither cards nor
+tobacco. What fun it all is--when one is not obliged to do it for a
+living, and when it is the only healthy exercise one is able to take!
+
+By and by the girls fly to their little nests. As we still stroll in the
+ever-so-late twilight, at 10 p. m., we hear them piping sleepily, one to
+another, their heads under their wings no doubt. They are early
+birds--but that is all right. They are the life of the ship; but for
+their mirth and music the twilight would be longer and less delightful.
+Far into the night I linger over a final cigarette. An inexpressible
+calm steals over me,--a feeling as of deliverance, for the time being at
+least, from all the cares of this world. We are steaming toward a mass
+of shadows that, like iron gates, seem shut against us. A group of
+fellow-voyagers gathers on the forward deck, resolved to sit up and
+ascertain whether we really manage to squeeze through some crevice, or
+back out at last and go around the block. I grow drowsy and think fondly
+of my little bunk.
+
+What a night! Everything has grown vague and mysterious. Not a voice is
+heard--only the throb of the engine down below and the articulated
+pulsation of the paddles, every stroke of which brings forth a hollow
+sound from the sea, as clear and as well defined as a blow upon a
+drumhead; but these are softened by the swish of waters foaming under
+the wheel. Echoes multiply; myriads of them, faint and far, play
+peek-a-boo with the solemn pilot, who silently paces the deck when all
+the ship is wrapped in a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Alaskan Village Life.
+
+
+With the morning coffee came a rumor of an Indian village on the
+neighboring shore. We were already past it, a half hour or more, but
+canoes were visible. Now this was an episode. Jack, the cabin-boy, slid
+back the blind; and as I sat up in my bunk, bolstered among the pillows,
+I saw the green shore, moist with dew and sparkling in the morning
+light, sweep slowly by--an endless panorama. There is no dust here, not
+a particle. There is rain at intervals, and a heavy dew-fall, and
+sometimes a sea fog that makes it highly advisable to suspend all
+operations until it has lifted. After coffee I found the deck gaily
+peopled. The steamer was running at half speed; and shortly she took a
+big turn in a beautiful lagoon and went back on her course far enough to
+come in sight of the Indian village, but we did not stop there. It seems
+that one passage we were about to thread was reached at a wrong stage
+of the tide; and, instead of waiting there for better water, we loafed
+about for a couple of hours, enjoying it immensely, every soul of us.
+
+Vancouver Island lay upon our left. It was half veiled in mist, or
+smoke; and its brilliant constellation of sky-piercing peaks, green to
+the summit, with glints of sunshine gilding the chasms here and there,
+and rich shadows draping them superbly, reminded me of Nukahiva, one of
+the Marquesas Islands--the one where Herman Melville found his famed
+Typee. It seems extravagant to associate any feature in the Alaskan
+archipelago with the most romantic island in the tropical sea; but there
+are points of similarity, notwithstanding the geographical
+discrepancy--daring outlines, magnificent cloud and atmospheric effects,
+and a fragrance, a pungent balsamic odor ever noticeable. This
+impalpable, invisible balm permeates everything; it is wafted out over
+the sea to us, even as the breath of the Spice Islands is borne over the
+waves to the joy of the passing mariner.
+
+Surely there can be no finer tonic for a fagged fellow with feeble lungs
+than this glorious Alaskan air. There is no danger of surfeit here; the
+over-sweet is not likely to be met with in this latitude; and, then, if
+one really feels the need of change, why, here is a fishing station. The
+forest is trimmed along the shore so that there is scant room for a few
+shanties between the water and the wilderness. A dock runs but a little
+way out into the sea, for the shores are precipitous and one finds a
+goodly number of fathoms only a few yards from the shingle.
+
+At the top of the dock, sometimes nearly housing the whole of it, stands
+a shed well stored with barrels, sacks of salt, nets, and all the
+necessary equipments of a first-class fish-canning establishment. A few
+Indian lodges are scattered along the shore. The Indians, a hearty and
+apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about
+here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere
+is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with
+cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies
+batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun.
+The blood-red interiors of drying fish--rackfuls of them turned wrong
+side out--are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and
+everything is sombre and subdued.
+
+Yet not all fishing stations are cheerless. The salmon fishery and
+trading store located at Loring are picturesque. The land-lock nook is
+as lovely as a Swiss lake; and, oh, the myriad echoes that waken in
+chorus among these misty mountains! The waters of the Alaskan
+archipelago are prolific. Vast shoals of salmon, cod, herring, halibut,
+mullet, ulicon, etc., silver the surface of the sea, and one continually
+hears the splash of leaping fish.
+
+A traveller has written of his visit to the fishing-grounds on the Naass
+river, where the tribes had gathered for what is called their "small
+fishing"--the salmon catch is at another time. These small fish are
+valuable for food and oil. They run up the river for six weeks only, and
+with the utmost regularity. At the point he visited, the Naass was about
+a mile and a half wide; yet so great was the quantity of fish that, with
+three nails driven into a stick, an Indian would rake up a canoeful in a
+short time. Five thousand Indians were congregated from British Columbia
+and Alaska; their faces painted red and black; feathers upon their
+heads, and imitations of wild beasts upon their dresses. Over the fish
+was an immense cloud of sea-gulls--so many were there, and so thick
+were they, that the fluttering of their wings was like a swift fall of
+snow. Over the gulls were eagles soaring and watching their chance. The
+halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finback whale had followed the
+little ones out of the deep; and there was confusion worse confounded,
+and chaos came again in the hours of wild excitement that followed the
+advent of the small fry, for each and all in sea and air were bent upon
+the destruction of these little ones.
+
+Seven thousand salmon have been taken at one haul of the seine in this
+latitude. Most of these salmon weigh sixty pounds each, and some have
+been caught that weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. Yet there are no
+game fish in Alaska. Let sportsmen remember that far happier hunting
+grounds lie within twenty miles of San Francisco, and in almost any
+district of the Northern or Eastern States. On a certain occasion three
+of our fellow-voyagers, armed in fashionable fishing toggery, went forth
+from Sitka for a day's sport. A steam launch bore them to a land where
+the rank grass and rushes grew shoulder high. Having made their way with
+difficulty to the margin of a lake, they came upon a boat which
+required incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept
+the craft afloat while the others fished until evening. They caught
+nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the
+seats; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say
+again, on good authority, there are no game fish in Alaska. There are
+salmon enough in these waters to supply the world--but the world can be
+supplied without coming to these waters at all. The truth is, I fear,
+that the market has been glutted and the business overdone.
+
+One evening we anchored off a sad and silent shore. A few Indian lodges
+were outlined against the woods beyond. A few Indians stolidly awaited
+the arrival of a small boat containing one of our fellow-passengers.
+Then for some hours this boat was busily plying to and fro, bringing out
+to us all that was portable of a once flourishing, or at least
+promising, fishery and cannery, now defunct. Meanwhile the mosquitoes
+boarded our ship on a far more profitable speculation. It was pitiful to
+see our friend gathering together the _débris_ of a wrecked fortune--for
+he had been wealthy and was now on the down grade of life--hoping
+almost against hope to be able to turn an honest penny somehow,
+somewhere, before he dies.
+
+At times we saw solitary canoes containing a whole family of Indians
+fishing in the watery waste. What solemn lives they must lead! But a
+more solemn and more solitary scene occurred a little later. All the
+afternoon we had been sailing under splendid icy peaks. We came in out
+of the hot sun, and were glad of the cool, snow-chilled air that visited
+us lightly at intervals.
+
+It was the hour of 9.30 p. m. The sun was dropping behind a lofty
+mountain range, and in its fine glow we steamed into a lovely cove under
+a towering height. A deserted, or almost deserted, fishing village stood
+upon a green bottom land--a mere handful of lodges, with a young growth
+of trees beyond, and an older growth between these and the glacier that
+was glistening above them all. A cannery looking nearly new stood at the
+top of a tall dock on stilts. On the extreme end of the dock was a
+figure--a man, and a white man at that--with both hands in his pockets,
+and an attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The figure stood
+stock-still. We wondered if it lived, if it breathed, or if it was an
+effigy set up there in scorn of American enterprise. We slowed up and
+drew near to the dock. It was a curious picture: a half dozen log-built
+lodges; a few tall piles driven into the land for steamer or trading
+schooner to make fast to; a group of Indians by a feeble camp
+fire,--Indians who never once changed their postures more than to
+wearily lift their heads and regard us with absolute indifference.
+
+When we were near enough to hail the motionless figure on the dock, we
+did not hail him. Everybody was wildly curious: Everybody was perfectly
+dumb. The whole earth was silent at last; the wheels had stopped; the
+boat was scarcely moving through the water. The place, the scene, the
+hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep
+silence; the paddles plunged into the sea again; we made a graceful
+sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away.
+Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the
+dock; we merely touched our hats at the last moment; he lifted his,
+stalked solemnly to the top of the dock and disappeared. There is a bit
+of Alaskan life for you!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Juneau.
+
+
+Sitka, the capital of Alaska, sleeps, save when she is awakened for a
+day or two by the arrival of a steamer-load of tourists. Fort Wrangell,
+the premature offspring of a gold rumor, died, but rose again from the
+dead when the lust of gold turned the human tide toward the Klondike.
+Juneau, the metropolis, was the only settlement that showed any signs of
+vigor before the Klondike day; and she lived a not over-lively village
+life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow
+straits. There were sea-birds skimming the water as we threaded the
+labyrinthine channels that surround Juneau. We were evidently not very
+far from the coast-line; for the gulls were only occasional visitors on
+the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared
+aloft among the pines that crowned the mountain heights; they glossed
+their wings in the spray of the sky-tipped waterfalls, and looked down
+upon us from serene summits with the unwinking eye of scorn. It is
+awfully fine sailing all about Juneau. Superb heights, snow-capped in
+many cases, forest-clad in all, and with cloud belts and sunshine
+mingling in the crystalline atmosphere, form a glorious picture, which,
+oddly enough, one does not view with amazement and delight, but in the
+very midst of which, and a very part of which, he is; and the proud
+consciousness of this marks one of the happiest moments of his life.
+
+Steaming into a lagoon where its mountain walls are so high it seemed
+like a watery way in some prodigious Venice; steaming in, stealing in
+like a wraith, we were shortly saluted by the miners on Douglas Island,
+who are, perhaps, the most persistent and least harmful of the
+dynamiters. It was not long before we began to get used to the batteries
+that are touched off every few minutes, night and day; but how strange
+to find in that wild solitude a 120-stamp mill, electric lights, and all
+the modern nuisances! Never was there a greater contrast than the one
+presented at Douglas Island. The lagoon, with its deep, dark waters,
+still as a dead river, yet mirroring the sea-bird's wing; a strip of
+beach; just above it rows of cabins and tents that at once suggest the
+mining camps of early California days; then the rather handsome quarters
+of the directors; and then the huge mill, admirably constructed and set
+so snugly among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore
+mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big
+game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose
+themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro
+between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the
+opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the
+explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that
+prevails at Gastineaux Channel.
+
+Soon, weary of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect
+the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the
+dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of
+experience for a young one. It was first known as Pilsbury; then some
+humorist dubbed it Fliptown. Later it was called Rockwell and
+Harrisburg; and finally Juneau, the name it still bears with more or
+less dignity. The customary Indian village hangs upon the borders of the
+town; in fact, the two wings of the settlement are aboriginal; but the
+copper-skin seems not particularly interested in the progress of
+civilization, further than the occasional chance it affords him of
+turning an honest penny in the disposal of his wares.
+
+No sooner was the gang-plank out than we all made a rush for the trading
+stores in search of curios. The faculty of acquisitiveness grows with
+what it feeds on; and before the Alaskan tour is over, it almost amounts
+to a mania among the excursionists. You should have seen us--men, women
+and children--hurrying along the beach toward the heart of Juneau, where
+we saw flags flying from the staves that stood by the trading-stores. It
+was no easy task to distance a competitor in those great thoroughfares.
+Juneau has an annual rainfall of nine feet; the streets are guttered:
+indeed the streets are gutters in some cases. I know of at least one
+little bridge that carries the pedestrian from one sidewalk to another,
+over the muddy road below. I was headed off on my way to the N. W. T.
+Co.'s warehouse, and sat me down on a stump to write till the rush on
+bric-a-brac was over. Meanwhile I noticed the shake shanties and the
+pioneers who hung about them, with their long legs crooked under rush
+chairs in the diminutive verandas.
+
+Indian belles were out in full feather. Some had their faces covered
+with a thick coating of soot and oil; the rims of the eyelids, the tip
+of the nose and the inner portions of the lips showing in striking
+contrast to the hideous mask, which they are said to wear in order to
+preserve their complexion. They look for the most part like black-faced
+monkeys, and appear in this guise a great portion of the time in order
+to dazzle the town, after a scrubbing, with skins as fair and sleek as
+soft-soap. Even some of the sterner sex are constrained to resort to art
+in the hope of heightening their manly beauty; but these are, of course,
+Alaskan dudes, and as such are doubtless pardonable.
+
+There is a bath-house in Juneau and a barber-shop. They did a big
+business on our arrival. There are many billiard halls, where prohibited
+drinks are more or less surreptitiously obtained. A dance-hall stands
+uninvitingly open to the street. At the doorway, as we passed it, was
+posted a hand-lettered placard announcing that the ladies of Juneau
+would on the evening in question give a grand ball in honor of the
+passengers of the _Ancon_. Tickets, 50 cents.
+
+It began to drizzle. We dodged under the narrow awnings of the shops,
+and bargained blindly in the most unmusical lingos. Within were to be
+had stores of toy canoes--graceful little things hewn after the Haida
+model, with prows and sides painted in strange hieroglyphics; paddles
+were there--life-size, so to speak,--gorgeously dyed, and just the
+things for hall decorations; also dishes of carved wood of quaint
+pattern, and some of them quite ancient, were to be had at very moderate
+prices; pipes and pipe-bowls of the weirdest description; halibut
+fish-hooks, looking like anything at all but fish-hooks; Shaman rattles,
+grotesque in design; Thlinket baskets, beautifully plaited and stained
+with subdued dyes--the most popular of souvenirs; spoons with bone bowls
+and handles carved from the horns of the mountain goat or musk-ox; even
+the big horn-spoon itself was no doubt made by these ingenious people;
+Indian masks of wood, inlaid with abalone shells, bears' teeth, or
+lucky stones from the head of the catfish; Indian wampum; deer-skin
+sacks filled with the smooth, pencil-shaped sticks with which the native
+sport passes the merry hours away in games of chance; bangles without
+end, and rings of the clumsiest description hammered out of silver coin;
+bows and arrows; doll papooses, totem poles in miniature. There were
+garments made of fish-skins and bird-skins, smelling of oil and
+semi-transparent, as if saturated with it; and half-musical instruments,
+or implements, made of twigs strung full of the beaks of birds that
+clattered with a weird, unearthly Alaskan clatter.
+
+There were little graven images, a few of them looking somewhat
+idolatrous; and heaps upon heaps of nameless and shapeless odds and ends
+that boasted more or less bead-work in the line of ornamentation; but
+all chiefly noticeable for the lack of taste displayed, both in design
+and the combination of color. The Chilkat blanket is an exception to the
+Alaskan Indian rule. It is a handsome bit of embroidery, of significant
+though mysterious design; rich in color, and with a deep, knotted fringe
+on the lower edge--just the thing for a lambrequin, and to be had in
+Juneau for $40, which is only $15 more than is asked for the same
+article in Portland, Oregon, as some of us discovered to our cost. There
+were quantities of skins miserably cured, impregnating the air with
+vilest odors; and these were waved at you and wafted after you at every
+step. In the forest which suddenly terminates at the edge of the town
+there is game worth hunting. The whistler, reindeer, mountain sheep and
+goat, ermine, musk-rat, marmet, wolf and bear, are tracked and trapped
+by the red-man; but I doubt if the foot of the white-man is likely to
+venture far into the almost impenetrable confusion of logs and brush
+that is the distinguishing feature of the Alaskan wilderness. Beautiful
+antlers are to be had in Juneau and elsewhere; and perhaps a cinnamon or
+a black cub as playful as a puppy, and full of a kind of half-savage
+fun.
+
+In the upper part of the town, where the stumps and brush are thickest,
+there are cosy little log-cabins, and garden patches that seem to be
+making the most of the summer sunshine. In the window of one of these
+cabins we saw a face--dusky, beautiful, sensitive. Dreamy eyes slumbered
+under fringes that might have won a song from a Persian poet; admirably
+proportioned features, delicious lips, almost persuaded us that a
+squaw-man might in some cases be excusable for his infatuation. Later we
+discovered that the one beauty of Alaska was of Hawaiian parentage; that
+she was married, and was as shy of intruders as a caged bird. Very
+dissimilar are the ladies of Juneau.
+
+In the evening the town-crier went to and fro announcing the opening of
+the ball. It was still drizzling; the cliffs that tower above the
+metropolis were capped with cloud; slender, rain-born rivulets plunged
+from these airy heights into space and were blown away like smoke.
+Sometimes we caught glimpses of white, moving objects, far aloft against
+the black wall of rock: these were mountain sheep.
+
+The cannonading at Douglas Island continued--muffled thunder that ceases
+neither night nor day. Nobody seemed to think of sleeping. The dock was
+swarming with Indians; you would have known it with your eyes shut, from
+the musky odor that permeated every quarter of the ship. The deck was
+filled with passengers, chatting, reading, smoking, looking off upon the
+queer little town and wondering what its future was likely to be. And
+so, we might have lingered on indefinitely, with the light of a dull
+day above us--a light that was to grow no less till dawn, for there is
+no night there,--were it not that some one looked at his watch, and lo!
+it was the midnight hour.
+
+Then we went to the ball given by the ladies of Juneau in our honor.
+Half a dozen young Indian maidens sat on a bench against the wall and
+munched peanuts while they smiled; a few straggling settlers gathered at
+the bar while they smiled; two fiddlers and a guitar made as merry as
+they could under the circumstances in an alcove at the top of the hall.
+Round dances were in vogue,--round dances interspersed with flirtations
+and fire-water; round dances that grew oblong and irregular before
+sunrise--and yet it was sunrise at the unearthly hour of 3.30 a. m., or
+thereabout. We all felt as if we had been cheated out of something when
+we saw his coming; but perhaps it was only the summer siesta that had
+been cut short,--the summer siesta that here passes for the more
+wholesome and old-fashioned sleep of the world lower down on the map.
+
+During the night, having discharged freight and exhausted the resources
+of Juneau, including a post-office, and a post-mistress who sorts the
+mail twice a month, we steamed back to Douglas Island, and dropped many
+fathoms of noisy chain into the deep abreast of the camp. The eve of the
+Fourth in the United States of America is nothing in comparison with the
+everlasting racket at this wonderful mine. The iron jaws of the
+120-stamp mill grind incessantly, spitting pulverized rock and ore into
+the vats that quake under the mastication of the mighty molars; cars
+slip down into the bowels of the earth, and emerge laden with precious
+freight; multitudinous miners relieve one another, watch and watch.
+Electric light banishes even a thought of dusk; and were it now
+winter--the long, dark, dreary winter of the North, with but half a
+dozen hours of legitimate daylight out of the four and twenty--the work
+at Douglas Island would go on triumphantly; and it will go forever--or,
+rather, until the bottom drops out of the mine, just as it drops out of
+everything in this life. All night long the terrible rattle and rumble
+and roar of the explosive agent robbed us of our rest. I could think of
+nothing but the gnomes of the German fairy tale; the dwarfs of the black
+mountain, with their glowworm lamps, darting in and out of the tunnels
+in the earth like moles, and heaping together the riches that are the
+cause of so much pleasure and pain, and envy and despair, and sorrow and
+sin, and too often death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+By Solitary Shores.
+
+
+Probably no one leaves Juneau with regret. Far more enjoyable was the
+day we spent in Ward's Cove, land-locked, wooded to the water's edge,
+and with forty-five fathoms of water of the richest sea-green hue. Here
+lay the _Pinta_ and the _Paterson_, two characteristic representatives
+of the United States Navy--as it was before the war--the former a
+promoted tug-boat, equipped at an expense of $100,000, and now looking
+top-heavy and unseaworthy, but just the thing for a _matinée_
+performance of Pinafore, if that were not out of date.
+
+This _Pinta_, terrible as a canal-boat, armed to the teeth, drew up
+under our quarter to take in coal. You see the _Ancon_ combined business
+with pleasure, and distributed coal in quantities to suit throughout the
+Alaskan lagoon. Now, there is not much fun in coaling, even when a
+craft as funny as the _Pinta_ is snuggling up under your quarter,
+looking more like the Pinafore than ever, with her skylarking sailors,
+midshipmite and all; so Captain Carroll secured a jaunty little
+steam-launch, and away we went on a picnic in the forest primeval. The
+launch was laden to the brim; three of our biggest boats were in tow; an
+abundant collation, in charge of a corps of cabin-boys, gave assurance
+of success in one line at least.
+
+We explored. Old Vancouver did the same thing long ago, and no doubt
+found these shores exactly as we find them to-day. We entered a shallow
+creek at the top of the cove; landed on a dreary point redolent of stale
+fish, and the beach literally alive and creeping with small worms above
+half an inch in length. A solitary squaw was splitting salmon for
+drying. She remained absorbed in her work while we gathered about and
+regarded her with impudent curiosity. Overcome by the fetid air of the
+place, we re-embarked and steamed gaily miles away over the sparkling
+sea.
+
+In an undiscovered country--so it seemed to us--we came to a smooth and
+sandy strip of shore and landed there. But a few paces from the
+lightly-breaking ripples was the forest--and such a forest! There were
+huge trees, looking centuries old, swathed in blankets of moss, and the
+moss gray with age. Impenetrable depths of shadow overhead, impenetrable
+depths of litter under foot. Log had fallen upon log crosswise and at
+every conceivable angle.
+
+Out of the fruitful dust of these deposed monarchs of the forest sprang
+a numerous progeny--lusty claimants, every one of them,--their foliage
+feathery and of the most delicate green, being fed only by the thin
+sunshine that sifts through the dense canopy, supported far aloft by the
+majestic columns that clustered about us. Under foot the russet moss was
+of astonishing depth and softness. One walks with care upon it, for the
+foot breaks through the thick matting that has in many cases spread from
+log to log, hiding treacherous traps beneath. The ferns luxuriate in
+this sylvan paradise; and many a beautiful shrub, new to us, bore
+flowers that blushed unseen until we made our unexpected and perhaps
+unwelcome appearance.
+
+Here we camped. The cloth was spread in a temple not made with hands;
+how hard it is to avoid ringing in these little old-time tags about
+flowers and forests! The viands were deftly served; the merry jest went
+round, and sometimes came back the same way, "returned with thanks." And
+thus we revelled in the midst of a solitude that may never before have
+been broken by the sound of human voice. When we held our peace--which
+we did at long intervals, and for a brief moment only--we realized this
+solemn fact; but it didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why,
+even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings
+under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy
+circles, piping sharp, peevish cries.
+
+It was a delightful day we passed together. The memory of it is one of
+the most precious souvenirs of the Alaskan tour; and it was with
+reluctance that we returned to the ship, after consulting our watches
+with astonishment; for the late hours gave no warning, and we might have
+passed the night there in the loveliest of twilights.
+
+The _Pinta_ was about to withdraw to her anchorage as we boarded the
+_Ancon_; and then, too late, I discovered among the officers of that
+terror of the sea an old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon
+days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S.
+man-of-war, _Alaska_ of jolly memory; and he, with his companions,
+constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the _Alaska_ is a sheer
+hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in
+the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I
+thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under _Old
+Glory_, then floating in the trade wind that blew over southern seas, I
+should find him last in the lone land that gave name to the ship that
+brought him over. Can the theosophists unravel this mystery, or see
+aught in it that verges upon the mystic philosophy? As we steamed out of
+Wood's Cove that night, with the echoes of a parting salute filling the
+heavens to overflowing, we saw a cluster of small, dark islets in the
+foreground; shining waters beyond flowed to the foot of far-away
+mountains; a silvery sky melted into gold as it neared the horizon: this
+picture, as delicate in tint as the most exquisite water-color, was
+framed in a setting of gigantic pines; and it was by this fairy portal
+we entered the sea of ice.
+
+From solitude to solitude is the order in Alaska. The solitude of the
+forest and the sea, of the mountain and ravine,--with these we had
+become more or less familiar when our good ship headed for the solitude
+of ice and snow. I began to feel as if we were being dragged out on the
+roof of the world--as if we were swimming in the flooded eaves of a
+continent. Sometimes there came over me a sense of loneliness--of the
+distance that lay between us and everybody else, and of the helplessness
+of our case should any serious accident befall us. It is this very
+state, perhaps, that ages the hearts of the hardiest of the explorers
+who seek vainly to unravel the polar mystery.
+
+From time to time as we sailed, the sea, now a brighter blue than ever,
+was strewn with fragments of ice. Very lovely they looked as they hugged
+the distant shore; a ghostly and fantastical procession, borne ever
+southward by the slow current; and growing more ghostly and fantastical
+hour by hour, as they dwindled in the clear sunshine of the long summer
+days. Anon the ice fragments increased in number and dimensions. The
+whole watery expanse was covered with brash, and we were obliged to pick
+our way with considerable caution. At times we narrowly escaped grazing
+small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision
+with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough,
+being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling;
+or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles
+and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a
+tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are decidedly limited.
+Often we thought of the miserable millions away down East simmering in
+the sultry summer heat, while the thermometer with us stood at 45
+degrees in the sun, and the bracing salt air was impregnated with
+balsamic odors.
+
+In this delectable state we sighted a bouncing baby iceberg, and at once
+made for it with the enthusiasm of veritable discoverers. It was pretty
+to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it,
+searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg
+is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is
+rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on,
+coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to
+it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun
+like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half
+dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes,
+and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season transferred
+to our iceboxes.
+
+Our iceberg was about fifty feet in length and twenty or thirty feet out
+of the water. It was a glittering island, with savage peaks, deep
+valleys, bluffs, and promontories. The edges were delicately frilled and
+resembled silver filigree. Some of these, which were transparent and as
+daintily turned as old Venetian glass, dripped continually like
+rain-beaten eaves. The portion nearest the water's edge was honeycombed
+by the wavelets that dashed upon it without ceasing, rushing in and out
+of the small, luminous caverns in swift, sparkling rivulets. Much of the
+surface was crusted with a fine frosting; it was full of wells deep
+enough to sink a man in. These wells were filled with water, and with a
+blue light, celestial in its loveliness,--a light ethereal and pellucid.
+It was as if the whole iceberg were saturated with transfused moonbeams,
+that gave forth a mellow radiance, which flashed at times like
+brilliants, and burst into flame and played like lightning along the
+almost invisible rims and ridges. The unspeakable, the incomprehensible
+light throbbed through and through; and was sometimes bluish green and
+sometimes greenish blue; but oftenest with the one was the other, both
+at once, and with a perfectly bewildering tint added,--in a word, it was
+frozen moonlight and no mistake. O my friend, I assure you there are
+many famous sports with not half the fun in them that there is in
+lassoing an iceberg!
+
+Once more I turn to my note-books. I find that the morning had been
+foggy; that we could see scarcely a ship's length ahead of us; that the
+water was like oil beneath and the mists like snow above and about,
+while we groped blindly. Of course we could not press forward under the
+circumstances; for we were surrounded by islands great and small, and
+any one of these might silently materialize at a moment's notice; but we
+were not idle. Now and again our paddles beat the water impetuously, and
+they hung dripping, while the sea stretched around us as we leisurely
+drifted on like a larger bubble in danger of bursting upon an
+unexpected rock. We sounded frequently. There was an abundance of
+water--there nearly always is throughout the Alaskan archipelago; enough
+and to spare; but the abrupt shore might be but a stone's-throw from us
+on the one hand or the other.
+
+What was to be done? In the vast stillness we blew a blast on our shrill
+whistle, and listened for the echo. Sometimes it returned to us almost
+on the instant and we cried, "Halt!" When we halted or veered off,
+creeping as it were on the surface of the oily sea, sometimes a faint or
+far-off whisper--"the horns of elf-land"--gave us assurance of plenty of
+space and the sea-room we were sorely in need of just then. Once we saw
+looming right under our prow a little islet with a tuft of fir-trees
+crowning it--the whole worthy to be made the head-piece or tail-piece to
+some poem on solitude. It was very picturesque; but it seemed to be
+crouching there, lying in wait for us, ready to arch its back the moment
+we came within reach. The rapidity with which we backed out of that
+predicament left us no time for apologies.
+
+Again we got some distance up the wrong channel. When the fog lifted for
+a moment, we discovered the error, put about without more ado, and went
+around the block in a hurry. Meanwhile we had schooled our ears to
+detect the most delicate shades of sound; to measure or weigh each
+individual echo with an accuracy that gave us the utmost
+self-satisfaction. Perhaps Captain Carroll or Captain George, who was
+spying out the land with his ears, would not have trusted the ship in
+our keeping for five minutes--but no matter.
+
+Presently the opaque atmosphere began to dissolve away; and as the sun
+brushed the webs from his face, and darted sharp beams upon the water
+all at once in a shower, the fog-banks went to pieces and rolled away in
+sections out of sight, like the transformation scene in a Christmas
+pantomime. And there we were in the very centre of the smiling island
+world, with splendid snow peaks towering all about us; and such a flood
+of blue sky and bluer water, golden sunshine and gilded fields of snow,
+of jutting shores clad in perennial verdure, and eagles and sea-birds
+wheeling round about us, as can be seen nowhere else in the wide world
+to the same advantage.
+
+We were entering a region of desolation. The ice was increasing, and the
+water took that ghastly hue, even a glimpse of which is enough to chill
+the marrow in one's bones. Vegetation was dying out. A canoe-full of
+shivering Indians were stemming the icy flood in search of some chosen
+fishery,--all of them blanketed, and all--squaw as well as
+papooses--taking a turn at the paddle. These were the children of
+Nature, whose song-birds are the screaming eagle, the croaking raven,
+and the crying sea-doves blown inland by the wild westerly gales.
+
+We were now nearly within sound of the booming glaciers; and as we drew
+nearer and nearer I could but brood over the oft imagined picture of
+that vast territory--our Alaska,--where, beyond that mountain range, the
+almost interminable winter is scarcely habitable, and the summers so
+brief it takes about six of them to make a swallow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+In Search of the Totem-Pole.
+
+
+Hour after hour and day after day we are coasting along shores that
+become monotonous in their beauty. For leagues the sea-washed roots of
+the forest present a fairly impassable barrier to the foot of man. It is
+only at infrequent intervals that a human habitation is visible, and
+still more seldom does the eye discover a solitary canoe making its way
+among the inextricable confusion of inlets. Sometimes a small cluster of
+Indian lodges enlivens the scene; and this can scarcely be said to
+enliven it, for most Indian lodges are as forlorn as a last year's
+bird's-nest. Sometimes a bright little village gives hope of a break in
+the serenity of the season--a few hours on shore and an extra page or
+two in our log-books. Yet again, sometimes it is a green jungle, above
+the sea, out of which rise diminutive box-houses, like exaggerated
+dove-cotes, with a goodly number of towering cedar columns, curiously
+carved, perhaps stained black or red in patches, scattered through them.
+These are Indian cemeteries. They are hedged about with staves, from the
+top of which flutter ragged streamers. They are rich in rude carvings of
+men and birds and beasts. Now and again a shield as big as a target, and
+looking not unlike an archery-target, marks the tomb of some warrior.
+The unerring shafts of death search out the obscurest handfuls of people
+scattered through these wide domains; and every village has its solemn
+suburb, where the houses of the dead are decorated with barbaric
+bric-a-brac.
+
+Many of the tombs are above ground--airy sarcophagi on high poles
+rocking in the wind and the rain. Some are nearer the earth, like
+old-fashioned four-poster bed-steads; and there the dead sleep well.
+Others are of stone, with windows and peaked roofs,--very comfortable
+receptacles. But most of the bodies are below ground, and the last
+vestiges of their graves are lost in the depths of the jungle.
+Incineration is not uncommon in Alaska, and in such cases the ashes are
+distributed among the winds and waves. Birds feast upon the bodies of
+certain tribes--meat-offerings, very gracious in the sight of the Death
+Angel; but by far the larger portion find decent burial, and they are
+all long and loudly and sincerely mourned.
+
+We awoke one morning at Casa-an, and found ourselves made fast to a
+dock. On the dock was a salmon-house, or shed, a very laboratory of
+ancient and fish-like smells. It was not long before the tide slipped
+away from us and left the steamer resting easily on her beam-ends in
+shallow water. We were prisoners for a few hours; but we were glad of
+this, for every hour was of interest to us. This was our first chance to
+thoroughly explore an Indian village; and, oh! the dogs, cousins-german
+to the coyotes, that shook off their fleas and bayed us dismally! Lodges
+of the rudest sort were scattered about in the most convenient
+localities. As for streets or lanes, there were none visible. The
+majority of the lodges were constructed of hemlock bark or of rough
+slabs, gaudily festooned with split salmon drying in the sun. The lodges
+are square, with roofs slightly inclined; they are windowless and have
+but one narrow door about shoulder high.
+
+The Casa-an Indians are a tribe of the Haidas, the cleverest of the
+northern races. They are expert craftsmen. From a half dollar they will
+hammer out or mold a bangle and cover it with chasing very deftly cut.
+Their wood-carvings, medicine-man rattles, spoons, broth bowls, and the
+like, are curious; but the demand for bangles keeps the more ingenious
+busy in this branch of industry. Unfortunately, some simple voyager gave
+the rude silversmiths a bangle of the conventional type, and this is now
+so cunningly imitated that it is almost impossible to secure a specimen
+of Haida work of the true Indian pattern. Very shortly the Indian
+villages of Alaska will be stocked with curios of genuine California
+manufacture. The supply of antiquities and originals has been already
+nearly, if not quite, exhausted. It is said that no sooner is the boom
+of the paddle-wheel heard in the noiseless Alaskan sea than the Indian
+proceeds to empty of its treasures his cedar chest or his red Chinese
+box studded with brass nails, and long before the steamer heaves in
+sight the primitive bazar is ready for the expected customer. There is
+much haggling over the price of a curio, and but little chance of a
+bargain. If one has his eye upon some coveted object, he had best
+purchase it at once at the first figure; for the Indian is not likely
+to drop a farthing, and there are others who will gladly outbid the
+hesitating shopper.
+
+Time is no object in the eyes of these people. If an Indian thought he
+could make a quarter more on the sale of a curio by holding it a month
+longer, until the arrival of the next excursion boat, or even by getting
+into his canoe and paddling a day or two over to the next settlement, he
+would as lief do it as not. By the merest chance I drew from a heap of
+rubbish in the corner of a lodge a Shaman rattle, unquestionably
+genuine. This Shaman rattle is a quaintly carved rattle-box, such as is
+used by sorcerers or medicine-men in propitiation of the evil spirit at
+the bedside of the dying. The one I have was not offered for sale, nor
+did the possessor seem to place much value on it; yet he would not budge
+one jot or tittle in the price he first set upon it, and seemingly set
+at a guess. Its discovery was a piece of pure luck, but I would not
+exchange it for any other curio which I chanced to see during the whole
+voyage.
+
+In one of the lodges at Casa-an a chief lay dying. He was said to be the
+last of his race; and, judging from appearances, his hours were fast
+drawing to a close. He was breathing painfully; his face was turned to
+the wall. Two or three other Indians sat silently about, stirring at
+intervals a bright wood-fire that burned in the centre of the lodge. The
+curling smoke floated gracefully through a hole in the roof--most of it,
+but not quite all. As we entered (we were in search of the dying chief;
+for, as he seemed to be the one lion in the settlement, his fame was
+soon noised abroad) we found that the evangelist had forestalled us. He
+was asking the price of salmon in San Francisco; but upon our appearance
+he added, solemnly enough: "Well, we all must die--Indians and all." An
+interpreter had reluctantly been pressed into service; but as the
+missionary work was not progressing, the evangelist dropped the
+interpreter, rolled up his spiritual sleeves and pitched in as follows:
+
+"Say, you Injun! you love God? You love Great Spirit?" No answer came
+from the thin, drawn lips, tightly compressed and visible just over the
+blankets edge in the corner of the lodge. "Say, John! you ready to die!
+You make your peace with God! You go to heaven--to the happy
+hunting-ground?" The chief, who had silenced the interpreter with a
+single look, was apparently beyond the hearing of human speech; so the
+evangelist, with a sigh, again inquired into the state of the salmon
+market on the Pacific coast. Then the stricken brave turned a glazed eye
+upon the man of God, and the latter once more sought to touch that heart
+of stone: "I say, you Injun! you prepared to meet Great Spirit? You
+ready to go to happy hunting-ground?" The chief's eyes flamed for a
+moment, as with infinite scorn he muttered between his teeth to the
+evangelist: "You ---- fool! You go to ----!" And he went.
+
+While the steamer was slowly righting we had ample time to inspect the
+beached hull of a schooner with a history. She was the Pioneer of
+Casa-an once commanded by a famous old smuggler named Baronovich. Long
+he sailed these waters; and, like Captain Kidd, he bore a charmed life
+as he sailed. It is a mystery to me how any sea-faring man can trust his
+craft to the mercy of the winds and tides of this myriad-islanded inland
+sea. This ancient mariner, Baronovich, not only braved the elements, but
+defied Russian officials, who kept an eye upon him night and day. On one
+occasion, having been boarded by the vigilant inspectors, and his
+piratical schooner thoroughly searched from stem to stern, he kindly
+invited the gentlemen to dine with him, and entertained them at a board
+groaning with the contraband luxuries which his suspicious guests had
+been vainly seeking all the afternoon. It is a wee little cabin and a
+shallow hold that furnish the setting for a sea-tale as wildly
+picturesque as any that thrills the heart of your youthful reader; but
+high and dry lies the moldering hulk of the dismantled smuggler, and
+there is no one left to tell the tale.
+
+As we lounged about, some hideous Indians--I trust they were not framed
+in the image of their Maker,--ill-shapen lads, dumpy, expressionless
+babies, green-complexioned half-breeds, sat and looked on with utter
+indifference. Many of the Haida Indians have kinky or wavy hair,
+Japanese or Chinese eyes, and most of them toe out; but they are, all
+things considered, the least interesting, the most ungainly and the most
+unpicturesque of people. If there is work for them to do they do it,
+heedless of the presence of inquisitive, pale-faced spectators. Indeed
+they seem to look down upon the white-man, and perhaps they have good
+reasons for so doing. If there is no work to be done, they are not at
+all disconcerted.
+
+I very much doubt if a Haida Indian--or any other Indian, for that
+matter--knows what it is to be bored or to find the time hanging heavily
+on his hands. I took note of one old Indian who sat for four solid hours
+without once changing his position. He might have been sitting there
+still but that his wife routed him out after a lively monologue, to
+which he was an apparently disinterested listener. At last he arose with
+a grunt, adjusted his blanket, strode grimly to his canoe and bailed it
+out; then he entered and paddled leisurely to the opposite shore, where
+he disappeared in the forest.
+
+Filth was everywhere, and evil odors; but far, far aloft the eagles were
+soaring, and the branches of a withered tree near the settlement were
+filled with crows as big as buzzards. Once in awhile some one or another
+took a shot at them--and missed. Thus the time passed at Casa-an. One
+magnifies the merest episode on the Alaskan voyage, and is grateful for
+it.
+
+Killisnoo is situated in a cosy little cove. It is a rambling village
+that climbs over the rocks and narrowly escapes being pretty, but it
+manages to escape. Most of the lodges are built of logs, have small,
+square windows, with glass in them, and curtains; and have also a kind
+of primitive chimney. We climbed among these lodges and found them quite
+deserted. The lodgers were all down at the dock. There were inscriptions
+on a few of the doors: the name of the tenant, and a request to observe
+the sacredness of the domestic hearth. This we were careful to do; but
+inasmuch as each house was set in order and the window-curtains looped
+back, we were no doubt welcome to a glimpse of an Alaskan interior. It
+was the least little bit like a peep-show, and didn't seem quite real.
+One inscription was as follows--it was over the door of the lodge of the
+laureate:
+
+             JOSEPH HOOLQUIN.
+
+             My tum-tum is white,
+             I try to do right:
+           All are welcome to come
+           To my hearth and my home.
+     So call in and see me, white, red or black man:
+     I'm de-late hyas of the Kootznahoo quan.
+
+Need I add that _tum-tum_ in the Chinook jargon signifies the soul!
+Joseph merely announced that he was clean-souled; also _de-late
+hyas_--that is, above reproach.
+
+At the store of the Northwest Trading Company we found no curios, and it
+is the only store in the place. Sarsaparilla, tobacco, blankets, patent
+medicines, etc., are there neatly displayed on freshly painted shelves,
+but no curios. On a strip of plank walk in front of the place are
+Indians luxuriously heaped, like prize porkers, and they are about as
+interesting a spectacle to the unaccustomed eye.
+
+Our whistle blew at noon. We returned on board, taking the cannery and
+oil-factory on the way, and finding it impossible to forget them for
+some time afterward. At 12.45 p. m. we were off, but we left one of the
+merriest and most popular of our voyagers behind us. He remained at
+Killisnoo in charge of the place. As we swam off into the sweet sea
+reaches, the poor fellow ran over the ridge of his little island,
+looking quite like a castaway, and no doubt feeling like one. He sprang
+from rock to rock and at last mounted a hillock, and stood waving his
+arms wildly while we were in sight. And the lassies? They swarmed like
+bees upon the wheelhouse, wringing their hands and their handkerchiefs,
+and weeping rivers of imaginary tears over our first bereavement! But
+really, now, what a life to lead, and in what a place, especially if
+one happens to be young, and good-looking and a bit of a swell withal!
+
+But is there no romance here? Listen! We came to anchor over night in a
+quiet nook where the cliffs and the clouds overshadowed us. Everything
+was of the vaguest description, without form and void. There seemed to
+be one hut on shore, with the spark of a light in it--a cannery of
+course. Canoes were drifting to and fro like motes in the darkness,
+tipped with a phosphorescent rim. Indian voices hailed us out of the
+ominous silence; Indian dogs muttered under their breath, yelping in a
+whisper which was mocked by Indian papooses, who can bark before they
+have learned to walk or talk.
+
+Softly out of the balmy night--for it was balmy and balsamic (we were to
+the windward of the cannery),--a shadowy canoe floated up just under our
+rail; two shadowy forms materialized, and voices like the voices of
+spirits--almost the softest voices in the world, voices of infantile
+sweetness--hailed us. "_Alah, mika chahko!_" babbled the flowers of the
+forest. My solitary companion responded glibly, for he was no stranger
+in these parts. The maids grew garrulous. There was much bantering, and
+such laughter as the gods delight in; and at last a shout that drew the
+attention of the captain. He joined us just in season to recognize the
+occupants of the canoe, as they shot through a stream of light under an
+open port, crying "_Anah nawitka mika halo shem!_" And then we learned
+that the sea-nymphs he had put to flight were none other than the belles
+of Juneau City, the Alaskan metropolis, who were spending the summer at
+this watering-place, and who were known to fame as "Kitty the Gopher,"
+and "Feather-Legged Sal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+In the Sea of Ice.
+
+
+We appreciated the sun's warmth so long as we were cruising among the
+ice-wrack. Some of the passengers, having been forewarned, were provided
+with heavy overcoats, oilskin hats, waterproofs, woolen socks, and
+stogies with great nails driven into the soles. They were iron-bound,
+copper-fastened tourists, thoroughly equipped--Alpine-stock and
+all,--and equal to any emergency.
+
+Certainly it rains whenever it feels like it in Alaska. It can rain
+heavily for days together, and does so from time to time. The
+excursion-boat may run out of one predicament into another, and the
+whole voyage be a series of dismal disappointments; but this is not to
+be feared. The chances are in favor of a round of sunshiny days and
+cloudless nights as bright as the winter days in New England; of the
+fairest of fair weather; bracing breezes tempered by the fragrant
+forests that mantle each of the ten thousand islands; cool nights in
+midsummer, when a blanket is welcome in one's bunk; a touch of a fog now
+and again, generally lasting but a few hours, and welcome, also, by way
+of change. As for myself, a rubber coat protected me in the few showers
+to which we were exposed, and afforded warmth enough in the coldest
+weather we encountered. For a climb over a glacier, the very thickest
+shoes are absolutely necessary; beyond these, all else seems superfluous
+to me, and the superfluous is the chief burden of travel.
+
+We were gathered about the deck in little groups. The unpremeditated
+coteries which naturally spring into existence on shipboard hailed one
+another across decks, from the captain's cabin--a favorite resort--or
+the smoking-room, as we sighted objects of interest. With us there was
+no antagonism, albeit we numbered a full hundred, and for three weeks
+were confined to pretty close quarters. Passing the hours thus, and
+felicitating ourselves upon the complete success of the voyage, we were
+in the happiest humor, and amiably awaited our next experience.
+
+Presently we ran under a wooded height that shut off the base of a great
+snow-capped mountain. The peak was celestial in its beauty,--a wraith
+dimly outlined upon the diaphanous sky, of which it seemed a more
+palpable part. When we had rounded this point we came face to face with
+a glacier. We saw at a glance the length and the breadth of it as it
+plowed slowly down between lofty rock-ridges to within a mile and a half
+of the shore. This was our first sight of one of those omnipotent
+architects of nature, and we watched it with a thrill of awe.
+
+Picture to yourself a vast river, two or three miles in breadth, pouring
+down from the eminence of an icy peak thirty miles away,--a river fed by
+numerous lateral tributaries that flow in from every declivity. Imagine
+this river lashed to a fury and covered from end to end, fathoms deep,
+with foam, and then the whole suddenly frozen and fixed for
+evermore--that is your glacier. Sometimes the surface is stained with
+the _débris_ of the mountain; sometimes the bluish-green tinge of the
+ancient ice crops out. Generally the surface is as white as down and
+very fair to look upon; for at a distance--we were about eight miles
+from the lower edge of it--the eye detects no flaw. It might be a
+torrent of milk and honey. It might almost be compared in its
+immaculate beauty to one of the rivers of Paradise that flow hard by
+the throne of God. It seems to be moving in majesty, and yet is
+stationary, or nearly so; for we might sit by its frozen shore and grow
+gray with watching, and ever our dull eyes could detect no change in a
+ripple of it. A river of Paradise, indeed, escaped from the gardens of
+the blessed; but, overcome by the squalor of this little globe, it has
+stopped short and turned to ice in its alabaster bed.
+
+One evening, about 8.30 o'clock, the sun still high above the western
+mountain range, we found ourselves opposite the Davidson glacier. It
+passes out of a broad ravine and spreads fanlike upon the shore under
+the neighboring cliffs. It is three miles in breadth along the front,
+and is twelve hundred feet in height when it begins to crumble and slope
+toward the shore. A terminal moraine, a mile and a half in depth,
+separates it from the sea. A forest, or the remnant of a forest, stands
+between it and the water it is slowly but surely approaching. The fate
+of this solemn wood is sealed. Anon the mightiest among these mighty
+trees will fall like grain before the sickle of the reaper.
+
+We are very near this glacier. We see all the wrinkles and fissures and
+the deep discolorations. We see how the monstrous mass winds in and out
+between the mountains, and crowds them on every side, and rubs their
+skin off in spots, and leaves grooved lines, like high-water marks,
+along the face of the cliffs; how it gathers as it goes, and grinds to
+powder and to paste whatever comes within its reach, growing worse and
+worse, and greedier and more rapacious as it creeps down into the
+lowlands; so that when it reaches the sea, where it must end its course
+and dissolve away, it will have covered itself with slime and confusion.
+It will have left ruin and desolation in its track, but it will likewise
+have cleft out a valley with walls polished like brass and a floor as
+smooth as marble,--one that will be utilized in after ages, when it has
+carpeted itself with green and tapestried its walls with vines. Surely
+no other power on earth could have done the job so neatly.
+
+One sees this work in process and in fresh completion in Alaska. The
+bald islet yonder, with a surface as smooth as glass and with delicate
+tracery along its polished sides--tracery that looks like etching upon
+glass,--was modelled by glaciers not so many years ago: within the
+century, some of them, perhaps. A glacier--probably the very glacier we
+are seeking--follows this track and grinds them all into shape. Every
+angle of action--of motion, shall I say?--is indelibly impressed upon
+each and every rock here about; so all these northlands, from sea to
+sea, the world over, have been laboriously licked into shape by the
+irresistible tide of ice. Verily, the mills of the gods grind slowly,
+but what a grist they grind!
+
+Let me record an episode that occasioned no little excitement among the
+passengers and crew of the _Ancon_. While we were picking our way among
+the floating ice--and at a pretty good jog, too,--a dark body was seen
+to fall from an open port, forward, into the sea. There was a splash and
+a shriek as it passed directly under the wheel and disappeared in the
+foam astern. "Man overboard!" was the cry that rang through the ship,
+while we all rushed breathlessly to the after-rail. Among the seething
+waters in our wake, we saw a head appearing and disappearing, and
+growing smaller and smaller all the while, though the swimmer was
+struggling bravely to hold his own. In a moment the engines were
+stopped; and then--an after-thought--we made as sharp a turn as
+possible, hoping to lessen the distance between us, while a boat was
+being manned and lowered for the rescue. We feared that it was the cook,
+who was running a fair chance of being drowned or chilled to death. His
+black head bobbed like a burnt cork on the crest of the waves; and,
+though we marked a snow-white circle in the sea, we seemed to get no
+nearer the strong swimmer in his agony; and all at once we saw him turn,
+as in desperation or despair, and make for one of the little rocky
+islets that were lying at no great distance. Evidently he believed
+himself deserted, and was about to seek this desolate rock in the hope
+of prolonging existence.
+
+By this time we had come to a dead halt, and a prolonged silence
+followed. Our sailor boys pulled lustily at the oars; yet the little
+boat seemed to crawl through yawning waves, and, as usual, every moment
+was an hour of terrible suspense. Then the captain, the most anxious
+among us all, made a trumpet of his hands and shouted: "Here, Pete, old
+boy! Here, Pete, you black rascal!" At the sound of his voice the
+swimmer suddenly turned and struck out for the ship with an enthusiasm
+that was actually ludicrous. We roared with laughter--we could not help
+it; for when the boat had pulled up to the almost water-logged swimmer,
+and he began to climb in with an energy that imperiled the safety of the
+crew, we saw that the black rascal in question was none other than Pete
+Bruin, Captain Carroll's pet bear. He shook himself and drenched the
+oarsmen, who were trying to get him back to the ship; for he was half
+frantic with delight, and it was pretty close quarters--a small boat in
+a chop sea dotted with lumpy ice; and a frantic bear puffing and blowing
+as he shambled bear-fashion from the stem to stern, and raised his voice
+at intervals in a kind of hoarse "hooray," that depressed rather than
+cheered his companions. It was ticklish business getting the boat and
+its lively crew back to the davits in safety.
+
+It was still more ticklish receiving the shaggy hero on deck; for he
+gave one wild bound and alighted in the midst of a group of terrified
+ladies and scattered the rest of us in dismay. But it was side-splitting
+when the little fellow, seeing an open door, made a sudden break for
+it, and plunged into the berth of a shy damsel, who, put to ignominious
+flight in the first gust of the panic, had sought safety in her
+state-room only to be singled out for the recipient of the rascal's
+special attentions. She was rescued by the bravest of the brave; but
+Bruin had to be dragged from behind the lace curtains with a lasso, and
+then he brought some shreds of lace with him as a trophy. He was more
+popular than ever after this little adventure, and many an hour we spent
+in recounting to one another the varied emotions awakened by the
+episode.
+
+Heading for Glacier Bay, we found a flood of bitter cold water so filled
+with floating ice that it was quite impossible to avoid frequent
+collisions with masses of more or less magnitude. There was an almost
+continual thumping along the ship's side as the paddle struck heavily
+the ice fragments which we found littering the frozen sea. There was
+also a dull reverberation as of distant thunder that rolled over the sea
+to us; and when we learned that this was the crackling of the ice-pack
+in the gorges, we thought with increasing solemnity of the majesty of
+the spectacle we were about to witness.
+
+Thus we pushed forward bravely toward an ice-wall that stretched across
+the top of the bay from one high shore to the other. This wall of ice, a
+precipitous bluff or palisade, is computed to be from two hundred to
+five hundred feet in height. It is certainly nowhere less than two
+hundred, but most of it far nearer five hundred feet above sea level,
+rising directly out of it, overhanging it, and chilling the air
+perceptibly. Picking our path to within a safe distance of the glacier,
+we cast anchor and were free to go our ways for a whole glorious day.
+According to Professor John Muir--for whom the glacier is deservedly
+named,--the ice-wall measures three miles across the front; ten miles
+farther back it is ten miles in breadth. Sixteen tributary glaciers
+unite to form the one.
+
+Professor Muir, accompanied by the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell,
+visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this
+region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to
+his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous
+speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most
+self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed
+this glacier. It is dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; so
+that although it is always advancing, it seems in reality to be
+retreating.
+
+Within the memory of the last three generations the Muir glacier filled
+the bay for miles below our anchorage; and while it recedes, it is
+creeping slowly down, scalping the mountains, grinding all the sharp
+edges into powder or leaving a polished surface behind it. It gathers
+rock dust and the wreck of every living thing, and mixes them up with
+snow and ice. These congeal again, or are compressed into soft, filthy
+monumental masses, waiting their turn to topple into the waves at last.
+The wash of the sea undermines the glacier; the sharp sunbeams blast it.
+It is forever sinking, settling, crushing in upon itself and splitting
+from end to end, with fearful and prolonged intestinal reverberations,
+that remind one of battle thunders and murder and sudden death. There
+was hardly a moment during the day free from rumble or a crash or a
+splash.
+
+The front elevation might almost be compared to Niagara Falls in winter;
+but here is a spectacular effect not often visible at Niagara. At
+intervals huge fragments of the ice cliffs fall, carrying with them
+torrents of snow and slush. Heaven only knows know many hundred thousand
+tons of this _débris_ plunged into the sea under our very eyes. Nor was
+it all _débris_: there were masses of solid ice so lustrous they looked
+like gigantic emeralds or sapphires, and these were fifty or even a
+hundred times the size of our ship. When they fell they seemed to
+descend with the utmost deliberation; for they fell a much greater
+distance than we could realize, as their bulk was beyond conception, so
+that a fall of two hundred or three hundred feet seemed not a tenth part
+of that distance.
+
+With this deliberate descent, as if they floated down, they also gave an
+impression of vast weight and when they struck the sea, the foam flew
+two-thirds of the way up the cliff--a fountain three hundred feet in
+height and of monstrous volume. Then after a long time--a very long time
+it seemed to us--the ice would rise slowly from the deep and climb the
+face of the cliff as if it were about to take its old place again; but
+it sank and rose, until it had found its level, when it joined the long
+procession drifting southward to warmer waves and dissolution.
+
+In the meantime the ground swell that followed each submersion
+resembled a tidal wave as it rolled down upon us and threatened to
+engulf us. But the _Ancon_ rode like a duck--I can not consistently say
+swan in this case,--and heaved to starboard and to larboard in
+picturesque and thoroughly nautical fashion. Some of us were on shore,
+wading in the mud and the slush, or climbing the steep bluffs that hem
+in the glacier upon one side. Here it was convenient to glance over the
+wide, wide snow-fields that seem to have been broken with colossal
+harrows. It was even possible to venture out upon the ice ridges,
+leaping the gaps that divided them in every direction. But at any moment
+the crust might have broken and buried us from sight; and we found the
+spectacle far more enjoyable when viewed from the deck of the steamer.
+
+What is that glacier like? Well, just a little like the whitewashed
+crater of an active volcano. At any rate, it is the glorious companion
+piece to Kilauea in Hawaii. In these wonders of nature you behold the
+extremes, fire and ice, having it all their own way, and a world of
+adamant shall not prevail against them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Alaska's Capital.
+
+
+Sitka has always seemed to me the jumping-off place. I have vaguely
+imagined that somehow--I know not just how--it had a mysterious affinity
+with Moscow, and was in some way a dependence of that Muscovite
+municipality. I was half willing to believe that an underground passage
+connected the Kremlin with the Castle of Sitka; that the tiny capital of
+Great Alaska responded, though feebly, to every throb of the Russian
+heart. Perhaps it did in the good old days now gone; but there is little
+or nothing of the Russian element left, and the place is as dead as dead
+can be without giving offence to the olfactory organ.
+
+We were picking our way through a perfect wilderness of islands, on the
+lookout for the capital, of which we had read and heard so much. Surely
+the Alaskan pilot must have the eye and the instinct of a sea bird or he
+could never find a port in that labyrinth. Moreover, the air was misty:
+we felt that we were approaching the sea. Lofty mountains towered above
+us; sometimes the islands swam apart--they seemed all in motion, as if
+they were swinging to and fro on the tide,--and then down a magnificent
+vista we saw the richly wooded slopes of some glorious height that
+loomed out of the vapor and bathed its forehead in the sunshine.
+Sometimes the mist grew denser, and we could see hardly a ship's-length
+ahead of us; and the air was so chilly that our overcoats were drawn
+snugly about us, and we wondered what the temperature might be "down
+south" in Dakota and New England.
+
+In the grayest of gray days we came to Sitka, and very likely for this
+reason found it a disappointment at first sight. Certainly it looked
+dreary enough as we approached it--a little cluster of tumbledown houses
+scattered along a bleak and rocky shore. We steamed slowly past it, made
+a big turn in deep water, got a tolerable view of the city from one end
+of it to the other, and then crept up to the one little dock, made fast,
+and were all granted the freedom of the capital for a couple of days. It
+is a gray place--gray with a greenish tinge in it--the kind of green
+that looks perennial--a dark, dull evergreen.
+
+There was some show of color among the costumes of the people on
+shore--bright blankets and brighter calicoes,--but there was no
+suspicion of gaiety or of a possible show of enthusiasm among the few
+sedate individuals who came down to see us disembark. I began to wonder
+if these solemn spectators that were grouped along the dock were ghosts
+materialized for the occasion; if the place were literally dead--dead as
+the ancient Russian cemetery on the hill, where the white crosses with
+their double arms, the upper and shorter one aslant, shone through the
+sad light of the waning day.
+
+We had three little Russian maids on our passenger list, daughters of
+Father Mitropolski, the Greek priest at Sitka. They were returning from
+a convent school at Victoria, and were bubbling over with delight at the
+prospective joys of a summer vacation at home. But no sooner had they
+received the paternal embraces upon the deck than the virtue of
+happiness went out of them; and they became sedate little Sitkans, whose
+dignity belied the riotous spirit that had made them the life of the
+ship on the way up.
+
+We also brought home a little Russian chap who had been working down at
+Fort Wrangell, and, having made a fortune--it was a fortune in his
+eyes,--he was returning to stay in the land of his nativity. He was
+quiet enough on shipboard--indeed, he had almost escaped observation
+until we sighted Sitka; but then his heart could contain itself no
+longer, and he made confidants of several of us to whom he had spoken
+never a word until this moment. How glad he was to greet its solemn
+shores, to him the dearest spot in all the earth! A few hours later we
+met him. He was swinging on the gate at the homestead in the edge of the
+town: a sweet, primitive place, that caught our eye before the youngster
+caught our ears with his cheerful greeting. "Oh, I so glad!" said he,
+with a mist in his eye that harmonized with everything else. "I make
+eighty dollar in four month at Wrangell. My sister not know me when I
+get home. I so glad to come back to Sitka. I not go away any more."
+
+Of course we poured out of the ship in short order, and spread through
+the town like ants. At the top of the dock is the Northwest Trading
+Company's store--how we learned to know these establishments! Some
+scoured it for a first choice, and got the pick of the wares; but here,
+as elsewhere, we found the same motley collection of semi-barbarous
+bric-a-brac--brilliantly painted Indian paddles spread like a sunburst
+against the farther wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fantastical
+carvings such as the aborigines delight in, and in which they almost
+excel. Up the main street of the town is another store, where a series
+of large rooms, crowded with curios bewilders the purchaser of those
+grotesque wares.
+
+At the top of Katalan's rock, on the edge of the sea, stands the
+Colonial Castle. It is a wooden structure, looking more like a barrack
+than a castle. At the foot of the rock are the barracks and Custom
+House. A thin sprinkling of marines, a few foreign-looking citizens--the
+full-fledged Rusk of the unmistakable type is hard to find
+nowadays,--and troops of Indians give a semblance of life to this
+quarter. At the head of the street stands the Russian Orthodox Church;
+and this edifice, with its quaint tower and spire, is really the lion of
+the place. St. Michael's was dedicated in 1844 by the Venerable Ivan
+Venianimoff, the metropolitan of Moscow, for years priest and Bishop at
+Ounalaska and Sitka.
+
+In his time the little chapel was richly decorated; but as the
+settlement began falling to decay, the splendid vestments and sacred
+vessels and altar ornaments, and even the Bishop himself, were
+transferred to San Francisco. It then became the duty of the Bishop to
+visit annually the churches at Sitka, Ounalaska and Kodiak, as the
+Russian Government still allowed these dependencies an annuity of
+$50,000. But the last incumbent of the office, Bishop Nestor, was lost
+tragically at sea in May, 1883; and, as the Russian priesthood seems to
+be less pious than particular, the office is still a-begging--unless I
+have been misinformed. Probably the mission will be abandoned. Certainly
+the dilapidated chapel, with its remnants of tarnished finery, its three
+surviving families of Russian blood, its handful of Indian converts,
+seems not likely to hold long together.
+
+We witnessed a service in St. Michael's. The tinkling bells in the green
+belfry--a bulbous, antique-looking belfry it is--rang us in from the
+four quarters of the town. As there were neither pews, chairs nor prayer
+carpets, we stood in serio-comic silence while the double mysteries of
+the hidden Holy of Holies were celebrated. Not more than a dozen
+devotees at most were present. These gathered modestly in the rear of
+the nave and put us to shame with their reverent gravity. Strange chants
+were chanted; it was a weird music, like a litany of bumblebees. Dense
+clouds of incense issued from gilded recesses that were screened from
+view.
+
+It was all very strange, very foreign, very unintelligible to us. It was
+also very monotonous; and when some of the unbelievers grew restless and
+stole quietly about on voyages of exploration and discovery, they were
+duly rewarded at the hands of the custodian of the chapel, who rather
+encouraged the seeming sacrilege. He left his prayers unsaid to pilot us
+from nook to nook; he exhibited the old paintings of Byzantine origin,
+and in broken English endeavored to interpret their meaning. He opened
+antique chests that we might examine their contents; and when a volume
+of prayers printed in rustic Russian type and bound with clumsy metal
+clasps, was bartered for, he seemed quite willing to dispose of it,
+though it was the only one of the kind visible on the premises. This
+excited our cupidity, and, with a purse in our hand, we groped into the
+sacristy seeking what we might secure.
+
+A set of small chromos came to light: bright visions of the Madonna,
+done in three or four colors, on thin paper and fastened to blocks of
+wood. They were worth about two cents--perhaps three for five. We paid
+fifty cents apiece, and were glad to get them at that price--oh, the
+madness of the seeker after souvenirs! Then all unexpectedly we came
+upon a collection of half-obliterated panel paintings. They were thrown
+carelessly in a deep window-seat, and had been overlooked by many. They
+were Russian to the very grain of the wood; they were quaint to the
+verge of the ludicrous; they were positively black with age; thick
+layers of dust and dirt and smoke of incense coated them, so that the
+faint colors that were laid upon them were sunk almost out of sight. The
+very wood itself was weather-stained, and a chip out of it left no trace
+of life or freshness beneath. Centuries old they seemed, these small
+panels, sacred _Ikons_. In far-away Russia they may have been venerated
+before this continent had verified the dream of Columbus. As we were
+breaking nearly all the laws of propriety, I thought it safe to inquire
+the price of these. I did so. Would I had been the sole one within
+hearing that I might have glutted my gorge on the spot! They were
+fifteen cents apiece, and they were divided among us as ruthlessly as if
+they were the seamless shirt of blessed memory.
+
+Meanwhile the ceremonies at the high altar had come to an end. The
+amiable assistant of Father Mitropolski was displaying the treasures of
+the sanctuary with pardonable pride,--jewelled crosiers, golden
+chalices, robes resplendent with rubies, amethysts and pearls, paintings
+upon ivory, and images clothed in silver and precious stones. The little
+chapel, cruciform, is decorated in white and gold; the altar screens are
+of bronze set with images of silver. Soft carpets of the Orient were
+spread upon the steps of the altar.
+
+How pretty it all seemed as we turned to leave the place and saw
+everything dimly in the blue vapor that still sweetened and hallowed it!
+And when the six bells in the belfry all fell to ringing riotously, and
+the sun let slip a few stray beams that painted the spire a richer
+green, and the grassy street that stretches from the church porch to the
+shore was dotted with groups of strollers, St Michael's at Sitka, in
+spite of its dingy and unsymmetrical exterior, seemed to us one of the
+prettiest spots it had ever been our lot to see.
+
+It is a grassy and a mossy town that gathers about the Russian chapel.
+All the old houses were built to last (as they are likely to do) for
+many generations to come. They are log-houses--the public buildings, the
+once fashionable officers' club, and many of the residences,--formed of
+solid square brown logs laid one upon another until you come to the
+roof. At times the logs are clapboarded without, and are all lathed and
+plastered within. The floors are solid and the stairs also. The wonder
+is how the town can ever go to ruin--save by fire; for wood doesn't rot
+in Alaska, but will lie in logs exposed to the changes of the season for
+an indefinite period.
+
+I saw in a wood back of the town an immense log. It was in the primeval
+forest, and below it were layers of other logs lying crosswise and in
+confusion. I know not how far below me was the solid earth, for mats of
+thick moss and deep beds of dead leaves filled the hollows between the
+logs; but this log, nearly three feet in diameter, was above them all;
+and out of it--from a seed no doubt imbedded in the bark--had sprung a
+tree that is to-day as great in girth as the log that lies prostrate
+beneath its roots. These mighty roots have clasped that log in an
+everlasting embrace and struck down into the soil below. You can
+conjecture how long the log has been lying there in that tangle of
+mighty roots--yet the log is to-day as sound a bit of timber as one is
+likely to find anywhere.
+
+Alaska is buried under forests like these--I mean that part of it which
+is not still cased in ice and snow. A late official gave me out of his
+cabinet a relic of the past. It is a stone pestle, rudely but
+symmetrically hewn,--evidently the work of the aborigines. This pestle,
+with several stone implements of domestic utility, was discovered by a
+party of prospectors who had dug under the roots of a giant tree. Eleven
+feet beneath the surface, directly under the tree and surrounded by
+gigantic roots, this pestle, and some others of a similar character,
+together with mortars and various utensils, were scattered through the
+soil. Most of the collection went to the Smithsonian Institute, and
+perhaps their origin and history may be some day conjectured. How many
+ages more, I wonder, will be required to develop the resources of this
+vast out-of-door country?
+
+When the tardy darkness fell upon Sitka--toward midnight--the town was
+hardly more silent than it had been throughout the day. A few lights
+were twinkling in distant windows; a few Indians were prowling about;
+the water rippled along the winding shore; and from time to time as the
+fresh gusts blew in from the sea, some sleepless bird sailed over us on
+shadowy wings, and uttered a half-smothered cry that startled the
+listener. Then, indeed, old Sitka, which was once called New Archangel,
+seemed but a relic of the past, whose vague, romantic history will
+probably never be fully known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Katalan's Rock.
+
+
+Katalan's Rock towers above the sea at the top corner of Sitka. Below
+it, on the one hand, the ancient colonial houses are scattered down the
+shore among green lawns like pasture lands, and beside grass-grown
+streets with a trail of dust in the middle of them. On the other hand,
+the Siwash Indian lodges are clustered all along the beach. This
+rancheria was originally separated from the town by a high stockade, and
+the huge gates were closed at night for the greater security of the
+inhabitants; but since the American occupation the gates have been
+destroyed, and only a portion of the stockade remains.
+
+Katalan's Rock is steep enough to command the town, and ample enough to
+afford all the space necessary for fortifications and the accommodation
+of troops and stores. A natural Gibraltar, it was the site of the first
+settlement, and has ever remained the most conspicuous and distinguished
+quarter of the colony. The first building erected on this rock was a
+block-house, which was afterward burned. A second building, reared on
+the ruins of the first, was destroyed by an earthquake; but a third, the
+colonial castle and residence of the governors, stands to this day. It
+crowns the summit of the rock, is one hundred and forty feet in length,
+seventy feet in depth, two stories with basement and attic, and has a
+lookout that commands one of the most romantic and picturesque
+combinations of land and sea imaginable.
+
+It is not a handsome edifice, nor is it in the least like a castle, nor
+like what one supposes a castle should be. Were it anywhere else, it
+might pass for the country residence of a gentleman of the old school,
+or for an unfashionable suburban hotel, or for a provincial seminary. It
+is built of solid cedar logs that seem destined to weather the storms of
+ages. These logs are secured by innumerable copper bolts; and the whole
+structure is riveted to the rocks, so that neither wind nor wave nor
+earthquake shock is likely to prevail against it.
+
+Handsomely finished within, it was in the colonial days richly
+furnished; and as Sitka was at that time a large settlement composed of
+wealthy and highbred Russians, governed by a prince or a baron whose
+petty court was made up of the representatives of the rank and fashion
+of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the colonial castle was most of the time
+the scene of social splendor.
+
+The fame of the brilliant and beautiful Baroness Wrangell, first
+chatelaine of the castle, lives after her. She was succeeded by the wife
+of Governor Kupreanoff, a brave lady, who in 1835 crossed Siberia on
+horseback to Behring Sea on her way to Sitka. Later the Princess
+Maksontoff became the social queen, and reigned in the little castle on
+Katalan's Rock as never queen reigned before. A flagship was anchored
+under the windows, and the proud Admiral spent much of his time on
+shore. The officers' clubhouse, yonder down the grassy street, was the
+favorite lounging place of the navy. The tea-gardens have run to seed,
+and the race-course is obliterated, where, doubtless, fair ladies and
+brave men disported themselves in the interminable twilights of the
+Alaskan summer. In the reign of the Princess Maksontoff the ladies were
+first shown to the sideboard. When they had regaled themselves with
+potent punch and caviare, the gentlemen followed suit. But the big
+brazen samovar was forever steaming in the grand salon, and delicious
+draughts of caravan tea were in order at all hours.
+
+What days they were, when the castle was thronged with guests, and those
+of all ages and descriptions and from every rank in and out of society!
+The presidential levee is not more democratic than were the _fétes_ of
+the Princess Maksontoff. To the music of the Admiral's band combined
+with the castle orchestra, it was "all hands round." The Prince danced
+with each and every lady in turn. The Princess was no less gracious, for
+all danced with her who chose, from the Lord High Admiral to midshipmite
+and the crew of the captain's gig.
+
+You will read of these things in the pages of Lutka, Sir George Simpson,
+Sir Edward Belcher, and other early voyagers. They vouch for the unique
+charm of the colonial life at that day. Washington Irving, in his
+"Astoria," has something to say of New Archangel (Michael), or
+"Sheetka," as he spells it; but it is of the time when the ships of
+John Jacob Astor were touching in that vicinity, and the reports are not
+so pleasing.
+
+While social life in the little colony was still more enjoyable, a
+change came that in a single hour reversed the order of affairs. For
+years Russia had been willing, if not eager, to dispose of the great
+lands that lay along the northwestern coast of America. She seemed never
+to have cared much for them, nor to have believed much in their present
+value or possible future development. No enterprise was evinced among
+the people: they were comparative exiles, who sought to relieve the
+monotony of their existence by one constant round of gaity. _Soirées_ at
+the castle, tea-garden parties, picnics upon the thousand lovely isles
+that beautify the Sitkan Sea; strolls among the sylvan retreats in which
+the primeval forest, at the very edge of the town, abounds; fishing and
+hunting expeditions, music, dancing, lively conversation, strong punch,
+caviare and the steaming samovar,--those were the chief diversions with
+which noble and serf alike sought to lighten the burden of the day.
+
+While Russia was willing to part with the lone land on the Pacific, she
+was determined that it should not pass into the hands of certain of the
+powers for whom she had little or no love. Hence there was time for the
+United States to consider the question of a purchase and to haggle a
+little over the price. For years the bargain hung in the balance. When
+it was finally settled, it was settled so suddenly that the witnesses
+had to be wakened and called out of their beds. They assembled secretly,
+in the middle of the night, as if they were conspirators; and before
+sunrise the whole matter was fixed forever.
+
+On the 18th of October, 1867, three United States ships of war anchored
+off Katalan's Rock. These were the Ossipee, the Jamestown and the
+Resaca. In the afternoon, at half-past three o'clock, the terrace before
+the castle was surrounded by United States troops, Russian soldiers,
+officials, citizens and Indians. The town was alive with Russian
+bunting, and the ships aflutter with Stars and Stripes and streamers.
+There was something ominous in the air and in the sunshine. Bang! went
+the guns from the Ossipee, and the Russian flag slowly descended from
+the lofty staff on the castle; but the wind caught it and twisted it
+round and round the staff, and it was long before a boatswain's chair
+could be rigged to the halyards, and some one hauled up to disentangle
+the rebellious banner.
+
+Meanwhile the rain began to fall, and the Princess Maksontoff was in
+tears. It was a dismal hour for the proud court of the doughty governor.
+The Russian water battery was firing a salute from the dock as the Stars
+and Stripes were climbing to the skies--the great continent of icy peaks
+and pine was passing from the hands of one nation to the other. In the
+silence that ensued, Captain Pestehouroff stepped forward and said: "By
+authority of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United
+States the Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered
+his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time
+fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but
+three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding
+which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of
+the United States government--both the acquisition and the fault-finding
+were on the part of our government--had best be left unmentioned. Now
+that the glorious waters of that magnificent archipelago have become
+the resort of summer tourists, every man, woman and child can see for
+his, her and its self; and this is the only way in which to convince an
+American of anything.
+
+Thirty years ago Sitka was what I have attempted to describe above.
+To-day how different! Passing its barracks at the foot of Katalan's
+Rock, one sees a handful of marines looking decidedly bored if off duty.
+The steps that lead up to the steep incline of the rock to the castle
+terrace are fast falling to decay. Weeds and rank grass trail over them
+and cover the whole top of the rock. The castle has been dismantled. The
+walls will stand until they are blown up or torn down, but all traces of
+the original ornamentation of the interior have disappeared. The carved
+balustrades, the curious locks, knobs, hinges, chandeliers, and
+fragments of the wainscoting, have been borne away by enterprising curio
+hunters. There was positively nothing left for me to take.
+
+One may still see the chamber occupied by Secretary Seward, who closed
+the bargain with the Russian Government at $7,200,000, cash down. Lady
+Franklin occupied that chamber when she was scouring these waters in the
+fearless and indefatigable, but fruitless, search for the relics of the
+lost Sir John. One handsome apartment has been partially restored and
+suitably furnished for the use of the United States District Attorney.
+Two rooms on the groundfloor are occupied by the signal officers; but
+the rest of the building is in a shameful condition, and only its
+traditions remain to make it an object of interest to every stranger
+guest.
+
+It is said that twice in the year, at the dead hour of the night, the
+ghost of a bride wanders sorrowfully from room to room. She was the
+daughter of one of the old governors--a stern parent, who forced her
+into a marriage without love. On the bridal eve, while all the guests
+were assembled, and the bride, in wedding garments, was the centre of
+attraction, she suddenly disappeared. After a long search her body was
+found in one of the apartments of the castle, but life was extinct. At
+Eastertide the shade of this sad body makes the round of the deserted
+halls, and in passing leaves after it a faint odor of wild roses.
+
+The basement is half filled with old rubbish. I found rooms where an
+amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the
+walls recorded the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with
+index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork _débris_ was scattered
+about, and there were "old soldiers" enough on the premises to have
+quite staggered a moralist. The Muscovite reign is over. The Princess is
+in her grave on the hill yonder,--a grave that was forgotten for a time
+and lost in the jungle that has overgrown the old Russian cemetery. The
+Indians mutilated that tomb; but Lieutenant Gilman, in charge of the
+marines attached to the Adams, restored it; and he, with his men, did
+much toward preserving Sitka from going to the dogs.
+
+Gone are the good old days, but the Americanized Sitka does not propose
+to be behind the times. I discovered a theatre. It was in one of the
+original Russian houses, doomed to last forever--a long, narrow hall,
+with a stage at the upper end of it. A few scenes, evidently painted on
+the spot and in dire distress; a drop-curtain depicting an utterly
+impracticable roseate ice-gorge in the ideal Alaska, and four
+footlights, constituted the sum total of the properties. The stage was
+six feet deep, about ten feet broad, and the "flies" hung like "bangs"
+above the foreheads of the players. In the next room, convenient in
+case of a panic, was the Sitka fire department, consisting of a machine
+of one-man-power, which a small boy might work without endangering
+anybody or anything.
+
+Suburban Sitka is sweet and sad. One passes on the way to the wildwood,
+where everybody goes as often as may be,--a so-called "blarney stone."
+Many a fellow has chipped away at that stone while he chatted with his
+girl--I suppose that is where the blarney comes in,--and left his name
+or initials for a sacred memory. There are dull old Russian hieroglyphs
+there likewise. Love is alike in all languages, you know. The truth
+about the stone is merely this: it is a big soft stone by the sea, and
+of just the right height to rest a weary pilgrim. There old Baranoff,
+the first governor, used to sit of a summer afternoon and sip his
+Russian brandy until he was as senseless as the stone beneath him; and
+then he was carried in state up to the colonial castle and suffered to
+sober off.
+
+Beyond the stone, and the curving beach with the grass-grown highway
+skirting it, is the forest; and through this forest is the lovers' lane,
+made long ago by the early colonists and kept in perfect trim by the
+latest,--a lane that is green-arched overhead and fern-walled on either
+side, and soft with the dust of dead pine boughs underfoot. There also
+are streams and waterfalls and rustic bridges such as one might look for
+in some stately park in England, but hardly in Alaska. Surely there is
+no bit of wilderness finer than this. All is sweet and grave and silent,
+save for the ripple of waters and the sighing of winds.
+
+As for the Siwash village on the other side of Sitka, it is a Siwash
+village over again. How soon one wearies of them! But one ought never to
+weary of the glorious sea isles and the overshadowing mountains that lie
+on every side of the quaint, half-barbarous capital. Though it is dead
+to the core and beginning to show the signs of death, it is one of the
+dreamiest spots on earth, and just the one for long summer solitude,--at
+least so we all thought, for on the morrow we were homeward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+From the Far North.
+
+
+Sitka is the turning-point in the Alaskan summer cruise. It is the
+beginning of the end; and I am more than half inclined to think that in
+most cases--charming as the voyage is and unique in its way beyond any
+other voyage within reach of the summer tourist--the voyager is glad of
+it. One never gets over the longing for some intelligence from the outer
+world; never quite becomes accustomed to the lonely, far-away feeling
+that at times is a little painful and often is a bore.
+
+During the last hours at Sitka, Mount Edgecombe loomed up gloriously,
+and reminded one of Fugjyamma. It is a very handsome and a highly
+ornamental mountain. So are the islands that lie between it and the
+Sitkan shore handsome and ornamental, but there are far too many of
+them. The picture is overcrowded, and in this respect is as unlike the
+Bay of Naples as possible; though some writers have compared them, and
+of course, as is usual in cases of comparison, to the disadvantage of
+the latter.
+
+Leaving Sitka, we ran out to sea. It was much easier to do this than go
+a long way round among the islands; and, as the weather was fair, the
+short cut was delightful. We rocked like a cradle--the _Ancon_ rocks
+like a cradle on the slightest provocation. The sea sparkled, the
+wavelets leaped and clapped their hands. Once in awhile a plume of spray
+was blown over the bow, and the delicate stomach recoiled upon itself
+suggestively; but the deliciousness of the air in the open sea and the
+brevity of the cruise--we were but five or six hours outside--kept us in
+a state of intense delight. Presently we ran back into the maze of
+fiords and land-locked lakes, and resumed the same old round of daily
+and nightly experiences.
+
+Juneau, Douglas Island, Fort Wrangell, and several fishing stations were
+revisited. They seemed a little stale to us, and we were inclined to
+snub them slightly. Of course we thought we knew it all--most of us knew
+as much as we cared to know; and so we strolled leisurely about the
+solemn little settlements, and, no doubt, but poorly succeeded in
+disguising the superior air which distinguishes the new arrival in a
+strange land. It is but a step from a state of absolute greenness on
+one's arrival at a new port to a _blasé_ languor, wherein nothing can
+touch one further; and the step is easily and usually taken inside of a
+week. May the old settlers forgive us our idiocy!
+
+There was a rainy afternoon at Fort Wrangell,--a very proper background,
+for the place is dismal to a degree. An old stern-wheel steamboat,
+beached in the edge of the village, was used as a hotel during the
+decline of the gold fever; but while the fever was at its height the
+boat is said to have cleared $135,000 per season. The coolie has bored
+into its hollow shell and washes there, clad in a semi-Boyton suit of
+waterproof.
+
+I made my way through the dense drizzle to the Indian village at the far
+end of the town. The untrodden streets are grass-grown; and a number of
+the little houses, gray with weather stains, are deserted and falling to
+decay. Reaching a point of land that ran out and lost itself in mist, I
+found a few Indians smoking and steaming, as they sat in the damp sand
+by their canoes.
+
+A long footbridge spans a strip of tide land. I ventured to cross it,
+though it looked as if it would blow away in the first gust of wind. It
+was a long, long bridge, about broad enough for a single passenger; yet
+I was met in the middle of it by a well-blanketed squaw, bound inland.
+It was a question in my mind whether it were better to run and leap
+lightly over her, since we must pass on a single rail, or to lie down
+and allow her to climb over me. O happy inspiration! In the mist and the
+rain, in the midst of that airy path, high above the mud flats, and with
+the sullen tide slowly sweeping in from the gray wastes beyond the
+capes, I seized my partner convulsively, and with our toes together we
+swung as on a pivot and went our ways rejoicing.
+
+The bridge led to the door of a chief's house, and the door stood open.
+It was a large, square house, of one room only, and with the floor sunk
+to the depth of three feet in the centre. It was like looking into a dry
+swimming bath. A step, or terrace, on the four sides of the room made
+the descent easy, and I descended. The chief, in a cast-off military
+jacket, gave me welcome with a mouthful of low gutterals. I found a good
+stove in the lodge and several comfortable-looking beds, with chintz
+curtains and an Oriental superabundance of pillows. A few photographs in
+cheap frames adorned the walls; a few flaming chromos--Crucifixions and
+the like--hung there, along with fathoms of fishnet, clusters of
+fish-hooks, paddles, kitchen furniture, wearing apparel, and a
+blunderbuss or two. Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings,
+supported the heavy beams of the roof in the manner of caryatides. These
+figures, half veiled in shadow, were most impressive, and gave a kind of
+Egyptian solemnity to the dimly lighted apartment.
+
+The chief was not alone. His man Friday was with him, and together we
+sat and smoked in a silence that was almost suffocating. It fairly
+snapped once or twice, it was so dense; and then we three exchanged
+grave smiles and puffed away in great contentment. The interview was
+brought to a sudden close by the chief's making me a very earnest offer
+of $6 for my much-admired gum ulster, and I refusing it with scorn--for
+it was still raining. So we parted coldly, and I once more walked the
+giddy bridge with fear and trembling; for I am not a somnambulist, who
+alone might perform there with impunity.
+
+It was a bad day for curios. The town had been sacked on the voyage up;
+yet I prowled in these quarters, where one would least expect to find
+treasure, inasmuch as it is mostly found just there. Presently the most
+hideous of faces was turned up at me from the threshold of a humble
+lodge. It was of a dead green color, with blood trimmings; the nose
+beaked like a parrot's, the mouth a gaping crescent; the eyeless sockets
+seemed to sparkle and blink with inner eyes set in the back of the
+skull; murderous scalp locks streamed over the ill-shapen brow; and from
+the depths of this monstrosity some one, or something, said, "Boo!" I
+sprang backward, only to hear the gurgle of baby laughter, and see the
+wee face of a half-Indian cherub peering from behind the mask. Well,
+that mask is mine now; and whenever I look at it I think of the falling
+dusk in Fort Wrangell, and of the child on all-fours who startled me on
+my return from the chief's house beyond the bridge, and who cried as if
+her little heart would break when I paid for her plaything and cruelly
+bore it away.
+
+Some of the happiest hours of the voyage were the "wee sma'" ones, when
+I lounged about the deserted deck with Captain George, the pilot. A
+gentleman of vast experience and great reserve, for years he has haunted
+that archipelago; he knows it in the dark, and it was his nightly duty
+to pace the deck while the ship was almost as still as death. He has
+heard the great singers of the past, the queens of song whose voices
+were long since hushed. We talked of these in the vast silence of the
+Alaskan night, and of the literature of the sea, and especially of that
+solitary northwestern sea, while we picked our way among the unpeopled
+islands that crowded all about us.
+
+On such a night, while we were chatting in low voices as we leaned over
+the quarter-rail, and the few figures that still haunted the deck were
+like veritable ghosts, Captain George seized me by the arm and
+exclaimed: "Look there!" I looked up into the northern sky. There was
+not a cloud visible in all that wide expanse, but something more filmy
+than a cloud floated like a banner among the stars. It might almost have
+been a cobweb stretched from star to star--each strand woven from a star
+beam,--but it was ever changing in form and color. Now it was
+scarf-like, fluttering and waving in a gentle breeze; and now it hung
+motionless--a deep fringe of lace gathered in ample folds. Anon it
+opened suddenly from the horizon, and spread in panels like a fan that
+filled the heavens. As it opened and shut and swayed to and fro as if it
+were a fan in motion, it assumed in turn all the colors of the rainbow,
+but with a delicacy of tint and texture even beyond that of the rainbow.
+Sometimes it was like a series of transparencies--shadow pictures thrown
+upon the screen of heaven, lit by a light beyond it--the mysterious
+light we know not of. That is what the pilot and I saw while most of the
+passengers were sleeping. It was the veritable _aurora borealis_, and
+that alone were worth the trip to Alaska.
+
+One day we came to Fort Tongass--a port of entry, and our last port in
+the great, lone land--for all the way down through the British
+possessions we touch no land until we reach Victoria or Nanaimo. Tongass
+was once a military post, and now has the unmistakable air of a desert
+island. Some of us were not at all eager to go on shore. You see, we
+were beginning to get our fill of this monotonous out-of-the-world and
+out-of-the-way life. Yet Tongass is unique, and certainly has the most
+interesting collection of totem poles that one is likely to see on the
+voyage. At Tongass there is a little curving beach, where the ripples
+sparkle among the pebbles. Beyond the beach is a strip of green lawn,
+and at the top of the lawn the old officers' quarters, now falling to
+decay. For background there are rocks and trees and the sea. The sea is
+everywhere about Tongass, and the sea-breezes blow briskly, and the
+sea-gulls waddle about the lawn and sit in rows upon the sagging roofs
+as if they were thoroughly domesticated. Oh, what a droll place it is!
+
+After a little deliberation we all went ashore in several huge
+boat-loads; and, to our surprise, were welcomed by a charming young
+bride in white muslin and ribbons of baby-blue. Somehow she had found
+her way to the desert island--or did she spring up there like a wild
+flower? And the grace with which she did the honors was the subject of
+unbounded praise during the remainder of the voyage.
+
+This pretty Bret Harte heroine, with all of the charms and virtues and
+none of the vices of his camp-followers, led us through the jagged rocks
+of the dilapidated quarters, down among the spray-wet rocks on the
+other side of the island, and all along the dreary waste that fronts the
+Indian village. Oh, how dreary that waste is!--the rocks, black and
+barren, and scattered far into the frothing sea; the sandy path along
+the front of the Indian lodges, with rank grass shaking and shivering in
+the wind; the solemn and grim array of totem poles standing in front or
+at the sides of the weather-stained lodges--and the whole place
+deserted. I know not where the Indians had gone, but they were not
+there--save a sick squaw or two. Probably, being fishermen, the tribe
+had gone out with their canoes, and were now busy with the spoils
+somewhere among the thousand passages of the archipelago.
+
+The totem poles at Tongass are richly carved, brilliantly colored, and
+grotesque in the extreme. Some of the lodges were roomy but sad-looking,
+and with a perpetual shade hovering through them. We found inscriptions
+in English--very rudely lettered--on many of the lodges and totem poles:
+"In memory of" some one or another chief or notable red-man. Over one
+door was this inscription: "In memory of ----, who died by his own
+hand." The lodge door was fastened with a rusty padlock, and the place
+looked ghoulish.
+
+I think we were all glad to get out of Tongass, though we received our
+best welcome there. At any rate, we sat on the beach and got our feet
+wet and our pockets full of sand waiting for the deliberate but
+dead-sure boatmen to row us to the ship. When we steamed away we left
+the little bride in her desert island to the serene and sacred joy of
+her honeymoon, hoping that long before it had begun to wane she might
+return to the world; for in three brief weeks we were beginning to lust
+after it. That evening we anchored in a well-wooded cove and took on
+several lighter-loads of salmon casks. Captain Carroll and the best
+shots in the ship passed the time in shooting at a barrel floating three
+hundred yards distant. So ran our little world away, as we were homeward
+bound and rapidly nearing the end of the voyage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Out of the Arctic.
+
+
+When Captain Cook--who, with Captain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young
+ladies' ideal romance of the seas--was in these waters, he asked the
+natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied:
+"Alaska"--great land. It _is_ a great land, lying loosely along the
+northwest coast,--great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of
+its forests and in the fruitfulness of its many waters; great in the
+splendor of its ice fields; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence
+of its snow-clad peaks; great also in its possibilities, and greatest of
+all in its measureless wealth of gold.
+
+In the good old days of the Muscovite reign--1811,--Governor Baranoff
+sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where
+grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of
+Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise. The
+Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his
+wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if
+his fresh food fails.
+
+The stagnation of life in Alaska is all but inconceivable. The summer
+tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the
+only variety it knows; and this comes so seldom--once or twice a
+month--that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the
+steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the excitement
+is over, quietly subsiding into a comatose state, and remaining in it
+until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically;
+takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one of the goat-paths
+that strike inland; nodding now and again to the familiar faces that
+seem never to change in expression except during tourist's hours; and
+then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of the solitary, for
+sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the
+brief night--barely forty winks in length--is so silvery and so soft
+that it is a delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and
+shadows play with one another, and are reflected in sea and sky until
+the eye is almost dazzled with the loveliness of the scene. I believe if
+I were banished to Alaska I would sleep in the daytime--say from 8 a. m.
+to 5 p. m.,--and revel in the wakeful beauty of the other hours.
+
+But the winter, and the endless night of winter!--when the sun sinks to
+rest in discouragement at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and
+rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the
+forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name--for the dull
+luminary, having barely got above the fence at twelve o'clock, backs out
+of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to
+endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty! Since the moon is
+no more obliging to the Alaskans than the sun is, what is a poor fellow
+to do? He can watch the aurora until his eyes ache; he can sit over a
+game of cards and a glass of toddy--he can always get the latter up
+there; he can trim his lamp and chat with his chums and fill his pipe
+over and over again. But the night thickens and the time begins to lag;
+he looks at his watch, to find it is only 9 p. m., and there are twelve
+hours between him and daylight. It is a great land in which to store
+one's mind with knowledge, provided one has the books at hand and good
+eyes and a lamp that won't flicker or smoke. Yet why should I worry
+about this when there are people who live through it and like it?--or at
+least they say they do.
+
+In my mind's eye I see the Alaska of the future--and the not far-distant
+future. Among the most beautiful of the islands there will be fine
+openings; lawns and flowers will carpet the slopes from the dark walls
+of the forest to the water's edge. In the midst of these favored spots
+summer hotels will throw wide their glorious windows upon vistas that
+are like glimpses of fairy land. Along the beach numerous skiffs await
+those who are weary of towns; steam launches are there, and small barges
+for the transportation of picnic parties to undiscovered islands in the
+dim distance. Sloop yachts with the more adventurous will go forth on
+voyages of exploration and discovery, two or three days in length, under
+the guidance of stolid, thoroughbred Indian pilots. There may be an
+occasional wreck, with narrow escapes from the watery grave--let us hope
+so, for the sake of variety. There will be fishing parties galore, and
+camping on foreign shores, and eagle hunts, and the delights of the
+chase; with Indian retinues and Chinese cooks, and the "swell toggery"
+that is the chief, if not the only, charm of that sort of thing. There
+will be circulating libraries in each hotel, and grand pianos, and
+private theatricals, and nightly hops that may last indefinitely, or at
+least until sunrise, without shocking the most prudent; for day breaks
+at 2 a. m.
+
+There will be visits from one hotel to the other, and sea-voyages to
+dear old Sitka, where the Grand Hotel will be located; and there will be
+the regular weekly or semi-weekly boat to the Muir glacier, with
+professional guides to the top of it, and all the necessary traps
+furnished on board if desired. And this wild life can begin as early as
+April and go on until the end of September without serious injury. There
+will be no hay fever or prickly-heat; neither will there be sunstrokes
+nor any of the horrors of the Eastern and Southern summer. It will
+remain true to its promise of sweet, warm days, and deliciously cool
+evenings, in which the young lover may woo his fair to the greatest
+advantage; for there is no night there. Then everyone will come home
+with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with,
+and the rarest nowadays; and with a pocketful of Alaskan garnets, which
+are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utterly
+valueless, and unhandsome even when they are beautifully symmetrical.
+
+Oh, the memory of the voyage, which is perhaps the most precious of
+all!--this we bring home with us forever. The memory of all that is half
+civilized and wholly unique and uncommon: of sleepy and smoky wigwams,
+where the ten tribes hold powwow in a confusion of gutturals, with a
+plentiful mixture of saliva; for it is a moist language, a gurgle that
+approaches a gargle, and in three weeks the unaccustomed ear scarcely
+recovers from the first shock of it; a memory of totem poles in stark
+array, and of the high feast in the Indian villages, where the beauty
+and chivalry of the forest gathered and squatted in wide circles
+listening to some old-man-eloquent in the very ecstasy of expectoration;
+the memory of a non-committing, uncommunicative race, whose religion is
+a feeble polytheism--a kind of demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not
+injure one, one's whole time is given to the propitiation of the evil.
+This is called Shamanism, and is said to have been the religion of the
+Tartar race before the introduction of Buddhism, and is still the creed
+of the Siberians; a memory of solitary canoes on moonlit seas and of
+spicy pine odors mingled with the tonic of moist kelp and salt-sea air.
+
+A memory of friends who were altogether charming, of a festival without
+a flaw. O my kind readers! when the Alaska Summer Hotel Company has
+stocked the nooks and corners of the archipelago with caravansaries, and
+good boats are filling them with guests who go to spend the season in
+the far Northwest, fail not to see that you are numbered among the
+elect; for Alaska outrivers all rivers and out-lakes all lakes--being
+itself a lake of ten thousand islands; it out-mountains the Alps of
+America, and certainly outdoes everything else everywhere else, in the
+shape of a watering place. And when you have returned from there, after
+two or three months' absence from the world and its weariness, you will
+begin to find that your "tum-tum is white" for the first time since your
+baptismal day, and that you have gained enough in strength and energy to
+topple the totem pole of your enemy without shedding a feather. There
+is hope for Alaska in the line of a summer resort.
+
+As ghosts scent the morning air and are dispersed, so we scented the
+air, which actually seemed more familiar as we approached Washington in
+the great Northwest; and the spirit of peace, of ease and of lazy
+contentment that had possessed our souls for three weeks took flight. It
+was now but a day's sail to Victoria, and yet we began to think we would
+never get there.
+
+We were hungry for news of the world which we had well-nigh forgotten.
+Three weeks! It seemed to us that in this little while cities might have
+been destroyed, governments overthrown, new islands upheaved and old
+ones swallowed out of sight. Then we were all expecting to find heaps of
+letters from everybody awaiting us at Victoria or Port Townsend, and our
+mouths fairly watered for news.
+
+We took a little run into the sea and got lost in a fog; but the pilot
+whistled for the landmarks, and Echo answered; so that by the time the
+fog was ready to roll away, like a snowy drop-curtain, we knew just
+where we were, and ran quietly into a nook that looked as if it would
+fit us like a bootjack. The atmosphere grew smoky; forest fires painted
+the sky with burnt umber, and through this veil the sun shone like a
+copper shield. Then a gorgeous moonlight followed. There was blood upon
+that moon, and all the shores were like veins in moss-agate and the sea
+like oil. We wound in and out, in and out, among dreamy islands; touched
+for a little while at Nanaimo, where we should have taken in a cargo of
+coal for Portland, whither the _Ancon_ was bound; but Captain Carroll
+kindly put us all ashore first and then returned for his freight.
+
+We hated to sleep that night, and did not sleep very much. But when we
+awakened it was uncommonly quiet; and upon going on deck--lo! we were at
+Victoria. What a quiet, pretty spot! What a restful and temperate
+climate! What jutting shores, soft hills, fine drives, old-countrified
+houses and porters' lodges and cottages, with homely flowers in the
+door-yards and homely people in the doors!--homely I mean in the
+handsomest sense, for I can not imagine the artificial long survives in
+that community.
+
+How dear to us seemed civilization after our wanderings in the
+wilderness! We bought newspapers and devoured them; ran in and out of
+shops just for the fun of it and because our liberty was so dear to us
+then. News? We were fairly staggered with the abundance of it, and
+exchanged it with one another in the most fraternal fashion, sharing our
+joys and sorrows with the whole ship's company. And deaths? What a lot
+of these, and how startling when they come so unexpectedly and in such
+numbers! Why is it, I wonder, that so many people die when we are away
+somewhere beyond reach of communication?
+
+But enough of this. A few jolly hours on shore, a few drives in the
+suburbs and strolls in the town, and we headed for Port Townsend and the
+United States, where we parted company with the good old ship that
+carried us safely to and fro. And there we ended the Alaskan voyage
+gladly enough, but not without regret; for, though uneventful, I can
+truly say it was one of the pleasantest voyages of my life; and one
+that--thanks to every one who shared it with me--I shall ever remember
+with unalloyed delight.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by 
+Charles Warren Stoddard
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Over The Rocky Mountains, by Charles Warren Stoddard
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by 
+Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
+
+Author: Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO ALASKA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Vachuska, Constanze Hofmann and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Over the Rocky Mountains
+to Alaska</h1>
+
+<div class="center" style="padding-top: 1em;">
+     <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="401" height="600"
+       alt="Cover Illustration" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage">BY<br />
+CHARLES WARREN STODDARD</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>Third Edition</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">ST. LOUIS, MO., 1914<br />
+Published by B. HERDER<br />
+17 South Broadway</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">FREIBURG (BADEN)
+Germany</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">LONDON, W. C.
+68 Great Russell Str.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr65" />
+
+<p class="titlepage">Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Gummersbach.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr65" />
+
+<p class="titlepage">&mdash;BECKTOLD&mdash;<br />
+PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO.<br />
+ST. LOUIS, MO.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="titlepage newpart">To<br />
+KENNETH O'CONNOR,<br />
+First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers,<br />
+Gen'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps,<br />
+Santiago de Cuba:<br />
+<span class="smcap">In Memory of Our Home-life In<br />
+The Bungalow.</span>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>NOTE.</h2>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>The Author returns thanks to the Editor of the <i>Ave Maria</i> for the
+privilege of republishing these notes of travel and adventure.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="divtoc">
+<ul class="toc">
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Due West to Denver</a> <span class="ralign">7</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">In Denver Town</a> <span class="ralign">18</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Garden of the Gods</a> <span class="ralign">29</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">A Whirl across the Rockies</a> <span class="ralign">40</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Off for Alaska</a> <span class="ralign">47</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">In the Inland Sea</a> <span class="ralign">56</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Alaskan Village Life</a> <span class="ralign">66</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Juneau</a> <span class="ralign">74</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">By Solitary Shores</a> <span class="ralign">86</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">In Search of the Totem-Pole</a> <span class="ralign">98</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">In the Sea of Ice</a> <span class="ralign">111</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Alaska's Capital</a> <span class="ralign">124</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Katalan's Rock</a> <span class="ralign">136</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">From the Far North</a> <span class="ralign">148</span></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Out of the Arctic</a> <span class="ralign">159</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><br />
+Due West to Denver.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Commencement week at Notre Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Multitudes of
+guests who had been camping for a night or two in the recitation
+rooms&mdash;our temporary dormitories&mdash;gave themselves up to the boyish
+delights of school-life, and set numerous examples which the students
+were only too glad to follow. The boat race on the lake was a picture;
+the champion baseball match, a companion piece; but the highly decorated
+prize scholars, glittering with gold and silver medals, and badges of
+satin and bullion; the bevies of beautiful girls who for once&mdash;once only
+in the year&mdash;were given the liberty of the lawns, the campus, and the
+winding forest ways, that make of Notre Dame an elysium in summer; the
+frequent and inspiring blasts of the University Band, and the general
+joy that filled every heart to overflowing, rendered the last day of the
+scholastic year romantic to a degree and memorable forever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was no sleep during the closing night&mdash;not one solitary wink; all
+laws were dead-letters&mdash;alas that they should so soon arise again from
+the dead!&mdash;and when the wreath of stars that crowns the golden statue of
+Our Lady on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the
+wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into
+flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the
+plains of Indiana&mdash;then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched
+that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you
+which we did. The moon was very full that night, and I didn't blame it!</p>
+
+<p>But the picnic really began at the foot of the great stairway in front
+of the dear old University next morning. Five hundred possible
+presidents were to be distributed broadcast over the continent; five
+hundred sons and heirs to be returned with thanks to the yearning bosoms
+of their respective families. The floodgates of the trunk-rooms were
+thrown open, and a stream of Saratogas went thundering to the station at
+South Bend, two miles away. Hour after hour, and indeed for several
+days, huge trucks and express wagons plied to and fro, groaning under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+the burden of well-checked luggage. It is astonishing to behold how big
+a trunk a mere boy may claim for his very own; but it must be remembered
+that your schoolboy lives for several years within the brass-bound
+confines of a Saratoga. It is his bureau, his wardrobe, his private
+library, his museum and toy shop, the receptacle of all that is near and
+dear to him; it is, in brief, his <i>sanctum sanctorum</i>, the one inviolate
+spot in his whole scholastic career of which he, and he alone, holds the
+key.</p>
+
+<p>We came down with the tide in the rear of the trunk freshet. The way
+being more or less clear, navigation was declared open. The next moment
+saw a procession of chariots, semi-circus wagons and barouches filled
+with homeward-bound schoolboys and their escorts, dashing at a brisk
+trot toward the railroad station. Banners were flying, shouts rent the
+air; familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved benedictions from all
+points of the compass; while the gladness and the sadness of the hour
+were perpetuated by the aid of instantaneous photography. The
+enterprising kodaker caught us on the fly, just as the special train was
+leaving South Bend for Chicago; a train that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> was not to be dismembered
+or its exclusiveness violated until it had been run into the station at
+Denver.</p>
+
+<p>After this last negative attack we were set free. Vacation had begun in
+good earnest. What followed, think you? Mutual congratulations,
+flirtations and fumigations without ceasing; for there was much lost
+time to be made up, and here was a golden opportunity. O you who have
+been a schoolboy and lived for months and months in a pent-up Utica,
+where the glimpse of a girl is as welcome and as rare as a sunbeam in a
+cellar, you can imagine how the two hours and forty-five minutes were
+improved&mdash;and Chicago eighty miles away. It is true we all turned for a
+moment to catch a last glimpse of the University dome, towering over the
+treetops; and we felt very tenderly toward everyone there. But there
+were "sweet girl graduates" on board; and, as you know well enough, it
+required no laureate to sing their praises, though he has done so with
+all the gush and fervor of youth.</p>
+
+<p>It was summer. "It is always summer where they are," some youngster was
+heard to murmur. But it was really the summer solstice, or very near it.
+The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> pond-lilies were ripe; bushels of them were heaped upon the
+platforms at every station we came to; and before the first stage of our
+journey was far advanced the girls were sighing over lapfuls of lilies,
+and the lads tottering under the weight of stupendous <i>boutonni&egrave;res</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As we drew near the Lake City, the excitement visibly increased. Here,
+there were partings, and such sweet sorrow as poets love to sing. It
+were vain to tell how many promises were then and there made, and of
+course destined to be broken; how everybody was to go and spend a happy
+season with everybody or at least somebody else, and to write meanwhile
+without fail. There were good-byes again and again, and yet again; and,
+with much mingled emotion, we settled ourselves in luxurious seats and
+began to look dreamily toward Denver.</p>
+
+<p>In the mazes of the wonderful city of Chicago we saw the warp of that
+endless steel web over which we flew like spiders possessed. The sunken
+switches took our eye and held it for a time. But a greater marvel was
+the man with the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of iron, who
+sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played with
+trainfuls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> of his fellowmen&mdash;a mere question of life or death to be
+answered over and over again; played with them as the conjurer tosses
+his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one
+click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction;
+the perfect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little
+world, but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it
+every moment in the hour, and every hour in the day, and every day in
+the year.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take us long to discover the advantages of our special-car
+system. There were nigh fifty of us housed in a brace of excursion cars.
+In one of these&mdash;the parlor&mdash;the only stationary seats were at the two
+ends, while the whole floor was covered with easy-chairs of every
+conceivable pattern. The dining car was in reality a cardroom between
+meals&mdash;and <i>such</i> meals, for we had stocked the larder ourselves.
+Everywhere the agents of the several lines made their appearance and
+greeted us cordially; they were closeted for a few moments with the
+shepherd of our flock, Father Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame,
+Indiana; then they would take a bite with us&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> dish of berries or an
+ice,&mdash;for they invariably accompanied us down the road a few miles; and
+at last would bid us farewell with a flattering figure of speech, which
+is infinitely preferable to the traditional "Tickets, please; tickets!"</p>
+
+<p>At every town and village crowds came down to see us. We were evidently
+objects of interest. Even the nimble reporter was on hand, and looked
+with a not unkindly eye upon the lads who were celebrating the first
+hours of the vacation with an enthusiasm which had been generating for
+some weeks. There was such a making up of beds when, at dark, the parlor
+and dining cars were transformed into long, narrow dormitories, and the
+boys paired off, two and two, above and below, through the length of our
+flying university, and made a night of it, without fear of notes or
+detentions, and with no prefect stalking ghostlike in their midst.</p>
+
+<p>It would be hard to say which we found most diverting, the long, long
+landscape that divided as we passed, through it and closed up in the
+rear, leaving only the shining iron seam down the middle; the beautiful,
+undulating prairie land; the hot and dusty desolation of the plains;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+the delicious temperature of the highlands, as we approached the Rockies
+and had our first glimpse of Pike's Peak in its mantle of snow: the
+muddy rivers, along whose shores we glided swiftly hour after hour: the
+Mississippi by moonlight&mdash;we all sat up to see that&mdash;or the Missouri at
+Kansas City, where we began to scatter our brood among their far Western
+homes. At La Junta we said good-bye to the boys bound for Mexico and the
+Southwest. It was like a second closing of the scholastic year; the
+good-byes were now ringing fast and furious. Jolly fellows began to grow
+grave and the serious ones more solemn; for there had been no cloud or
+shadow for three rollicking days.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure there was a kind of infantile cyclone out on the plains,
+memorable for its superb atmospheric effects, and the rapidity with
+which we shut down the windows to keep from being inflated
+balloon-fashion. And there was a brisk hail-storm at the gate of the
+Rockies that peppered us smartly for a few moments. Then there were some
+boys who could not eat enough, and who turned from the dessert in
+tearful dismay; and one little kid who dived out of the top bunk in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+moment of rapture, and should have broken his neck&mdash;but he didn't!</p>
+
+<p>We were quite sybaritical as to hours, with breakfast and dinner
+courses, and mouth-organs and cigarettes and jam between meals. Frosted
+cake and oranges were left untouched upon the field after the
+gastronomical battles were fought so bravely three or four times a day.
+Perhaps the pineapples and bananas, and the open barrel of strawberries,
+within reach of all at any hour, may account for the phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>Pueblo! Ah me, the heat of that infernal junction! Pueblo, with the
+stump of its one memorable tree, or a slice of that stump turned up on
+end&mdash;to make room for a new railway-station, that could just as well
+have been built a few feet farther on,&mdash;and staring at you, with a full
+broadside of patent-medicine placards trying to cover its nakedness. On
+closer inspection we read this legend: "The tree that grew here was 380
+years old; circumference, 28 feet; height, 79 feet; was cut down June
+25, 1883, at a cost of $250." So perished, at the hands of an amazingly
+stupid city council, the oldest landmark in Colorado. Under the shade of
+this cottonwood Kit Carson, Wild Bill, and many another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> famous Indian
+scout built early camp fires. Near it, in 1850, thirty-six whites were
+massacred by Indians; upon one of its huge limbs fourteen men were
+hanged at convenient intervals; and it is a pity that the city council
+did not follow this admirable lead and leave the one glory of Pueblo to
+save it from damnation. It afforded the only grateful shelter in this
+furnace heat; it was the one beautiful object in a most unbeautiful
+place, and it has been razed to the ground in memory of the block-heads
+whose bodies were not worthy to enrich the roots of it. Tradition adds,
+pathetically enough, that the grave of the first white woman who died in
+that desert was made beneath the boughs of the "Old Monarch." May she
+rest in peace under the merciless hands of the baggage-master and his
+merry crew! Lightly lie the trunks that are heaped over her nameless
+dust! Well, there came a time when we forgot Pueblo, but we never will
+forgive the town council.</p>
+
+<p>Then we listened in vain at evening for the strumming of fandango music
+on multitudinous guitars, as was our custom so long as the <i>muchachos</i>
+were with us. Then we played no more progressive euchre games many miles
+in length, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> smoked no more together in the ecstasy of unrestraint;
+but watched and waited in vain&mdash;for those who were with us were no
+longer of us for some weeks to come, and the mouths of the singers were
+hushed. The next thing we knew a city seemed to spring suddenly out of
+the plains&mdash;a mirage of brick and mortar&mdash;an oasis in the
+wilderness,&mdash;and we realized, with a gasp, that we had struck the
+bull's-eye of the Far West&mdash;in other words, Denver!</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i017.png" width="300" height="65"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><br />
+In Denver Town.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Colorado! What an open-air sound that word has! The music of the wind is
+in it, and a peculiarly free, rhythmical swing, suggestive of the
+swirling lariat. Colorado is not, as some conjecture, a corruption or
+revised edition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by
+the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven cities of
+Cibola: it is from the verb <i>colorar</i>&mdash;colored red, or ruddy&mdash;a name
+frequently given to rivers, rocks, and ravines in the lower country. Nor
+do we care to go back as far as the sixteenth century for the beginning
+of an enterprise that is still very young and possibly a little fresh.
+In 1803 the United States purchased from France a vast territory for
+$15,000,000; it was then known as Louisiana, and that purchase included
+the district long referred to as the Great American Desert.</p>
+
+<p>In 1806 Zebulon Pike camped where Pueblo now stands. He was a
+pedestrian. One day he started to climb a peak whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> shining summit had
+dazzled him from the first; it seemed to soar into the very heavens, yet
+lie within easy reach just over the neighboring hill. He started bright
+and early, with enthusiasm in his heart, determination in his eye, and a
+cold bite in his pocket. He went from hill to hill, from mountain to
+mountain; always ascending, satisfied that each height was the last, and
+that he had but to step from the next pinnacle to the throne of his
+ambition. Alas! the peak was as far away as ever, even at the close of
+the second day; so famished, foot-frozen and well-nigh in extremity, he
+dragged his weary bones back to camp, defeated. That peak bears his name
+to this day, and probably he deserves the honor quite as much as any
+human molecule who godfathers a mountain.</p>
+
+<p>James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky., was a greater explorer than Pike; but
+Pursley gives Pike much credit which Pike blushingly declines. The two
+men were exceptionally well-bred pioneers. In 1820 Colonel Long named a
+peak in memory of his explorations. The peak survives. Then came General
+Fremont, in 1843, and the discovery of gold near Denver fifteen years
+later; but I believe Green<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> Russell, a Georgian, found <i>color</i> earlier
+on Pike's Peak.</p>
+
+<p>Colorado was the outgrowth of the great financial crisis of 1857. That
+panic sent a wave westward,&mdash;a wave that overflowed all the wild lands
+of the wilderness, and, in most cases, to the advantage of both wave and
+wilderness. Of course there was a gradual settling up or settling down
+from that period. Many people who didn't exactly come to stay got stuck
+fast, or found it difficult to leave; and now they are glad of it.
+Denver was the result.</p>
+
+<p>Denver! It seems as if that should be the name of some out-of-door
+production; of something brawny and breezy and bounding; something
+strong with the strength of youth; overflowing with vitality; ambitions,
+unconquerable, irrepressible&mdash;and such is Denver, the queen city of the
+plains. Denver is a marvel, and she knows it. She is by no means the
+marvel that San Francisco was at the same interesting age; but, then,
+Denver doesn't know it; or, if she knows it, she doesn't care to mention
+it or to hear it mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>True it is that the Argonauts of the Pacific were blown in out of the
+blue sea&mdash;most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> of them. They had had a taste of the tropics on the way;
+paroquets and Panama fevers were their portion; or, after a long pull
+and a strong pull around the Horn, they were comparatively fresh and
+eager for the fray when they touched dry land once more. There was much
+close company between decks to cheer the lonely hours; a very bracing
+air and a very broad, bright land to give them welcome when the voyage
+was ended&mdash;in brief, they had their advantages.</p>
+
+<p>The pioneers of Denver town were the captains or mates of prairie
+schooners, stranded in the midst of a sealike desert. It was a voyage of
+from six to eight weeks west of the Mississippi in those days. The only
+stations&mdash;and miserably primitive ones at that&mdash;lay along Ben Holliday's
+overland stage route. They were far between. Indians waylaid the
+voyagers; fires, famine and fatigue helped to strew the trail with the
+graves of men and the carcasses of animals. Hard lines were these; but
+not so hard as the lines of those who pushed farther into the
+wilderness, nor stayed their adventurous feet till they were planted on
+the rich soil of the Pacific slope.</p>
+
+<p>Pioneer life knows little variety. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> <i>menu</i> of the Colorado banquet
+July 4, 1859, will revive in the minds of many an old Californian the
+fast-fading memories of the past; but I fear, twill be a long time
+before such a <i>menu</i> as the following will gladden the eyes of the
+average prospector in the Klondyke:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MENU.<br />
+<br />
+SOUP.<br />
+A la Bean.<br />
+<br />
+FISH.<br />
+Brook Trout, a la catch 'em first.<br />
+<br />
+MEATS.<br />
+Antelope larded, pioneer style.<br />
+<br />
+BREAD.<br />
+Biscuit, hand-made, full weight, a la<br />
+yellow.<br />
+<br />
+VEGETABLES.<br />
+Beans, mountain style, warranted boiled<br />
+forty-eight hours, a la soda.<br />
+<br />
+DESSERT.<br />
+Dried Apples, Russell gulch style.<br />
+Coffee, served in tin cups, to be washed<br />
+clean for the occasion, overland<br />
+style, a la no cream.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In those days Horace Greeley, returning from his California tour, halted
+to cast his eye over the now West. The miners primed an old blunderbus
+with rich dust,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> and judiciously salted Gregory gulch. Of course Horace
+was invited to inspect it. Being somewhat horny-handed, he seized pick
+and shovel and went to work in earnest. The pan-out was astonishing. He
+flew back to New York laden with the glittering proofs of wealth; gave a
+whole page of the <i>Tribune</i> to his tale of the golden fleece; and a rush
+to the new diggings followed as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>Denver and Auraria were rival settlements on the opposite shores of
+Cherry Creek; in 1860 they consolidated, and then boasted a population
+of 4000, in a vast territory containing but 60,000 souls. The boom was
+on, and it was not long before a parson made his appearance. This was
+the Rev. George Washington Fisher of the Methodist Church, who accepted
+the offer of a saloon as a house of worship, using the bar for a pulpit.
+His text was: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth! come ye to the waters. And
+he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk
+without money and without price." On the walls were displayed these
+legends: "No trust," "Pay as you go," "Twenty-five cents a drink," etc.</p>
+
+<p>Colorado Territory was organized in 1861, and was loyal to the Union.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+Denver was still booming, though she suffered nearly all the ills that
+precocious settlements are heir to. The business portion of the town was
+half destroyed in 1863; Cherry Creek flooded her in 1864, floating
+houses out of reach and drowning fifteen or twenty of the inhabitants.
+Then the Indians went on the war-path; stages and wagon trains were
+attacked; passengers and scattered settlers massacred, and the very town
+itself threatened. Alarm-bells warned the frightened inhabitants of
+impending danger; many fled to the United States Mint for refuge, and to
+cellars, cisterns, and dark alleys. This was during the wild reign of
+Spotted Horse along the shores of the Platte, before he was captured by
+Major Downing at the battle of Sand Creek, and finally sent to Europe on
+exhibition as a genuine child of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Those were stirring times, when every man had an eye to business, and
+could hardly afford to spare it long enough to wink. It is related of a
+certain minister who was officiating at a funeral that, while standing
+by the coffin offering the final prayer, he noticed one of the mourners
+kneeling upon the loose earth recently thrown from the grave. This man
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> a prospector, like all the rest, and in an absent-minded way he had
+tearfully been sifting the soil through his fingers. Suddenly he arose
+and began to stake out a claim adjoining the grave. This was, of course,
+observed by the clergyman, who hastened the ceremonials to a conclusion,
+and ended his prayer thus: "Stake me off a claim, Bill. We ask it for
+Christ's sake. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>Horace Greeley's visit was fully appreciated, and his name given to a
+mountain hamlet, long after known familiarly as "Saint's Rest," because
+there was nothing stimulating to be found thereabout. Poor Meeker, for
+many years agricultural editor of the New York <i>Tribune</i>, founded that
+settlement. He was backed by Greeley, and established the Greeley
+<i>Tribune</i> at Saint's Rest. In 1877 Meeker was made Indian agent, and he
+did his best to live up to the dream of the Indian-maniacs; but, after
+two years of self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, he was brutally
+betrayed and murdered by Chief Douglas, of the Utes, his guest at the
+time. Mrs. Meeker and her daughters, and a Mrs. Price and her child,
+were taken captive and subjected to the usual treatment which all women
+and children may expect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> at the hands of the noble red-man. They were
+rescued in due season; but what was rescue to them save a prolongation
+of inconsolable bereavement?</p>
+
+<p>When General Grant visited Central, the little mountain town received
+him royally. A pavement of solid silver bricks was laid for him to walk
+upon from his carriage to the hotel door. One sees very little of this
+barbaric splendor nowadays even in Denver, the most pretentious of far
+Western burgs. She is a metropolis of magnificent promises. Alighting at
+the airy station, you take a carriage for the hotel, and come at once to
+the centre of the city. Were you to continue your drive but a few blocks
+farther, you would come with equal abruptness to the edge of it. The
+surprise is delightful in either case, but the suddenness of the
+transition makes the stranger guest a little dizzy at first. There are
+handsome buildings in Denver&mdash;blocks that would do credit to any city
+under the sun; but there was for years an upstart air, a palpable
+provincialism, a kind of ill-disguised "previousness," noticeable that
+made her seem like the brisk suburb of some other place, and that other
+place, alas! invisible to mortal eye. Rectangular blocks make a
+checker-board<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> of the town map. The streets are appropriately named
+Antelope, Bear, Bison, Boulder, Buffalo, Coyote, Cedar, Cottonwood,
+Deer, Golden, Granite, Moose, etc. The names of most trees, most
+precious stones, the great States and Territories of the West, with a
+sprinkling of Spanish, likewise beguile you off into space, and leave
+the once nebulous burg beaming in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Denver's theatre is remarkably handsome. In hot weather the atmosphere
+is tempered by torrents of ice-water that crash through hidden aqueducts
+with a sound as of twenty sawmills. The management <i>dams</i> the flood when
+the curtain rises and the players begin to speak; the music lovers
+<i>damn</i> it from the moment the curtain falls. They are absorbed in
+volumes of silent profanity between the acts; for the orchestra is
+literally drowned in the roar of the rushing element. There was nothing
+that interested me more than a copy of Alice Polk Hill's "Tales of the
+Colorado Pioneers"; and to her I return thanks for all that I borrowed
+without leave from that diverting volume.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow Denver, after my early visit, leaves with me an impression as of
+a perfectly new city that has just been unpacked;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> as if the various
+parts of it had been set up in a great hurry, and the citizens were now
+impatiently awaiting the arrival of the rest of the properties. Some of
+the streets that appeared so well at first glance, seemed, upon
+inspection, more like theatrical flats than realities; and there was
+always a consciousness of everything being wide open and uncovered.
+Indeed, so strongly did I feel this that it was with difficulty I could
+refrain from wearing my hat in the house. Nor could I persuade myself
+that it was quite safe to go out alone after dark, lest unwittingly I
+should get lost, and lift up in vain the voice of one crying in the
+wilderness; for the blank and weird spaces about there are as wide as
+the horizon where the distant mountains seem to have slid partly down
+the terrestrial incline,&mdash;spaces that offer the unwary neither hope nor
+hospice,&mdash;where there is positively shelter for neither man nor beast,
+from the red-brick heart of the ambitious young city to her snow-capped
+ultimate suburb.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i028.png" width="300" height="117"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter III.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br />
+The Garden of the Gods.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The trains run out of Denver like quick-silver,&mdash;this is the prettiest
+thing I can say of Denver. They trickle down into high, green valleys,
+under the shadow of snow-capped cliffs. There the grass is of the
+liveliest tint&mdash;a kind of salad-green. The air is sweet and fine;
+everything looks clean, well kept, well swept&mdash;perhaps the wind is the
+keeper and the sweeper. All along the way there is a very striking
+contrast of color in rock, meadows, and sky; the whole is as appetizing
+to the sight as a newly varnished picture.</p>
+
+<p>We didn't down brakes until we reached Colorado Springs; there we
+changed cars for Manitou. Already the castellated rocks were filling us
+with childish delight. Fungi decked the cliffs above us: colossal,
+petrified fungi, painted Indian fashion. At any rate, there is a kind of
+wild, out-of-door, subdued harmony in the rock-tints<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> upon the exterior
+slopes of the famed Garden of the Gods, quite in keeping with the spirit
+of the decorative red-man. Within that garden color and form run riot,
+and Manitou is the restful outpost of this erratic wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>It is fitting that Manitou should be approached in a rather primitive
+manner. I was glad when we were very politely invited to get out of the
+train and walk a plank over a puddle that for a moment submerged the
+track; glad when we were advised to foot it over a trestle-bridge that
+sagged in the swift current of a swollen stream; and gladder still when
+our locomotive began to puff and blow and slaken its pace as we climbed
+up into the mouth of a ravine fragrant with the warm scents of
+summer&mdash;albeit we could boast but a solitary brace of cars, and these
+small ones, and not overcrowded at that.</p>
+
+<p>Only think of it! We were scarcely three hours by rail from Denver; and
+yet here, in Manitou, were the very elements so noticeably lacking
+there. Nature in her natural state&mdash;primitive forever; the air seasoned
+with the pungent spices of odoriferous herbs; the sweetest sunshine in
+abundance, and all the shade that makes sunshine most agreeable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Manitou is a picturesque hamlet that has scattered itself up and down a
+deep ravine, regardless of the limiting lines of the surveyor. The
+railway station at Manitou might pose for a porter's lodge in the
+prettiest park in England. Surely there is hope for America when she can
+so far curb her vulgar love of the merely practical as to do that sort
+of thing at the right time and in the right place.</p>
+
+<p>A fine stream brawls through the bed of this lovely vale. There are
+rustic cottages that cluster upon the brink of the stream, as if charmed
+by the music of its song; and I am sure that the cottagers dwelling
+therein have no wish to hang their harps upon any willows whatever; or
+to mingle their tears, though these were indeed the waters of Babylon
+that flow softly night and day through the green groves of Manitou. The
+breeze stirs the pulse like a tonic; birds, bees, and butterflies dance
+in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish&mdash;there is no dust
+there,&mdash;and everything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the
+hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during
+the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts; there is nothing
+like it&mdash;except more of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> There is not overmuch dressing among the
+women, nor the beastly spirit of loudness among the men; the domestic
+atmosphere is undisturbed. A newspaper printed on a hand-press, and
+distributed by the winds for aught I know, has its office in the main
+lane of the village; its society column creates no scandal. A solitary
+bicycle that flashes like a shooting star across the placid foreground
+is our nearest approach to an event worth mentioning.</p>
+
+<p>Loungers lounge at the springs as if they really enjoyed it. An amiable
+booth-boy displays his well-dressed and handsomely mounted foxskins, his
+pressed flowers of Colorado, his queer mineralogical jewelry, and his
+uncouth geological specimens in the shape of hideous bric-a-brac, as if
+he took pleasure in thus entertaining the public; while everybody has
+the cosiest and most sociable time over the counter, and buys only by
+accident at last.</p>
+
+<p>There are rock gorges in Manitou, through which the Indian tribes were
+wont noiselessly to defile when on the war-path in the brave days of
+old; gorges where currents of hot air breathe in your face like the
+breath of some fierce animal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> There are brilliant and noisy cataracts
+and cascades that silver the rocks with spray; and a huge winding cavern
+filled with mice and filth and the blackness of darkness, and out of
+which one emerges looking like a tramp and feeling like&mdash;well! There are
+springs bubbling and steeping and stagnating by the wayside; springs
+containing carbonates of soda, lithia, lime, magnesia, and iron;
+sulphates of potassa and soda, chloride of sodium and silica, in various
+solutions. Some of these are sweeter than honey in the honeycomb; some
+of them smell to heaven&mdash;what more can the pampered palate of man
+desire?</p>
+
+<p>Let all those who thirst for chalybeate waters bear in mind that the Ute
+Iron Spring of Manitou is 800 feet higher than St. Catarina, the highest
+iron spring in Europe, and nearly 1000 feet higher than St. Moritz; and
+that the bracing air at an elevation of 6400 feet has probably as much
+to do with the recovery of the invalid as has the judicious quaffing of
+medicinal waters. Of pure iron springs, the famous Schwalbach contains
+rather more iron than the Ute Iron, and Spa rather less. On the whole,
+Manitou has the advantage of the most celebrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> medicinal springs in
+Europe, and has a climate even in midwinter preferable to all of them.</p>
+
+<p>On the edge of the pretty hamlet at Manitou stands a cottage half hidden
+like a bird's nest among the trees. I saw only the peaks of gables under
+green boughs; and I wondered when I was informed that the lovely spot
+had been long untenanted, and wondered still more when I learned that it
+was the property of good Grace Greenwood. Will she ever cease wandering,
+and return to weave a new chaplet of greenwood leaves gathered beneath
+the eaves of her mountain home?</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the village street stands Pike's Peak&mdash;at least it seems
+to stand there when viewed through the telescopic air. It is in reality
+a dozen miles distant; but is easily approached by a winding trail, over
+which ladies in the saddle may reach the glorious snow-capped summit and
+return to Manitou between breakfast and supper&mdash;unless one should prefer
+to be rushed up and down over the aerial railway. From the signal
+station the view reminds one of a map of the world. It rather dazes than
+delights the eye to roam so far, and imagination itself grows weary at
+last and is glad to fold its wings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Manitou's chief attraction lies over the first range of hills&mdash;the
+veritable Garden of the Gods. You may walk, ride or drive to it; in any
+case the surprise begins the moment you reach the ridge's top above
+Manitou, and ceases not till the back is turned at the close of the
+excursion&mdash;nor then either, for the memory of that marvel haunts one
+like a feverish dream. Fancy a softly undulating land, delicately wooded
+and decked with many an ornamental shrub; a landscape that composes so
+well one can scarcely assure himself that the artist or the landscape
+gardener has not had a hand in the beautifying of it.</p>
+
+<p>In this lonely, silent land, with cloud shadows floating across it, at
+long intervals bird voices or the bleating of distant flocks charm the
+listening ear. Out of this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclopean
+rocks, appalling in the splendor of their proportions and the
+magnificence of their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heavenward from breadths
+of level sward, and glow like living flames; peaks of various tinges
+overlook the tops of other peaks, that, in their turn, lord it among
+gigantic bowlders piled upon massive pedestals. It is Ossa upon Pelion,
+in little; vastly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> impressive because of the exceptional surroundings
+that magnify these magnificent monuments, unique in their design and
+almost unparalleled in their picturesque and daring outline. Some of the
+monoliths tremble and sway, or seem to sway; for they are balanced
+edgewise, as if the gods had amused themselves in some infantile game,
+and, growing weary of this little planet, had fled and left their toys
+in confusion. The top-heavy and the tottering ones are almost within
+reach; but there are slabs of rock that look like slices out of a
+mountain&mdash;I had almost said like slices out of a red-hot volcano; they
+stand up against the blue sky and the widespreading background in
+brilliant and astonishing perspective.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt if anywhere else in the world the contrasts in color and form
+are more violent than in the Garden of the Gods. They are not always
+agreeable to the eye, for there is much crude color here; but there are
+points of sight where these columns, pinnacles, spires and obelisks,
+with base and capital, are so grouped that the massing is as fantastical
+as a cloud picture, and the whole can be compared only to a petrified
+after-glow. I have seen pictures of the Garden of the Gods that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> made me
+nearly burst with laughter; I mean color studies that were supremely
+ridiculous in my eyes, for I had not then seen the original; but none of
+these makes me laugh any longer. They serve, even the wildest and the
+worst of them, to remind me of a morning drive, in the best of company,
+through that grand garden where our combined vocabularies of delight and
+wonderment were exhausted inside of fifteen minutes; and where we drove
+on and on, hour after hour, from climax to climax, lost in speechless
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Glen Eyrie is the valley of Rasselas&mdash;I am sure it is. The Prince of
+Abyssinia left the gate open when he, poor fool! went forth in search of
+happiness and found it not. Now any one may drive through the domain of
+the present possessor and admire his wealth of pictorial
+solitude&mdash;without, however, sharing it further. If it were mine, would I
+permit thus much, I wonder? Only the elect should enter there; and once
+the charmed circle was complete, we would wall up the narrow passage
+that leads to this terrestrial paradise, and you would hear no more from
+us, or of us, nor we of you, or from you, forever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On my first visit to Colorado Springs I made a little pilgrimage. I
+heard that a gentle lady, whom I had always wished to see, was at her
+home on the edge of the city. No trouble in finding the place: any one
+could direct me. It was a cosy cottage in the midst of a garden and
+shaded by thickly leaved trees. Some one was bowed down among the
+strawberry beds, busy there; yet the place seemed half deserted and
+very, very quiet. Big bamboo chairs and lounges lined the vine-curtained
+porch. The shades in the low bay-window were half drawn, and a glint of
+sunshine lighted the warm interior. I saw heaps of precious books on the
+table in that deep window. There was a mosquito door in the porch, and
+there I knocked for admittance. I knocked for a long time, but received
+no answer. I knocked again so that I might be heard even in the
+strawberry bed. A little kitten came up out of the garden and said
+something kittenish to me, and then I heard a muffled step within. The
+door opened&mdash;the inner door,&mdash;and beyond the wire-cloth screen, that
+remained closed against me, I saw a figure like a ghost, but a very
+buxom and wholesome ghost indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I asked for the hostess. Alas! she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> far away and had been ill; it
+was not known when she would return. Her address was offered me, and I
+thought to write her,&mdash;thought to tell her how I had sought out her
+home, hoping to find her after years of patient waiting; and that while
+I talked of her through the wire-cloth screen the kitten, which she must
+have petted once upon a time, climbed up the screen until it had reached
+the face of the amiable woman within, and then purred and purred as only
+a real kitten can. I never wrote that letter; for while we were chatting
+on the porch she of whom we chatted, she who has written a whole armful
+of the most womanly and lovable of books, Helen Hunt Jackson, lay dying
+in San Francisco and we knew it not. But it is something to have stood
+by her threshold, though she was never again to cross it in the flesh,
+and to have been greeted by her kitten. How she loved kittens! And now I
+can associate her memory with the peacefulest of cottages, the easiest
+of veranda chairs, a bay-window full of books and sunshine, and a
+strawberry bed alive with berries and blossoms and butterflies and bees.
+And yonder on the heights her body was anon laid to rest among the
+haunts she loved so dearly.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i168.png" width="300" height="68"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br />
+A Whirl across the Rockies.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A long time ago&mdash;nearly a quarter of a century&mdash;California could boast a
+literary weekly capable of holding its own with any in the land. This
+was before San Francisco had begun to lose her unique and delightful
+individuality&mdash;now gone forever. Among the contributors to this once
+famous weekly were Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin
+Miller, Dan de Quille, Orpheus C. Kerr, C. H. Webb, "John Paul," Ada
+Clare, Ada Isaacs Menken, Ina Coolbrith, and hosts of others. Fitz Hugh
+Ludlow wrote for it a series of brilliant descriptive letters recounting
+his adventures during a recent overland journey; they were afterward
+incorporated in a volume&mdash;long out of print&mdash;entitled "The Heart of the
+Continent."</p>
+
+<p>In one of these letters Ludlow wrote as follows of the probable future
+of Manitou: "When Colorado becomes a populous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> State, the springs of the
+Fontaine-qui-Bouille will constitute its Spa. In air and scenery no more
+glorious summer residence could be imagined. The Coloradian of the
+future, astonishing the echoes of the rocky foothills by a railroad from
+Denver to the springs, and running down on Saturday to stop over Sunday
+with his family, will have little cause to envy us Easterners our
+Saratoga as he paces up and down the piazza of the Spa hotel, mingling
+his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air, unbreathed before, which
+is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range." His
+prophecy has become true in every particular. But what would he have
+thought had he threaded the tortuous path now marked by glistening
+railway tracks? What would he have said of the Grand Ca&ntilde;on of the
+Arkansas, the Black Ca&ntilde;on of the Gunnison, Castle Ca&ntilde;on and Marshall
+Pass over the crest of the continent?</p>
+
+<p>I suppose a narrow-gauge road can go anywhere. It trails along the slope
+of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole
+tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes
+water-courses; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated
+to remind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> one of the days when he played "snap-the-whip" and happened
+to be the snapper himself. This is especially the case if one is sitting
+on the rear platform of the last car. We shot a ca&ntilde;on by daylight, and
+marvelled at the glazed surface of the red rock with never so much as a
+scratch over it. On the one hand we nearly scraped the abrupt
+perpendicular wall that towered hundreds of feet above us; on the other,
+a swift, muddy torrent sprang at our stone-bedded sleepers as if to
+snatch them away; while it flooded the ca&ntilde;on to the opposite wall, that
+did not seem more that a few yards distant. The stream was swollen, and
+went howling down the ravine full of sound and fury&mdash;which in this case,
+however, signified a good deal.</p>
+
+<p>Once we stopped and took an observation, for the track was under water;
+then we waded cautiously to the mainland, across the sunken section, and
+thanked our stars that we were not boycotted by the elements at that
+inhospitable point. Once we paused for a few minutes to contemplate the
+total wreck of a palace car that had recently struck a projecting
+bowlder&mdash;and spattered.</p>
+
+<p>The camps along the track are just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> such as may be looked for in the
+waste places of the earth&mdash;temporary shelter for wayfarers whose homes
+are under their hats. The thin stream of civilization that trickles off
+into the wilderness, following the iron track, makes puddles now and
+again. Some of these dwindle away soon enough&mdash;or perhaps not quite soon
+enough; some of them increase and become permanent and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Night found us in the Black Ca&ntilde;on of the Gunnison. Could any time be
+more appropriate? Clouds rolled over us in dense masses, and at
+intervals the moon flashed upon us like a dark lantern. Could anything
+be more picturesque? We knew that much of the darkness, the blackness of
+darkness, was adamantine rock; some of it an inky flood&mdash;a veritable
+river of death&mdash;rolling close beneath us, but quite invisible most of
+the time; and the night itself a profound mystery, through which we
+burned an endless tunnel&mdash;like a firebrand hurled into space.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again the heavens opened, and then we saw the moon soaring among
+the monumental peaks; but the heights were so cloudlike and the cloud
+masses so solid we could not for the life of us be certain of the nature
+of either. There were ca&ntilde;ons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> like huge quarries, and ca&ntilde;ons like rocky
+mazes, where we seemed to have rushed headlong into a <i>cul de sac</i>, and
+were in danger of dashing our brains out against the mighty walls that
+loomed before us. There was many a winding stream which we took at a
+single bound, and occasionally an oasis, green and flowery; but, oh, so
+few habitations and so few spots that one would really care to inhabit!</p>
+
+<p>Marshall Pass does very well for once; it is an experience and a
+novelty&mdash;what else is there in life to make it livable save a new
+experience or the hope of one? Such a getting up hill as precedes the
+rest at the summit! We stopped for breath while the locomotive puffed
+and panted as if it would burst its brass-bound lungs; then we began to
+climb again, and to wheeze, fret and fume; and it seemed as if we
+actually went down on hands and knees and crept a bit when the grade
+became steeper than usual. Only think of it a moment&mdash;an incline of two
+hundred and twenty feet to the mile in some places, and the track
+climbing over itself at frequent intervals. Far below us we saw the
+terraces we had passed long before; far above us lay the great land we
+were so slowly and so painfully approaching. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> last we reached the
+summit, ten thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above sea level&mdash;a
+God-forsaken district, bristling with dead trees, and with hardly air
+enough to go around.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped in a long shed&mdash;built to keep off the sky, I suppose.
+Gallants prospected for flowers and grass-blades, and received the
+profuse thanks of the fair in exchange for them. Then we glided down
+into the snow lands that lay beyond&mdash;filled with a delicious sense of
+relief, for a fellow never feels so mean or so small a pigmy as when
+perched on an Alpine height.</p>
+
+<p>More ca&ntilde;ons followed, and no two alike; then came plain after plain,
+with buttes outlined in the distance; more plains, with nothing but
+their own excessive plainness to boast of. We soon grew vastly weary;
+for most plains are, after all, mere platitudes. And then Salt Lake
+City, the Mormon capital, with its lake shimmering like a mirage in the
+great glow of the valley; and a run due north through the well-tilled
+lands of the thrifty "saints," getting our best wayside meals at
+stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and
+west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> dust that
+makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far
+north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore
+to follow as is worth a week's travel merely to get one glimpse of; and
+at last Portland, the prettiest of Pacific cities, and heaps of friends
+to greet me there.</p>
+
+<p>Bright days were to follow, as you shall soon see; for I was still bound
+northward, with no will to rest until I had plowed the floating fields
+of ice and dozed through the pale hours of an arctic summer under the
+midnight sun.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i046.png" width="250" height="128"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><br />
+Off for Alaska.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If you are bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most
+conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon,
+and retaining your state-room until you land again in Portland, three
+weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board
+a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget
+Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at
+Port Townsend, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which
+makes its excursion trip monthly&mdash;at least it used to before the
+Klondyke hoards deranged the time-table and the times.</p>
+
+<p>If this does not satisfy you, you may take passage at San Francisco for
+Port Townsend or Victoria, and connect at either port with the Alaska
+boat. Those who are still unsuited had better wait a bit, when, no
+doubt, other as entirely satisfactory arrangements will be made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> for
+their especial convenience. I went by train to Tacoma. I wanted to sniff
+the forest scents of Washington State, and to get a glimpse of the brave
+young settlements scattered through the North-western wilderness. I
+wanted to skirt the shore of the great Sounds, whose praises have been
+ringing in my ears ever since I can remember&mdash;and that is a pretty long
+time now.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to loaf for a while in Port Townsend, the old jumping-off
+place, the monogram in the extreme northwest corner of the map of the
+United States of America&mdash;at least such it was until the Alaskan annex
+stretched the thing all out of shape, and planted our flag so far out in
+the Pacific that San Francisco lies a little east of the centre of the
+Union, and the Hawaiian islands come within our boundaries; for our
+Aleutian-island arm, you know, stretches a thousand miles to the west of
+Hawaii&mdash;it even chucks Asia under the chin.</p>
+
+<p>But now let me offer you a stray handful of leaves from my
+note-book&mdash;mere suggestions of travel.</p>
+
+<p>At Portland took morning train for Tacoma, one hundred and forty-seven
+miles. Swarms of people at the station,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> and some ominous "good-byes";
+the majority talking of Alaska in a superior fashion, which implies that
+they are through passengers, and they don't care who knows it. Alaska
+boat left Portland two days ago; we are to catch her at Port Townsend,
+and it looks as if we should crowd her. Train crosses the Columbia River
+on a monster ferry; a jolly and restful half hour in the cars and out of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>A very hot and dusty ride through Washington State,&mdash;part of it pretty
+enough and part of it by no means so. Cars full of screaming babies,
+sweltering tourists, and falling cinders that sting like dumb
+mosquitoes. Rather a mixed neighborhood on the rail. An effusively
+amiable evangelist bobs up almost immediately,&mdash;one of those fellows
+whom no amount of snubbing can keep under. Old Probabilities is also on
+board, discoursing at intervals to all who will give ear. Some quiet and
+interesting folk in a state of suspense, and one young fellow&mdash;a regular
+trump,&mdash;promise better things.</p>
+
+<p>We reach Tacoma at 6.30 p.&nbsp;m.; a queer, scattering town on Commencement
+Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. Very deep water just off shore. Two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+boys in a sailboat are blown about at the mercy of the fitful wind; boat
+on beam-ends; boys on the uppermost gunwale; sail lying flat on the
+water. But nobody seems to care, not even the young castaways. Perhaps
+the inhabitants of Tacoma are amphibious. Very beautiful sheet of water,
+this Puget Sound; long, winding, monotonous shores; trees all alike,
+straight up and down, mostly pines and cedars; shores rather low, and
+outline too regular for much picturesque effect. Tacoma commands the
+best view of the Sound and of Mt. Tacoma, with its fifteen thousand
+perpendicular feet looming rose-pink in the heavens, and all its fifteen
+glaciers seeming to glow with an inner tropic warmth. There are eighteen
+hundred miles of shore-line embroidering this marvellous Sound. We are
+continually rounding abrupt points, as in a river,&mdash;points so much alike
+that an untutored eye can not tell one from another. Old Probabilities
+industriously taking his reckonings and growing more and more
+enthusiastic at every turn&mdash;especially so when the after-glow burns the
+sea to a coal; it reminds him of a volcanic eruption. There are some
+people who when they see anything new to them are instantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> reminded of
+something else they have seen, and the new object becomes second rate on
+the spot. A little travel is a dangerous thing.</p>
+
+<p>Pay $3.25 for my fare from Tacoma to Port Townsend, and find a moment
+later that some are paying only $1 for the same accommodations.
+Competition is the mother of these pleasant surprises, but it is worth
+thrice the original price&mdash;the enjoyment of this twilight cruise. More
+after-glow, much more, with the Olympian Mountains lying between us and
+the ocean. In the foreground is a golden flood with scarlet ripples
+breaking through it&mdash;a vision splendid and long continued. Air growing
+quite chilly; strong draughts at some of the turns in the stream.
+Surely, in this case, the evening and the morning are not the same day.</p>
+
+<p>At 9.30 p.&nbsp;m. we approach Seattle&mdash;a handsome town, with its terraces of
+lights twinkling in the gloaming. Passengers soon distribute themselves
+through the darkness. I am left alone on the after-deck to watch the
+big, shadowy ships that are moored near us, and the exquisite
+phosphorescent light in the water&mdash;a wave of ink with the luminous trail
+of a struck match smouldering across it. Far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> into the night there was
+the thundering of freight rolling up and down the decks, and the ring of
+invisible truck-wheels.</p>
+
+<p>Slept by and by, and was awakened by the prolonged shriek of a steam
+whistle and a stream of sunlight that poured in at my state-room window.
+We were backing and slowing off Port Ludlow. Big sawmill close at hand.
+Four barks lie at the dock in front of it; a few houses stand on the
+hill above; pine woods crowd to the water's edge, making the place look
+solemn. Surely it is a solemn land and a solemn sea about here. After
+breakfast, about 8.30 o'clock, Port Townsend hove in sight, and here we
+await the arrival of the Alaska boat. What an odd little town it is&mdash;the
+smallest possible city set upon a hill; the business quarter huddled at
+the foot of the hill, as if it had slid down there and lodged on the
+very edge of the sea! The hotels stalk out over the water on stilts. One
+sleeps well in the sweet salt air, lulled by the murmur of the waves
+under the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty
+steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and
+reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> animals feed
+leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes
+near to being pretty, yet stops just short of it. But there is a kind of
+unpretending prettiness in the bright and breezy heights environed by
+black forest and blue sea.</p>
+
+<p>A revenue cutter&mdash;this is a port of customs, please remember&mdash;lies in
+the offing. She looks as if she were suspended in air, so pure are the
+elements in the northland. I lean from a parapet, on my way down the
+seaward face of the cliff, and hear the order, "Make ready!" Then comes
+a flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and a crash that shatters an
+echo into fragments all along the shore; while beautiful smoke rings
+roll up against the sky like victorious wreaths.</p>
+
+<p>I call on the Hon. J. G. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of "The Northwest
+Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." Find him
+delightful, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian
+relics; himself full of the liveliest recollections of Indian life, and
+quite an authority on Indian tongues and traditions; find also an old
+schoolmate, after long years of separation, and am most courteously
+entertained. What a drive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> we had over the hills and along the beach,
+where the crows haunt the water's edge like sea-birds! It has been
+repeatedly affirmed that these crows have been seen to seize a clam,
+raise it high in the air, let it drop upon a rock, and then pounce upon
+the fragments and feast furiously. But I have never seen one who has had
+ocular proof of this.</p>
+
+<p>There was a very happy hour spent at Colonel Douglas' quarters, over at
+the camp; and then such a long, long drive through the deep wildwood,
+with its dense undergrowth, said to be the haunt of bear, panther, wild
+cat, deer, and other large game. Bearberries grew in profusion
+everywhere. The road, kept in splendid repair by the army men, dipped
+into a meadow full of savage mosquitoes; but escaping through two gates,
+we struck again into the forest, where the road was almost overgrown
+with dew-damp brush, that besprinkled us profusely as we passed.</p>
+
+<p>We paused upon the slope above Port Discovery Bay; saw an old fellow on
+the porch of a wee cottage looking steadfastly into the future&mdash;across
+the Bay; with pipe in mouth, he was the picture of contentment,
+abstraction and repose. He never once turned to look at us, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> few
+pass that way; but kept his eyes fixed upon a vision of surpassing
+beauty, where the vivid coloring was startling to the eye and the
+morning air like an elixir. Nothing but the great summer hotel of the
+future&mdash;it will surely come some day and stand right there&mdash;can rob the
+spot of its blissful serenity.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i055.png" width="300" height="62"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><br />
+In the Inland Sea.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We were waiting the arrival of the Alaska boat,&mdash;wandering aimlessly
+about the little town, looking off upon the quiet sea, now veiled in a
+dense smoke blown down from the vast forest fires that were sweeping the
+interior. The sun, shorn of his beams, was a disk of copper; the
+sun-track in the sea, a trail of blood. The clang of every ship's bell,
+the scream of every whistle, gave us new hope; but we were still
+waiting, waiting, waiting. Port Townsend stands knee-deep in the edge of
+a sea-garden. I sat a long time on the dock, watching for some sign of
+the belated boat. Great ropes of kelp, tubes of dark brown sea-grass,
+floated past me on the slow tide. Wonderful anemones, pink,
+balloon-shaped, mutable, living and breathing things,&mdash;these panted as
+they drifted by. At every respiration they expanded like the sudden
+blossoming of a flower; then they closed quite as suddenly, and became
+mere buds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> When the round core of these sea-flowers was exposed to the
+air&mdash;the palpitating heart was just beneath the surface most of the
+time,&mdash;they withered in a breath; but revived again the moment the water
+glazed them over, and fairly revelled in aqueous efflorescence.</p>
+
+<p>"Bang!" It was the crash of an unmistakable gun, that shook the town to
+its foundations and brought the inhabitants to their feet in an instant.
+Out of the smoke loomed a shadowy ship, and, lo! it was the Alaska boat.
+A goodly number of passengers were already on board; as many more were
+now to join her; and then her prow was to be turned to the north star
+and held there for some time to come. In a moment the whole port was in
+a state of excitement. New arrivals hurried on shore to see the lions of
+the place. We, who had been anxiously awaiting this hour for a couple of
+long summer days, took the ship by storm, and drove the most amiable and
+obliging of pursers nearly frantic with our pressing solicitations.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was laying in private stores, this being our last chance to
+supply all deficiencies. Light literature we found scattered about at
+the druggist's and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> grocer's and the curiosity shops; also ink,
+pens, note-books, tobacco, scented soap and playing-cards were
+discovered in equally unexpected localities. We all wanted volumes on
+the Northwest&mdash;as many of them as we could get; but almost the only one
+obtainable was Skidmore's "Alaska, the Sitkan Archipelago," which is as
+good as any, if not the best. A few had copies of the "Pacific Coast
+Pilot. Alaska. Part I. Dixon's Entrance to Yakutat Bay,"&mdash;invaluable as
+a practical guide, and filled with positive data. Dall and Whimper we
+could not find, nor Bancroft at that time. Who will give us a handy
+volume reprint of delightful old Vancouver?</p>
+
+<p>We were busy as bees all that afternoon; yet the night and the starlight
+saw us satisfactorily hived, and it was not long before the buzzing
+ceased, as ship and shore slept the sleep of the just. By and by we
+heard pumping, hosing, deck-washing, the paddling of bare feet to and
+fro, and all the familiar sounds of an early morning at sea. The ship,
+however, was motionless: we were lying stock-still. Doubtless everybody
+was wondering at this, as I was, when there came a crash, followed by a
+small avalanche of broken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> timber, while the ship quaked in her watery
+bed. I thought of dynamite and the <i>Dies Irae</i>; but almost immediately
+the cabin-boy, who appeared with the matutinal coffee, said it was only
+the <i>Olympian</i>, the fashionable Sound steamer, that had run into us, as
+was her custom. She is always running into something, and she succeeded
+in carrying away a portion of our stern gear on this occasion.
+Nevertheless, we were delayed only a few hours; for the <i>Olympian</i> was
+polite enough not to strike us below the water-line, and so by high noon
+we were fairly under way.</p>
+
+<p>From my log-book I take the following: This is slow and easy sailing&mdash;a
+kind of jog-trot over the smoothest possible sea, with the paddles
+audibly working every foot of the way. We run down among the San Juan
+Islands, where the passages are so narrow and so intricate they make a
+kind of watery monogram among the fir-lined shores. A dense smoke still
+obscures the sun,&mdash;a rich haze that softens the distance and lends a
+picturesqueness that is perhaps not wholly natural to the locality,
+though the San Juan Islands are unquestionably beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The Gulf of Georgia, the Straits of Fuca, and Queen Charlotte Sound are
+the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> upon the lips of everybody. Shades of my schoolboy days! How
+much sweeter they taste here than in the old geography class! Before us
+stretches a wilderness of islands, mostly uninhabited, which penetrates
+even into the sunless winter and the shadowless summer of Behring Sea.</p>
+
+<p>As for ourselves, Old Probabilities has got down to business. He has
+opened an impromptu peripatetic school of navigation, and triumphantly
+sticks a pin into every point that tallies with his yard-square chart.
+The evangelist has his field-glass to his eye in search of the
+unregenerated aborigines. The swell tourists are much swollen with
+travel; they loosen the belts of their Norfolks, and at intervals affect
+a languid interest in this mundane sphere. There are delightful people
+on board&mdash;many of them&mdash;and not a few others. There are bevies of
+girls&mdash;all young, all pretty; and all, or nearly all, bubbling over with
+hearty and wholesome laughter.</p>
+
+<p>What richness! A good, clean deck running the whole length of the ship;
+a cosy and cheerful social hall, with a first-class upright piano of
+delicious tone, and at least a half dozen creditable performers to
+awaken the soul of it; a good table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> good weather, good luck, and
+positively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in
+the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on
+board this ship; the telegraph, with metallic tick, can not once startle
+us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off; wars and
+rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of
+a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the
+possibility of a rain-shower this afternoon, or the solution of the
+vexed question, "Will the aurora dazzle us before dawn?" We do not
+propose to wait upon the aurora: for days and days and days we are going
+to climb up the globe due North, getting nearer and nearer to it all the
+while. Now, inasmuch as everything is new to us, we can easily content
+ourselves for hours by lounging in the easy-chairs, and looking off upon
+the placid sea, and at the perennial verdure that springs out of it and
+mantles a lovely but lonely land.</p>
+
+<p>Only think of it for a moment! Here on the northwest coast there are
+islands sown so thickly that many of the sea-passages, though deep
+enough for a three-decker to swim in, are so narrow that one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> might
+easily skim his hat across them. There are thousands of these
+islands&mdash;yea, tens of thousands,&mdash;I don't know just how many, and
+perhaps no man does. They are of all shapes and sizes, and the majority
+of them are handsomely wooded. The sombre green of the woods, stretching
+between the sombre blue-green of the water and the opaline sheen of the
+sky, forms a picture&mdash;a momentary picture,&mdash;the chief features of which
+change almost as suddenly and quite as completely as the transformations
+in a kaleidoscope. We are forever turning corners; and no sooner are we
+around one corner than three others elbow us just ahead. Now, toward
+which of the three are we bound, and will our good ship run to larboard
+or to starboard? This is a turn one might bet on all day long&mdash;and lose
+nearly every time.</p>
+
+<p>A bewildering cruise! Vastly finer than river sailing is this Alaskan
+expedition. Here is a whole tangle of rivers full of strange tides,
+mysterious currents, and sweet surprises. Moreover, we can get lost if
+we want to&mdash;no one can get lost in a river. We can rush in where pilots
+fear to tread, strike sunken rocks, toss among dismal eddies, or plunge
+into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> whirlpools. We can rake overhanging boughs with our yard-arms if
+we want to&mdash;but we don't want to. In 1875 the United States steamer
+<i>Saranac</i> went down in Seymour Narrows, and her fate was sudden death.
+The United States steamer <i>Suwanee</i> met with a like misfortune on
+entering Queen Charlotte Sound. It is rather jolly to think of these
+things, and to realize that we were in more or less danger; though the
+shores are as silent as the grave, the sea sleeps like a mill-pond, and
+the sun sinks to rest with great dignity and precision, nightly bathing
+the lonely North in sensuous splendor.</p>
+
+<p>It is getting late. Most of us are indulging in a constitutional. We
+rush up and down the long flush decks like mad; we take fiendish delight
+in upsetting the pious dignity of the evangelist; we flutter the smokers
+in the smoking-room&mdash;because, forsooth, we are chasing the girls from
+one end of the ship to the other; and consequently the denizens of the
+masculine cabin can give their undivided attention to neither cards nor
+tobacco. What fun it all is&mdash;when one is not obliged to do it for a
+living, and when it is the only healthy exercise one is able to take!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By and by the girls fly to their little nests. As we still stroll in the
+ever-so-late twilight, at 10 p.&nbsp;m., we hear them piping sleepily, one to
+another, their heads under their wings no doubt. They are early
+birds&mdash;but that is all right. They are the life of the ship; but for
+their mirth and music the twilight would be longer and less delightful.
+Far into the night I linger over a final cigarette. An inexpressible
+calm steals over me,&mdash;a feeling as of deliverance, for the time being at
+least, from all the cares of this world. We are steaming toward a mass
+of shadows that, like iron gates, seem shut against us. A group of
+fellow-voyagers gathers on the forward deck, resolved to sit up and
+ascertain whether we really manage to squeeze through some crevice, or
+back out at last and go around the block. I grow drowsy and think fondly
+of my little bunk.</p>
+
+<p>What a night! Everything has grown vague and mysterious. Not a voice is
+heard&mdash;only the throb of the engine down below and the articulated
+pulsation of the paddles, every stroke of which brings forth a hollow
+sound from the sea, as clear and as well defined as a blow upon a
+drumhead; but these are softened by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> the swish of waters foaming under
+the wheel. Echoes multiply; myriads of them, faint and far, play
+peek-a-boo with the solemn pilot, who silently paces the deck when all
+the ship is wrapped in a deep sleep.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i065.png" width="250" height="107"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span><br />
+Alaskan Village Life.</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the morning coffee came a rumor of an Indian village on the
+neighboring shore. We were already past it, a half hour or more, but
+canoes were visible. Now this was an episode. Jack, the cabin-boy, slid
+back the blind; and as I sat up in my bunk, bolstered among the pillows,
+I saw the green shore, moist with dew and sparkling in the morning
+light, sweep slowly by&mdash;an endless panorama. There is no dust here, not
+a particle. There is rain at intervals, and a heavy dew-fall, and
+sometimes a sea fog that makes it highly advisable to suspend all
+operations until it has lifted. After coffee I found the deck gaily
+peopled. The steamer was running at half speed; and shortly she took a
+big turn in a beautiful lagoon and went back on her course far enough to
+come in sight of the Indian village, but we did not stop there. It seems
+that one passage we were about to thread was reached at a wrong stage
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> the tide; and, instead of waiting there for better water, we loafed
+about for a couple of hours, enjoying it immensely, every soul of us.</p>
+
+<p>Vancouver Island lay upon our left. It was half veiled in mist, or
+smoke; and its brilliant constellation of sky-piercing peaks, green to
+the summit, with glints of sunshine gilding the chasms here and there,
+and rich shadows draping them superbly, reminded me of Nukahiva, one of
+the Marquesas Islands&mdash;the one where Herman Melville found his famed
+Typee. It seems extravagant to associate any feature in the Alaskan
+archipelago with the most romantic island in the tropical sea; but there
+are points of similarity, notwithstanding the geographical
+discrepancy&mdash;daring outlines, magnificent cloud and atmospheric effects,
+and a fragrance, a pungent balsamic odor ever noticeable. This
+impalpable, invisible balm permeates everything; it is wafted out over
+the sea to us, even as the breath of the Spice Islands is borne over the
+waves to the joy of the passing mariner.</p>
+
+<p>Surely there can be no finer tonic for a fagged fellow with feeble lungs
+than this glorious Alaskan air. There is no danger of surfeit here; the
+over-sweet is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> likely to be met with in this latitude; and, then, if
+one really feels the need of change, why, here is a fishing station. The
+forest is trimmed along the shore so that there is scant room for a few
+shanties between the water and the wilderness. A dock runs but a little
+way out into the sea, for the shores are precipitous and one finds a
+goodly number of fathoms only a few yards from the shingle.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the dock, sometimes nearly housing the whole of it, stands
+a shed well stored with barrels, sacks of salt, nets, and all the
+necessary equipments of a first-class fish-canning establishment. A few
+Indian lodges are scattered along the shore. The Indians, a hearty and
+apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about
+here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere
+is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with
+cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies
+batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun.
+The blood-red interiors of drying fish&mdash;rackfuls of them turned wrong
+side out&mdash;are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and
+everything is sombre and subdued.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet not all fishing stations are cheerless. The salmon fishery and
+trading store located at Loring are picturesque. The land-lock nook is
+as lovely as a Swiss lake; and, oh, the myriad echoes that waken in
+chorus among these misty mountains! The waters of the Alaskan
+archipelago are prolific. Vast shoals of salmon, cod, herring, halibut,
+mullet, ulicon, etc., silver the surface of the sea, and one continually
+hears the splash of leaping fish.</p>
+
+<p>A traveller has written of his visit to the fishing-grounds on the Naass
+river, where the tribes had gathered for what is called their "small
+fishing"&mdash;the salmon catch is at another time. These small fish are
+valuable for food and oil. They run up the river for six weeks only, and
+with the utmost regularity. At the point he visited, the Naass was about
+a mile and a half wide; yet so great was the quantity of fish that, with
+three nails driven into a stick, an Indian would rake up a canoeful in a
+short time. Five thousand Indians were congregated from British Columbia
+and Alaska; their faces painted red and black; feathers upon their
+heads, and imitations of wild beasts upon their dresses. Over the fish
+was an immense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> cloud of sea-gulls&mdash;so many were there, and so thick
+were they, that the fluttering of their wings was like a swift fall of
+snow. Over the gulls were eagles soaring and watching their chance. The
+halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finback whale had followed the
+little ones out of the deep; and there was confusion worse confounded,
+and chaos came again in the hours of wild excitement that followed the
+advent of the small fry, for each and all in sea and air were bent upon
+the destruction of these little ones.</p>
+
+<p>Seven thousand salmon have been taken at one haul of the seine in this
+latitude. Most of these salmon weigh sixty pounds each, and some have
+been caught that weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. Yet there are no
+game fish in Alaska. Let sportsmen remember that far happier hunting
+grounds lie within twenty miles of San Francisco, and in almost any
+district of the Northern or Eastern States. On a certain occasion three
+of our fellow-voyagers, armed in fashionable fishing toggery, went forth
+from Sitka for a day's sport. A steam launch bore them to a land where
+the rank grass and rushes grew shoulder high. Having made their way with
+difficulty to the margin of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> lake, they came upon a boat which
+required incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept
+the craft afloat while the others fished until evening. They caught
+nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the
+seats; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say
+again, on good authority, there are no game fish in Alaska. There are
+salmon enough in these waters to supply the world&mdash;but the world can be
+supplied without coming to these waters at all. The truth is, I fear,
+that the market has been glutted and the business overdone.</p>
+
+<p>One evening we anchored off a sad and silent shore. A few Indian lodges
+were outlined against the woods beyond. A few Indians stolidly awaited
+the arrival of a small boat containing one of our fellow-passengers.
+Then for some hours this boat was busily plying to and fro, bringing out
+to us all that was portable of a once flourishing, or at least
+promising, fishery and cannery, now defunct. Meanwhile the mosquitoes
+boarded our ship on a far more profitable speculation. It was pitiful to
+see our friend gathering together the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of a wrecked fortune&mdash;for
+he had been wealthy and was now on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> the down grade of life&mdash;hoping
+almost against hope to be able to turn an honest penny somehow,
+somewhere, before he dies.</p>
+
+<p>At times we saw solitary canoes containing a whole family of Indians
+fishing in the watery waste. What solemn lives they must lead! But a
+more solemn and more solitary scene occurred a little later. All the
+afternoon we had been sailing under splendid icy peaks. We came in out
+of the hot sun, and were glad of the cool, snow-chilled air that visited
+us lightly at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>It was the hour of 9.30 p.&nbsp;m. The sun was dropping behind a lofty
+mountain range, and in its fine glow we steamed into a lovely cove under
+a towering height. A deserted, or almost deserted, fishing village stood
+upon a green bottom land&mdash;a mere handful of lodges, with a young growth
+of trees beyond, and an older growth between these and the glacier that
+was glistening above them all. A cannery looking nearly new stood at the
+top of a tall dock on stilts. On the extreme end of the dock was a
+figure&mdash;a man, and a white man at that&mdash;with both hands in his pockets,
+and an attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> figure stood
+stock-still. We wondered if it lived, if it breathed, or if it was an
+effigy set up there in scorn of American enterprise. We slowed up and
+drew near to the dock. It was a curious picture: a half dozen log-built
+lodges; a few tall piles driven into the land for steamer or trading
+schooner to make fast to; a group of Indians by a feeble camp
+fire,&mdash;Indians who never once changed their postures more than to
+wearily lift their heads and regard us with absolute indifference.</p>
+
+<p>When we were near enough to hail the motionless figure on the dock, we
+did not hail him. Everybody was wildly curious: Everybody was perfectly
+dumb. The whole earth was silent at last; the wheels had stopped; the
+boat was scarcely moving through the water. The place, the scene, the
+hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep
+silence; the paddles plunged into the sea again; we made a graceful
+sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away.
+Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the
+dock; we merely touched our hats at the last moment; he lifted his,
+stalked solemnly to the top of the dock and disappeared. There is a bit
+of Alaskan life for you!</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i168.png" width="300" height="68"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span><br />
+Juneau.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sitka, the capital of Alaska, sleeps, save when she is awakened for a
+day or two by the arrival of a steamer-load of tourists. Fort Wrangell,
+the premature offspring of a gold rumor, died, but rose again from the
+dead when the lust of gold turned the human tide toward the Klondike.
+Juneau, the metropolis, was the only settlement that showed any signs of
+vigor before the Klondike day; and she lived a not over-lively village
+life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow
+straits. There were sea-birds skimming the water as we threaded the
+labyrinthine channels that surround Juneau. We were evidently not very
+far from the coast-line; for the gulls were only occasional visitors on
+the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared
+aloft among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> pines that crowned the mountain heights; they glossed
+their wings in the spray of the sky-tipped waterfalls, and looked down
+upon us from serene summits with the unwinking eye of scorn. It is
+awfully fine sailing all about Juneau. Superb heights, snow-capped in
+many cases, forest-clad in all, and with cloud belts and sunshine
+mingling in the crystalline atmosphere, form a glorious picture, which,
+oddly enough, one does not view with amazement and delight, but in the
+very midst of which, and a very part of which, he is; and the proud
+consciousness of this marks one of the happiest moments of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Steaming into a lagoon where its mountain walls are so high it seemed
+like a watery way in some prodigious Venice; steaming in, stealing in
+like a wraith, we were shortly saluted by the miners on Douglas Island,
+who are, perhaps, the most persistent and least harmful of the
+dynamiters. It was not long before we began to get used to the batteries
+that are touched off every few minutes, night and day; but how strange
+to find in that wild solitude a 120-stamp mill, electric lights, and all
+the modern nuisances! Never was there a greater contrast than the one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+presented at Douglas Island. The lagoon, with its deep, dark waters,
+still as a dead river, yet mirroring the sea-bird's wing; a strip of
+beach; just above it rows of cabins and tents that at once suggest the
+mining camps of early California days; then the rather handsome quarters
+of the directors; and then the huge mill, admirably constructed and set
+so snugly among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore
+mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big
+game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose
+themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro
+between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the
+opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the
+explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that
+prevails at Gastineaux Channel.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, weary of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect
+the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the
+dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of
+experience for a young one. It was first known as Pilsbury; then some
+humorist dubbed it Fliptown. Later it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> was called Rockwell and
+Harrisburg; and finally Juneau, the name it still bears with more or
+less dignity. The customary Indian village hangs upon the borders of the
+town; in fact, the two wings of the settlement are aboriginal; but the
+copper-skin seems not particularly interested in the progress of
+civilization, further than the occasional chance it affords him of
+turning an honest penny in the disposal of his wares.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was the gang-plank out than we all made a rush for the trading
+stores in search of curios. The faculty of acquisitiveness grows with
+what it feeds on; and before the Alaskan tour is over, it almost amounts
+to a mania among the excursionists. You should have seen us&mdash;men, women
+and children&mdash;hurrying along the beach toward the heart of Juneau, where
+we saw flags flying from the staves that stood by the trading-stores. It
+was no easy task to distance a competitor in those great thoroughfares.
+Juneau has an annual rainfall of nine feet; the streets are guttered:
+indeed the streets are gutters in some cases. I know of at least one
+little bridge that carries the pedestrian from one sidewalk to another,
+over the muddy road below. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> was headed off on my way to the N. W. T.
+Co.'s warehouse, and sat me down on a stump to write till the rush on
+bric-a-brac was over. Meanwhile I noticed the shake shanties and the
+pioneers who hung about them, with their long legs crooked under rush
+chairs in the diminutive verandas.</p>
+
+<p>Indian belles were out in full feather. Some had their faces covered
+with a thick coating of soot and oil; the rims of the eyelids, the tip
+of the nose and the inner portions of the lips showing in striking
+contrast to the hideous mask, which they are said to wear in order to
+preserve their complexion. They look for the most part like black-faced
+monkeys, and appear in this guise a great portion of the time in order
+to dazzle the town, after a scrubbing, with skins as fair and sleek as
+soft-soap. Even some of the sterner sex are constrained to resort to art
+in the hope of heightening their manly beauty; but these are, of course,
+Alaskan dudes, and as such are doubtless pardonable.</p>
+
+<p>There is a bath-house in Juneau and a barber-shop. They did a big
+business on our arrival. There are many billiard halls, where prohibited
+drinks are more or less surreptitiously obtained. A dance-hall stands
+uninvitingly open to the street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> At the doorway, as we passed it, was
+posted a hand-lettered placard announcing that the ladies of Juneau
+would on the evening in question give a grand ball in honor of the
+passengers of the <i>Ancon</i>. Tickets, 50 cents.</p>
+
+<p>It began to drizzle. We dodged under the narrow awnings of the shops,
+and bargained blindly in the most unmusical lingos. Within were to be
+had stores of toy canoes&mdash;graceful little things hewn after the Haida
+model, with prows and sides painted in strange hieroglyphics; paddles
+were there&mdash;life-size, so to speak,&mdash;gorgeously dyed, and just the
+things for hall decorations; also dishes of carved wood of quaint
+pattern, and some of them quite ancient, were to be had at very moderate
+prices; pipes and pipe-bowls of the weirdest description; halibut
+fish-hooks, looking like anything at all but fish-hooks; Shaman rattles,
+grotesque in design; Thlinket baskets, beautifully plaited and stained
+with subdued dyes&mdash;the most popular of souvenirs; spoons with bone bowls
+and handles carved from the horns of the mountain goat or musk-ox; even
+the big horn-spoon itself was no doubt made by these ingenious people;
+Indian masks of wood, inlaid with abalone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> shells, bears' teeth, or
+lucky stones from the head of the catfish; Indian wampum; deer-skin
+sacks filled with the smooth, pencil-shaped sticks with which the native
+sport passes the merry hours away in games of chance; bangles without
+end, and rings of the clumsiest description hammered out of silver coin;
+bows and arrows; doll papooses, totem poles in miniature. There were
+garments made of fish-skins and bird-skins, smelling of oil and
+semi-transparent, as if saturated with it; and half-musical instruments,
+or implements, made of twigs strung full of the beaks of birds that
+clattered with a weird, unearthly Alaskan clatter.</p>
+
+<p>There were little graven images, a few of them looking somewhat
+idolatrous; and heaps upon heaps of nameless and shapeless odds and ends
+that boasted more or less bead-work in the line of ornamentation; but
+all chiefly noticeable for the lack of taste displayed, both in design
+and the combination of color. The Chilkat blanket is an exception to the
+Alaskan Indian rule. It is a handsome bit of embroidery, of significant
+though mysterious design; rich in color, and with a deep, knotted fringe
+on the lower edge&mdash;just the thing for a lambrequin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> and to be had in
+Juneau for $40, which is only $15 more than is asked for the same
+article in Portland, Oregon, as some of us discovered to our cost. There
+were quantities of skins miserably cured, impregnating the air with
+vilest odors; and these were waved at you and wafted after you at every
+step. In the forest which suddenly terminates at the edge of the town
+there is game worth hunting. The whistler, reindeer, mountain sheep and
+goat, ermine, musk-rat, marmet, wolf and bear, are tracked and trapped
+by the red-man; but I doubt if the foot of the white-man is likely to
+venture far into the almost impenetrable confusion of logs and brush
+that is the distinguishing feature of the Alaskan wilderness. Beautiful
+antlers are to be had in Juneau and elsewhere; and perhaps a cinnamon or
+a black cub as playful as a puppy, and full of a kind of half-savage
+fun.</p>
+
+<p>In the upper part of the town, where the stumps and brush are thickest,
+there are cosy little log-cabins, and garden patches that seem to be
+making the most of the summer sunshine. In the window of one of these
+cabins we saw a face&mdash;dusky, beautiful, sensitive. Dreamy eyes slumbered
+under fringes that might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> won a song from a Persian poet; admirably
+proportioned features, delicious lips, almost persuaded us that a
+squaw-man might in some cases be excusable for his infatuation. Later we
+discovered that the one beauty of Alaska was of Hawaiian parentage; that
+she was married, and was as shy of intruders as a caged bird. Very
+dissimilar are the ladies of Juneau.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening the town-crier went to and fro announcing the opening of
+the ball. It was still drizzling; the cliffs that tower above the
+metropolis were capped with cloud; slender, rain-born rivulets plunged
+from these airy heights into space and were blown away like smoke.
+Sometimes we caught glimpses of white, moving objects, far aloft against
+the black wall of rock: these were mountain sheep.</p>
+
+<p>The cannonading at Douglas Island continued&mdash;muffled thunder that ceases
+neither night nor day. Nobody seemed to think of sleeping. The dock was
+swarming with Indians; you would have known it with your eyes shut, from
+the musky odor that permeated every quarter of the ship. The deck was
+filled with passengers, chatting, reading, smoking, looking off upon the
+queer little town and wondering what its future was likely to be. And
+so,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> we might have lingered on indefinitely, with the light of a dull
+day above us&mdash;a light that was to grow no less till dawn, for there is
+no night there,&mdash;were it not that some one looked at his watch, and lo!
+it was the midnight hour.</p>
+
+<p>Then we went to the ball given by the ladies of Juneau in our honor.
+Half a dozen young Indian maidens sat on a bench against the wall and
+munched peanuts while they smiled; a few straggling settlers gathered at
+the bar while they smiled; two fiddlers and a guitar made as merry as
+they could under the circumstances in an alcove at the top of the hall.
+Round dances were in vogue,&mdash;round dances interspersed with flirtations
+and fire-water; round dances that grew oblong and irregular before
+sunrise&mdash;and yet it was sunrise at the unearthly hour of 3.30 a.&nbsp;m., or
+thereabout. We all felt as if we had been cheated out of something when
+we saw his coming; but perhaps it was only the summer siesta that had
+been cut short,&mdash;the summer siesta that here passes for the more
+wholesome and old-fashioned sleep of the world lower down on the map.</p>
+
+<p>During the night, having discharged freight and exhausted the resources
+of Juneau, including a post-office, and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> post-mistress who sorts the
+mail twice a month, we steamed back to Douglas Island, and dropped many
+fathoms of noisy chain into the deep abreast of the camp. The eve of the
+Fourth in the United States of America is nothing in comparison with the
+everlasting racket at this wonderful mine. The iron jaws of the
+120-stamp mill grind incessantly, spitting pulverized rock and ore into
+the vats that quake under the mastication of the mighty molars; cars
+slip down into the bowels of the earth, and emerge laden with precious
+freight; multitudinous miners relieve one another, watch and watch.
+Electric light banishes even a thought of dusk; and were it now
+winter&mdash;the long, dark, dreary winter of the North, with but half a
+dozen hours of legitimate daylight out of the four and twenty&mdash;the work
+at Douglas Island would go on triumphantly; and it will go forever&mdash;or,
+rather, until the bottom drops out of the mine, just as it drops out of
+everything in this life. All night long the terrible rattle and rumble
+and roar of the explosive agent robbed us of our rest. I could think of
+nothing but the gnomes of the German fairy tale; the dwarfs of the black
+mountain, with their glowworm lamps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> darting in and out of the tunnels
+in the earth like moles, and heaping together the riches that are the
+cause of so much pleasure and pain, and envy and despair, and sorrow and
+sin, and too often death.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i085.png" width="250" height="96"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span><br />
+By Solitary Shores.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Probably no one leaves Juneau with regret. Far more enjoyable was the
+day we spent in Ward's Cove, land-locked, wooded to the water's edge,
+and with forty-five fathoms of water of the richest sea-green hue. Here
+lay the <i>Pinta</i> and the <i>Paterson</i>, two characteristic representatives
+of the United States Navy&mdash;as it was before the war&mdash;the former a
+promoted tug-boat, equipped at an expense of $100,000, and now looking
+top-heavy and unseaworthy, but just the thing for a <i>matin&eacute;e</i>
+performance of Pinafore, if that were not out of date.</p>
+
+<p>This <i>Pinta</i>, terrible as a canal-boat, armed to the teeth, drew up
+under our quarter to take in coal. You see the <i>Ancon</i> combined business
+with pleasure, and distributed coal in quantities to suit throughout the
+Alaskan lagoon. Now, there is not much fun in coaling, even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> when a
+craft as funny as the <i>Pinta</i> is snuggling up under your quarter,
+looking more like the Pinafore than ever, with her skylarking sailors,
+midshipmite and all; so Captain Carroll secured a jaunty little
+steam-launch, and away we went on a picnic in the forest primeval. The
+launch was laden to the brim; three of our biggest boats were in tow; an
+abundant collation, in charge of a corps of cabin-boys, gave assurance
+of success in one line at least.</p>
+
+<p>We explored. Old Vancouver did the same thing long ago, and no doubt
+found these shores exactly as we find them to-day. We entered a shallow
+creek at the top of the cove; landed on a dreary point redolent of stale
+fish, and the beach literally alive and creeping with small worms above
+half an inch in length. A solitary squaw was splitting salmon for
+drying. She remained absorbed in her work while we gathered about and
+regarded her with impudent curiosity. Overcome by the fetid air of the
+place, we re-embarked and steamed gaily miles away over the sparkling
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>In an undiscovered country&mdash;so it seemed to us&mdash;we came to a smooth and
+sandy strip of shore and landed there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> But a few paces from the
+lightly-breaking ripples was the forest&mdash;and such a forest! There were
+huge trees, looking centuries old, swathed in blankets of moss, and the
+moss gray with age. Impenetrable depths of shadow overhead, impenetrable
+depths of litter under foot. Log had fallen upon log crosswise and at
+every conceivable angle.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the fruitful dust of these deposed monarchs of the forest sprang
+a numerous progeny&mdash;lusty claimants, every one of them,&mdash;their foliage
+feathery and of the most delicate green, being fed only by the thin
+sunshine that sifts through the dense canopy, supported far aloft by the
+majestic columns that clustered about us. Under foot the russet moss was
+of astonishing depth and softness. One walks with care upon it, for the
+foot breaks through the thick matting that has in many cases spread from
+log to log, hiding treacherous traps beneath. The ferns luxuriate in
+this sylvan paradise; and many a beautiful shrub, new to us, bore
+flowers that blushed unseen until we made our unexpected and perhaps
+unwelcome appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Here we camped. The cloth was spread in a temple not made with hands;
+how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> hard it is to avoid ringing in these little old-time tags about
+flowers and forests! The viands were deftly served; the merry jest went
+round, and sometimes came back the same way, "returned with thanks." And
+thus we revelled in the midst of a solitude that may never before have
+been broken by the sound of human voice. When we held our peace&mdash;which
+we did at long intervals, and for a brief moment only&mdash;we realized this
+solemn fact; but it didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why,
+even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings
+under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy
+circles, piping sharp, peevish cries.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delightful day we passed together. The memory of it is one of
+the most precious souvenirs of the Alaskan tour; and it was with
+reluctance that we returned to the ship, after consulting our watches
+with astonishment; for the late hours gave no warning, and we might have
+passed the night there in the loveliest of twilights.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Pinta</i> was about to withdraw to her anchorage as we boarded the
+<i>Ancon</i>; and then, too late, I discovered among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> officers of that
+terror of the sea an old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon
+days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S.
+man-of-war, <i>Alaska</i> of jolly memory; and he, with his companions,
+constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the <i>Alaska</i> is a sheer
+hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in
+the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I
+thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under <i>Old
+Glory</i>, then floating in the trade wind that blew over southern seas, I
+should find him last in the lone land that gave name to the ship that
+brought him over. Can the theosophists unravel this mystery, or see
+aught in it that verges upon the mystic philosophy? As we steamed out of
+Wood's Cove that night, with the echoes of a parting salute filling the
+heavens to overflowing, we saw a cluster of small, dark islets in the
+foreground; shining waters beyond flowed to the foot of far-away
+mountains; a silvery sky melted into gold as it neared the horizon: this
+picture, as delicate in tint as the most exquisite water-color, was
+framed in a setting of gigantic pines; and it was by this fairy portal
+we entered the sea of ice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From solitude to solitude is the order in Alaska. The solitude of the
+forest and the sea, of the mountain and ravine,&mdash;with these we had
+become more or less familiar when our good ship headed for the solitude
+of ice and snow. I began to feel as if we were being dragged out on the
+roof of the world&mdash;as if we were swimming in the flooded eaves of a
+continent. Sometimes there came over me a sense of loneliness&mdash;of the
+distance that lay between us and everybody else, and of the helplessness
+of our case should any serious accident befall us. It is this very
+state, perhaps, that ages the hearts of the hardiest of the explorers
+who seek vainly to unravel the polar mystery.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time as we sailed, the sea, now a brighter blue than ever,
+was strewn with fragments of ice. Very lovely they looked as they hugged
+the distant shore; a ghostly and fantastical procession, borne ever
+southward by the slow current; and growing more ghostly and fantastical
+hour by hour, as they dwindled in the clear sunshine of the long summer
+days. Anon the ice fragments increased in number and dimensions. The
+whole watery expanse was covered with brash, and we were obliged to pick
+our way with considerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> caution. At times we narrowly escaped grazing
+small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision
+with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough,
+being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling;
+or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles
+and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a
+tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are decidedly limited.
+Often we thought of the miserable millions away down East simmering in
+the sultry summer heat, while the thermometer with us stood at 45
+degrees in the sun, and the bracing salt air was impregnated with
+balsamic odors.</p>
+
+<p>In this delectable state we sighted a bouncing baby iceberg, and at once
+made for it with the enthusiasm of veritable discoverers. It was pretty
+to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it,
+searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg
+is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is
+rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on,
+coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> to
+it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun
+like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half
+dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes,
+and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season transferred
+to our iceboxes.</p>
+
+<p>Our iceberg was about fifty feet in length and twenty or thirty feet out
+of the water. It was a glittering island, with savage peaks, deep
+valleys, bluffs, and promontories. The edges were delicately frilled and
+resembled silver filigree. Some of these, which were transparent and as
+daintily turned as old Venetian glass, dripped continually like
+rain-beaten eaves. The portion nearest the water's edge was honeycombed
+by the wavelets that dashed upon it without ceasing, rushing in and out
+of the small, luminous caverns in swift, sparkling rivulets. Much of the
+surface was crusted with a fine frosting; it was full of wells deep
+enough to sink a man in. These wells were filled with water, and with a
+blue light, celestial in its loveliness,&mdash;a light ethereal and pellucid.
+It was as if the whole iceberg were saturated with transfused moonbeams,
+that gave forth a mellow radiance, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> flashed at times like
+brilliants, and burst into flame and played like lightning along the
+almost invisible rims and ridges. The unspeakable, the incomprehensible
+light throbbed through and through; and was sometimes bluish green and
+sometimes greenish blue; but oftenest with the one was the other, both
+at once, and with a perfectly bewildering tint added,&mdash;in a word, it was
+frozen moonlight and no mistake. O my friend, I assure you there are
+many famous sports with not half the fun in them that there is in
+lassoing an iceberg!</p>
+
+<p>Once more I turn to my note-books. I find that the morning had been
+foggy; that we could see scarcely a ship's length ahead of us; that the
+water was like oil beneath and the mists like snow above and about,
+while we groped blindly. Of course we could not press forward under the
+circumstances; for we were surrounded by islands great and small, and
+any one of these might silently materialize at a moment's notice; but we
+were not idle. Now and again our paddles beat the water impetuously, and
+they hung dripping, while the sea stretched around us as we leisurely
+drifted on like a larger bubble in danger of bursting upon an
+unexpected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> rock. We sounded frequently. There was an abundance of
+water&mdash;there nearly always is throughout the Alaskan archipelago; enough
+and to spare; but the abrupt shore might be but a stone's-throw from us
+on the one hand or the other.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? In the vast stillness we blew a blast on our shrill
+whistle, and listened for the echo. Sometimes it returned to us almost
+on the instant and we cried, "Halt!" When we halted or veered off,
+creeping as it were on the surface of the oily sea, sometimes a faint or
+far-off whisper&mdash;"the horns of elf-land"&mdash;gave us assurance of plenty of
+space and the sea-room we were sorely in need of just then. Once we saw
+looming right under our prow a little islet with a tuft of fir-trees
+crowning it&mdash;the whole worthy to be made the head-piece or tail-piece to
+some poem on solitude. It was very picturesque; but it seemed to be
+crouching there, lying in wait for us, ready to arch its back the moment
+we came within reach. The rapidity with which we backed out of that
+predicament left us no time for apologies.</p>
+
+<p>Again we got some distance up the wrong channel. When the fog lifted for
+a moment, we discovered the error, put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> about without more ado, and went
+around the block in a hurry. Meanwhile we had schooled our ears to
+detect the most delicate shades of sound; to measure or weigh each
+individual echo with an accuracy that gave us the utmost
+self-satisfaction. Perhaps Captain Carroll or Captain George, who was
+spying out the land with his ears, would not have trusted the ship in
+our keeping for five minutes&mdash;but no matter.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the opaque atmosphere began to dissolve away; and as the sun
+brushed the webs from his face, and darted sharp beams upon the water
+all at once in a shower, the fog-banks went to pieces and rolled away in
+sections out of sight, like the transformation scene in a Christmas
+pantomime. And there we were in the very centre of the smiling island
+world, with splendid snow peaks towering all about us; and such a flood
+of blue sky and bluer water, golden sunshine and gilded fields of snow,
+of jutting shores clad in perennial verdure, and eagles and sea-birds
+wheeling round about us, as can be seen nowhere else in the wide world
+to the same advantage.</p>
+
+<p>We were entering a region of desolation. The ice was increasing, and the
+water took that ghastly hue, even a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> glimpse of which is enough to chill
+the marrow in one's bones. Vegetation was dying out. A canoe-full of
+shivering Indians were stemming the icy flood in search of some chosen
+fishery,&mdash;all of them blanketed, and all&mdash;squaw as well as
+papooses&mdash;taking a turn at the paddle. These were the children of
+Nature, whose song-birds are the screaming eagle, the croaking raven,
+and the crying sea-doves blown inland by the wild westerly gales.</p>
+
+<p>We were now nearly within sound of the booming glaciers; and as we drew
+nearer and nearer I could but brood over the oft imagined picture of
+that vast territory&mdash;our Alaska,&mdash;where, beyond that mountain range, the
+almost interminable winter is scarcely habitable, and the summers so
+brief it takes about six of them to make a swallow.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i097.png" width="250" height="125"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span><br />
+In Search of the Totem-Pole.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Hour after hour and day after day we are coasting along shores that
+become monotonous in their beauty. For leagues the sea-washed roots of
+the forest present a fairly impassable barrier to the foot of man. It is
+only at infrequent intervals that a human habitation is visible, and
+still more seldom does the eye discover a solitary canoe making its way
+among the inextricable confusion of inlets. Sometimes a small cluster of
+Indian lodges enlivens the scene; and this can scarcely be said to
+enliven it, for most Indian lodges are as forlorn as a last year's
+bird's-nest. Sometimes a bright little village gives hope of a break in
+the serenity of the season&mdash;a few hours on shore and an extra page or
+two in our log-books. Yet again, sometimes it is a green jungle, above
+the sea, out of which rise diminutive box-houses, like exaggerated
+dove-cotes, with a goodly number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> of towering cedar columns, curiously
+carved, perhaps stained black or red in patches, scattered through them.
+These are Indian cemeteries. They are hedged about with staves, from the
+top of which flutter ragged streamers. They are rich in rude carvings of
+men and birds and beasts. Now and again a shield as big as a target, and
+looking not unlike an archery-target, marks the tomb of some warrior.
+The unerring shafts of death search out the obscurest handfuls of people
+scattered through these wide domains; and every village has its solemn
+suburb, where the houses of the dead are decorated with barbaric
+bric-a-brac.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the tombs are above ground&mdash;airy sarcophagi on high poles
+rocking in the wind and the rain. Some are nearer the earth, like
+old-fashioned four-poster bed-steads; and there the dead sleep well.
+Others are of stone, with windows and peaked roofs,&mdash;very comfortable
+receptacles. But most of the bodies are below ground, and the last
+vestiges of their graves are lost in the depths of the jungle.
+Incineration is not uncommon in Alaska, and in such cases the ashes are
+distributed among the winds and waves. Birds feast upon the bodies of
+certain tribes&mdash;meat-offerings,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> very gracious in the sight of the Death
+Angel; but by far the larger portion find decent burial, and they are
+all long and loudly and sincerely mourned.</p>
+
+<p>We awoke one morning at Casa-an, and found ourselves made fast to a
+dock. On the dock was a salmon-house, or shed, a very laboratory of
+ancient and fish-like smells. It was not long before the tide slipped
+away from us and left the steamer resting easily on her beam-ends in
+shallow water. We were prisoners for a few hours; but we were glad of
+this, for every hour was of interest to us. This was our first chance to
+thoroughly explore an Indian village; and, oh! the dogs, cousins-german
+to the coyotes, that shook off their fleas and bayed us dismally! Lodges
+of the rudest sort were scattered about in the most convenient
+localities. As for streets or lanes, there were none visible. The
+majority of the lodges were constructed of hemlock bark or of rough
+slabs, gaudily festooned with split salmon drying in the sun. The lodges
+are square, with roofs slightly inclined; they are windowless and have
+but one narrow door about shoulder high.</p>
+
+<p>The Casa-an Indians are a tribe of the Haidas, the cleverest of the
+northern races.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> They are expert craftsmen. From a half dollar they will
+hammer out or mold a bangle and cover it with chasing very deftly cut.
+Their wood-carvings, medicine-man rattles, spoons, broth bowls, and the
+like, are curious; but the demand for bangles keeps the more ingenious
+busy in this branch of industry. Unfortunately, some simple voyager gave
+the rude silversmiths a bangle of the conventional type, and this is now
+so cunningly imitated that it is almost impossible to secure a specimen
+of Haida work of the true Indian pattern. Very shortly the Indian
+villages of Alaska will be stocked with curios of genuine California
+manufacture. The supply of antiquities and originals has been already
+nearly, if not quite, exhausted. It is said that no sooner is the boom
+of the paddle-wheel heard in the noiseless Alaskan sea than the Indian
+proceeds to empty of its treasures his cedar chest or his red Chinese
+box studded with brass nails, and long before the steamer heaves in
+sight the primitive bazar is ready for the expected customer. There is
+much haggling over the price of a curio, and but little chance of a
+bargain. If one has his eye upon some coveted object, he had best
+purchase it at once at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> the first figure; for the Indian is not likely
+to drop a farthing, and there are others who will gladly outbid the
+hesitating shopper.</p>
+
+<p>Time is no object in the eyes of these people. If an Indian thought he
+could make a quarter more on the sale of a curio by holding it a month
+longer, until the arrival of the next excursion boat, or even by getting
+into his canoe and paddling a day or two over to the next settlement, he
+would as lief do it as not. By the merest chance I drew from a heap of
+rubbish in the corner of a lodge a Shaman rattle, unquestionably
+genuine. This Shaman rattle is a quaintly carved rattle-box, such as is
+used by sorcerers or medicine-men in propitiation of the evil spirit at
+the bedside of the dying. The one I have was not offered for sale, nor
+did the possessor seem to place much value on it; yet he would not budge
+one jot or tittle in the price he first set upon it, and seemingly set
+at a guess. Its discovery was a piece of pure luck, but I would not
+exchange it for any other curio which I chanced to see during the whole
+voyage.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the lodges at Casa-an a chief lay dying. He was said to be the
+last of his race; and, judging from appearances,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> his hours were fast
+drawing to a close. He was breathing painfully; his face was turned to
+the wall. Two or three other Indians sat silently about, stirring at
+intervals a bright wood-fire that burned in the centre of the lodge. The
+curling smoke floated gracefully through a hole in the roof&mdash;most of it,
+but not quite all. As we entered (we were in search of the dying chief;
+for, as he seemed to be the one lion in the settlement, his fame was
+soon noised abroad) we found that the evangelist had forestalled us. He
+was asking the price of salmon in San Francisco; but upon our appearance
+he added, solemnly enough: "Well, we all must die&mdash;Indians and all." An
+interpreter had reluctantly been pressed into service; but as the
+missionary work was not progressing, the evangelist dropped the
+interpreter, rolled up his spiritual sleeves and pitched in as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, you Injun! you love God? You love Great Spirit?" No answer came
+from the thin, drawn lips, tightly compressed and visible just over the
+blankets edge in the corner of the lodge. "Say, John! you ready to die!
+You make your peace with God! You go to heaven&mdash;to the happy
+hunting-ground?" The chief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> who had silenced the interpreter with a
+single look, was apparently beyond the hearing of human speech; so the
+evangelist, with a sigh, again inquired into the state of the salmon
+market on the Pacific coast. Then the stricken brave turned a glazed eye
+upon the man of God, and the latter once more sought to touch that heart
+of stone: "I say, you Injun! you prepared to meet Great Spirit? You
+ready to go to happy hunting-ground?" The chief's eyes flamed for a
+moment, as with infinite scorn he muttered between his teeth to the
+evangelist: "You &mdash;&mdash; fool! You go to &mdash;&mdash;!" And he went.</p>
+
+<p>While the steamer was slowly righting we had ample time to inspect the
+beached hull of a schooner with a history. She was the Pioneer of
+Casa-an once commanded by a famous old smuggler named Baronovich. Long
+he sailed these waters; and, like Captain Kidd, he bore a charmed life
+as he sailed. It is a mystery to me how any sea-faring man can trust his
+craft to the mercy of the winds and tides of this myriad-islanded inland
+sea. This ancient mariner, Baronovich, not only braved the elements, but
+defied Russian officials, who kept an eye upon him night and day. On one
+occasion, having been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> boarded by the vigilant inspectors, and his
+piratical schooner thoroughly searched from stem to stern, he kindly
+invited the gentlemen to dine with him, and entertained them at a board
+groaning with the contraband luxuries which his suspicious guests had
+been vainly seeking all the afternoon. It is a wee little cabin and a
+shallow hold that furnish the setting for a sea-tale as wildly
+picturesque as any that thrills the heart of your youthful reader; but
+high and dry lies the moldering hulk of the dismantled smuggler, and
+there is no one left to tell the tale.</p>
+
+<p>As we lounged about, some hideous Indians&mdash;I trust they were not framed
+in the image of their Maker,&mdash;ill-shapen lads, dumpy, expressionless
+babies, green-complexioned half-breeds, sat and looked on with utter
+indifference. Many of the Haida Indians have kinky or wavy hair,
+Japanese or Chinese eyes, and most of them toe out; but they are, all
+things considered, the least interesting, the most ungainly and the most
+unpicturesque of people. If there is work for them to do they do it,
+heedless of the presence of inquisitive, pale-faced spectators. Indeed
+they seem to look down upon the white-man, and perhaps they have good
+reasons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> for so doing. If there is no work to be done, they are not at
+all disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>I very much doubt if a Haida Indian&mdash;or any other Indian, for that
+matter&mdash;knows what it is to be bored or to find the time hanging heavily
+on his hands. I took note of one old Indian who sat for four solid hours
+without once changing his position. He might have been sitting there
+still but that his wife routed him out after a lively monologue, to
+which he was an apparently disinterested listener. At last he arose with
+a grunt, adjusted his blanket, strode grimly to his canoe and bailed it
+out; then he entered and paddled leisurely to the opposite shore, where
+he disappeared in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Filth was everywhere, and evil odors; but far, far aloft the eagles were
+soaring, and the branches of a withered tree near the settlement were
+filled with crows as big as buzzards. Once in awhile some one or another
+took a shot at them&mdash;and missed. Thus the time passed at Casa-an. One
+magnifies the merest episode on the Alaskan voyage, and is grateful for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Killisnoo is situated in a cosy little cove. It is a rambling village
+that climbs over the rocks and narrowly escapes being pretty, but it
+manages to escape.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> Most of the lodges are built of logs, have small,
+square windows, with glass in them, and curtains; and have also a kind
+of primitive chimney. We climbed among these lodges and found them quite
+deserted. The lodgers were all down at the dock. There were inscriptions
+on a few of the doors: the name of the tenant, and a request to observe
+the sacredness of the domestic hearth. This we were careful to do; but
+inasmuch as each house was set in order and the window-curtains looped
+back, we were no doubt welcome to a glimpse of an Alaskan interior. It
+was the least little bit like a peep-show, and didn't seem quite real.
+One inscription was as follows&mdash;it was over the door of the lodge of the
+laureate:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">JOSEPH HOOLQUIN.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">My tum-tum is white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I try to do right:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All are welcome to come<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To my hearth and my home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So call in and see me, white, red or black man:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I'm de-late hyas of the Kootznahoo quan.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Need I add that <i>tum-tum</i> in the Chinook jargon signifies the soul!
+Joseph merely announced that he was clean-souled; also <i>de-late
+hyas</i>&mdash;that is, above reproach.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the store of the Northwest Trading Company we found no curios, and it
+is the only store in the place. Sarsaparilla, tobacco, blankets, patent
+medicines, etc., are there neatly displayed on freshly painted shelves,
+but no curios. On a strip of plank walk in front of the place are
+Indians luxuriously heaped, like prize porkers, and they are about as
+interesting a spectacle to the unaccustomed eye.</p>
+
+<p>Our whistle blew at noon. We returned on board, taking the cannery and
+oil-factory on the way, and finding it impossible to forget them for
+some time afterward. At 12.45 p.&nbsp;m. we were off, but we left one of the
+merriest and most popular of our voyagers behind us. He remained at
+Killisnoo in charge of the place. As we swam off into the sweet sea
+reaches, the poor fellow ran over the ridge of his little island,
+looking quite like a castaway, and no doubt feeling like one. He sprang
+from rock to rock and at last mounted a hillock, and stood waving his
+arms wildly while we were in sight. And the lassies? They swarmed like
+bees upon the wheelhouse, wringing their hands and their handkerchiefs,
+and weeping rivers of imaginary tears over our first bereavement! But
+really, now, what a life to lead, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> in what a place, especially if
+one happens to be young, and good-looking and a bit of a swell withal!</p>
+
+<p>But is there no romance here? Listen! We came to anchor over night in a
+quiet nook where the cliffs and the clouds overshadowed us. Everything
+was of the vaguest description, without form and void. There seemed to
+be one hut on shore, with the spark of a light in it&mdash;a cannery of
+course. Canoes were drifting to and fro like motes in the darkness,
+tipped with a phosphorescent rim. Indian voices hailed us out of the
+ominous silence; Indian dogs muttered under their breath, yelping in a
+whisper which was mocked by Indian papooses, who can bark before they
+have learned to walk or talk.</p>
+
+<p>Softly out of the balmy night&mdash;for it was balmy and balsamic (we were to
+the windward of the cannery),&mdash;a shadowy canoe floated up just under our
+rail; two shadowy forms materialized, and voices like the voices of
+spirits&mdash;almost the softest voices in the world, voices of infantile
+sweetness&mdash;hailed us. "<i>Alah, mika chahko!</i>" babbled the flowers of the
+forest. My solitary companion responded glibly, for he was no stranger
+in these parts. The maids grew garrulous. There was much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> bantering, and
+such laughter as the gods delight in; and at last a shout that drew the
+attention of the captain. He joined us just in season to recognize the
+occupants of the canoe, as they shot through a stream of light under an
+open port, crying "<i>Anah nawitka mika halo shem!</i>" And then we learned
+that the sea-nymphs he had put to flight were none other than the belles
+of Juneau City, the Alaskan metropolis, who were spending the summer at
+this watering-place, and who were known to fame as "Kitty the Gopher,"
+and "Feather-Legged Sal."</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i110.png" width="250" height="104"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XI.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><br />
+In the Sea of Ice.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We appreciated the sun's warmth so long as we were cruising among the
+ice-wrack. Some of the passengers, having been forewarned, were provided
+with heavy overcoats, oilskin hats, waterproofs, woolen socks, and
+stogies with great nails driven into the soles. They were iron-bound,
+copper-fastened tourists, thoroughly equipped&mdash;Alpine-stock and
+all,&mdash;and equal to any emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly it rains whenever it feels like it in Alaska. It can rain
+heavily for days together, and does so from time to time. The
+excursion-boat may run out of one predicament into another, and the
+whole voyage be a series of dismal disappointments; but this is not to
+be feared. The chances are in favor of a round of sunshiny days and
+cloudless nights as bright as the winter days in New England; of the
+fairest of fair weather; bracing breezes tempered by the fragrant
+forests that mantle each of the ten thousand islands;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> cool nights in
+midsummer, when a blanket is welcome in one's bunk; a touch of a fog now
+and again, generally lasting but a few hours, and welcome, also, by way
+of change. As for myself, a rubber coat protected me in the few showers
+to which we were exposed, and afforded warmth enough in the coldest
+weather we encountered. For a climb over a glacier, the very thickest
+shoes are absolutely necessary; beyond these, all else seems superfluous
+to me, and the superfluous is the chief burden of travel.</p>
+
+<p>We were gathered about the deck in little groups. The unpremeditated
+coteries which naturally spring into existence on shipboard hailed one
+another across decks, from the captain's cabin&mdash;a favorite resort&mdash;or
+the smoking-room, as we sighted objects of interest. With us there was
+no antagonism, albeit we numbered a full hundred, and for three weeks
+were confined to pretty close quarters. Passing the hours thus, and
+felicitating ourselves upon the complete success of the voyage, we were
+in the happiest humor, and amiably awaited our next experience.</p>
+
+<p>Presently we ran under a wooded height that shut off the base of a great
+snow-capped mountain. The peak was celestial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> in its beauty,&mdash;a wraith
+dimly outlined upon the diaphanous sky, of which it seemed a more
+palpable part. When we had rounded this point we came face to face with
+a glacier. We saw at a glance the length and the breadth of it as it
+plowed slowly down between lofty rock-ridges to within a mile and a half
+of the shore. This was our first sight of one of those omnipotent
+architects of nature, and we watched it with a thrill of awe.</p>
+
+<p>Picture to yourself a vast river, two or three miles in breadth, pouring
+down from the eminence of an icy peak thirty miles away,&mdash;a river fed by
+numerous lateral tributaries that flow in from every declivity. Imagine
+this river lashed to a fury and covered from end to end, fathoms deep,
+with foam, and then the whole suddenly frozen and fixed for
+evermore&mdash;that is your glacier. Sometimes the surface is stained with
+the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of the mountain; sometimes the bluish-green tinge of the
+ancient ice crops out. Generally the surface is as white as down and
+very fair to look upon; for at a distance&mdash;we were about eight miles
+from the lower edge of it&mdash;the eye detects no flaw. It might be a
+torrent of milk and honey. It might almost be compared in its
+immaculate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> beauty to one of the rivers of Paradise that flow hard by
+the throne of God. It seems to be moving in majesty, and yet is
+stationary, or nearly so; for we might sit by its frozen shore and grow
+gray with watching, and ever our dull eyes could detect no change in a
+ripple of it. A river of Paradise, indeed, escaped from the gardens of
+the blessed; but, overcome by the squalor of this little globe, it has
+stopped short and turned to ice in its alabaster bed.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, about 8.30 o'clock, the sun still high above the western
+mountain range, we found ourselves opposite the Davidson glacier. It
+passes out of a broad ravine and spreads fanlike upon the shore under
+the neighboring cliffs. It is three miles in breadth along the front,
+and is twelve hundred feet in height when it begins to crumble and slope
+toward the shore. A terminal moraine, a mile and a half in depth,
+separates it from the sea. A forest, or the remnant of a forest, stands
+between it and the water it is slowly but surely approaching. The fate
+of this solemn wood is sealed. Anon the mightiest among these mighty
+trees will fall like grain before the sickle of the reaper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are very near this glacier. We see all the wrinkles and fissures and
+the deep discolorations. We see how the monstrous mass winds in and out
+between the mountains, and crowds them on every side, and rubs their
+skin off in spots, and leaves grooved lines, like high-water marks,
+along the face of the cliffs; how it gathers as it goes, and grinds to
+powder and to paste whatever comes within its reach, growing worse and
+worse, and greedier and more rapacious as it creeps down into the
+lowlands; so that when it reaches the sea, where it must end its course
+and dissolve away, it will have covered itself with slime and confusion.
+It will have left ruin and desolation in its track, but it will likewise
+have cleft out a valley with walls polished like brass and a floor as
+smooth as marble,&mdash;one that will be utilized in after ages, when it has
+carpeted itself with green and tapestried its walls with vines. Surely
+no other power on earth could have done the job so neatly.</p>
+
+<p>One sees this work in process and in fresh completion in Alaska. The
+bald islet yonder, with a surface as smooth as glass and with delicate
+tracery along its polished sides&mdash;tracery that looks like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> etching upon
+glass,&mdash;was modelled by glaciers not so many years ago: within the
+century, some of them, perhaps. A glacier&mdash;probably the very glacier we
+are seeking&mdash;follows this track and grinds them all into shape. Every
+angle of action&mdash;of motion, shall I say?&mdash;is indelibly impressed upon
+each and every rock here about; so all these northlands, from sea to
+sea, the world over, have been laboriously licked into shape by the
+irresistible tide of ice. Verily, the mills of the gods grind slowly,
+but what a grist they grind!</p>
+
+<p>Let me record an episode that occasioned no little excitement among the
+passengers and crew of the <i>Ancon</i>. While we were picking our way among
+the floating ice&mdash;and at a pretty good jog, too,&mdash;a dark body was seen
+to fall from an open port, forward, into the sea. There was a splash and
+a shriek as it passed directly under the wheel and disappeared in the
+foam astern. "Man overboard!" was the cry that rang through the ship,
+while we all rushed breathlessly to the after-rail. Among the seething
+waters in our wake, we saw a head appearing and disappearing, and
+growing smaller and smaller all the while, though the swimmer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> was
+struggling bravely to hold his own. In a moment the engines were
+stopped; and then&mdash;an after-thought&mdash;we made as sharp a turn as
+possible, hoping to lessen the distance between us, while a boat was
+being manned and lowered for the rescue. We feared that it was the cook,
+who was running a fair chance of being drowned or chilled to death. His
+black head bobbed like a burnt cork on the crest of the waves; and,
+though we marked a snow-white circle in the sea, we seemed to get no
+nearer the strong swimmer in his agony; and all at once we saw him turn,
+as in desperation or despair, and make for one of the little rocky
+islets that were lying at no great distance. Evidently he believed
+himself deserted, and was about to seek this desolate rock in the hope
+of prolonging existence.</p>
+
+<p>By this time we had come to a dead halt, and a prolonged silence
+followed. Our sailor boys pulled lustily at the oars; yet the little
+boat seemed to crawl through yawning waves, and, as usual, every moment
+was an hour of terrible suspense. Then the captain, the most anxious
+among us all, made a trumpet of his hands and shouted: "Here, Pete, old
+boy! Here, Pete, you black rascal!" At the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> sound of his voice the
+swimmer suddenly turned and struck out for the ship with an enthusiasm
+that was actually ludicrous. We roared with laughter&mdash;we could not help
+it; for when the boat had pulled up to the almost water-logged swimmer,
+and he began to climb in with an energy that imperiled the safety of the
+crew, we saw that the black rascal in question was none other than Pete
+Bruin, Captain Carroll's pet bear. He shook himself and drenched the
+oarsmen, who were trying to get him back to the ship; for he was half
+frantic with delight, and it was pretty close quarters&mdash;a small boat in
+a chop sea dotted with lumpy ice; and a frantic bear puffing and blowing
+as he shambled bear-fashion from the stem to stern, and raised his voice
+at intervals in a kind of hoarse "hooray," that depressed rather than
+cheered his companions. It was ticklish business getting the boat and
+its lively crew back to the davits in safety.</p>
+
+<p>It was still more ticklish receiving the shaggy hero on deck; for he
+gave one wild bound and alighted in the midst of a group of terrified
+ladies and scattered the rest of us in dismay. But it was side-splitting
+when the little fellow, seeing an open door, made a sudden break for
+it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> and plunged into the berth of a shy damsel, who, put to ignominious
+flight in the first gust of the panic, had sought safety in her
+state-room only to be singled out for the recipient of the rascal's
+special attentions. She was rescued by the bravest of the brave; but
+Bruin had to be dragged from behind the lace curtains with a lasso, and
+then he brought some shreds of lace with him as a trophy. He was more
+popular than ever after this little adventure, and many an hour we spent
+in recounting to one another the varied emotions awakened by the
+episode.</p>
+
+<p>Heading for Glacier Bay, we found a flood of bitter cold water so filled
+with floating ice that it was quite impossible to avoid frequent
+collisions with masses of more or less magnitude. There was an almost
+continual thumping along the ship's side as the paddle struck heavily
+the ice fragments which we found littering the frozen sea. There was
+also a dull reverberation as of distant thunder that rolled over the sea
+to us; and when we learned that this was the crackling of the ice-pack
+in the gorges, we thought with increasing solemnity of the majesty of
+the spectacle we were about to witness.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we pushed forward bravely toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> an ice-wall that stretched across
+the top of the bay from one high shore to the other. This wall of ice, a
+precipitous bluff or palisade, is computed to be from two hundred to
+five hundred feet in height. It is certainly nowhere less than two
+hundred, but most of it far nearer five hundred feet above sea level,
+rising directly out of it, overhanging it, and chilling the air
+perceptibly. Picking our path to within a safe distance of the glacier,
+we cast anchor and were free to go our ways for a whole glorious day.
+According to Professor John Muir&mdash;for whom the glacier is deservedly
+named,&mdash;the ice-wall measures three miles across the front; ten miles
+farther back it is ten miles in breadth. Sixteen tributary glaciers
+unite to form the one.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Muir, accompanied by the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell,
+visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this
+region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to
+his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous
+speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most
+self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed
+this glacier. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; so
+that although it is always advancing, it seems in reality to be
+retreating.</p>
+
+<p>Within the memory of the last three generations the Muir glacier filled
+the bay for miles below our anchorage; and while it recedes, it is
+creeping slowly down, scalping the mountains, grinding all the sharp
+edges into powder or leaving a polished surface behind it. It gathers
+rock dust and the wreck of every living thing, and mixes them up with
+snow and ice. These congeal again, or are compressed into soft, filthy
+monumental masses, waiting their turn to topple into the waves at last.
+The wash of the sea undermines the glacier; the sharp sunbeams blast it.
+It is forever sinking, settling, crushing in upon itself and splitting
+from end to end, with fearful and prolonged intestinal reverberations,
+that remind one of battle thunders and murder and sudden death. There
+was hardly a moment during the day free from rumble or a crash or a
+splash.</p>
+
+<p>The front elevation might almost be compared to Niagara Falls in winter;
+but here is a spectacular effect not often visible at Niagara. At
+intervals huge fragments of the ice cliffs fall, carrying with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> them
+torrents of snow and slush. Heaven only knows know many hundred thousand
+tons of this <i>d&eacute;bris</i> plunged into the sea under our very eyes. Nor was
+it all <i>d&eacute;bris</i>: there were masses of solid ice so lustrous they looked
+like gigantic emeralds or sapphires, and these were fifty or even a
+hundred times the size of our ship. When they fell they seemed to
+descend with the utmost deliberation; for they fell a much greater
+distance than we could realize, as their bulk was beyond conception, so
+that a fall of two hundred or three hundred feet seemed not a tenth part
+of that distance.</p>
+
+<p>With this deliberate descent, as if they floated down, they also gave an
+impression of vast weight and when they struck the sea, the foam flew
+two-thirds of the way up the cliff&mdash;a fountain three hundred feet in
+height and of monstrous volume. Then after a long time&mdash;a very long time
+it seemed to us&mdash;the ice would rise slowly from the deep and climb the
+face of the cliff as if it were about to take its old place again; but
+it sank and rose, until it had found its level, when it joined the long
+procession drifting southward to warmer waves and dissolution.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the ground swell that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> followed each submersion
+resembled a tidal wave as it rolled down upon us and threatened to
+engulf us. But the <i>Ancon</i> rode like a duck&mdash;I can not consistently say
+swan in this case,&mdash;and heaved to starboard and to larboard in
+picturesque and thoroughly nautical fashion. Some of us were on shore,
+wading in the mud and the slush, or climbing the steep bluffs that hem
+in the glacier upon one side. Here it was convenient to glance over the
+wide, wide snow-fields that seem to have been broken with colossal
+harrows. It was even possible to venture out upon the ice ridges,
+leaping the gaps that divided them in every direction. But at any moment
+the crust might have broken and buried us from sight; and we found the
+spectacle far more enjoyable when viewed from the deck of the steamer.</p>
+
+<p>What is that glacier like? Well, just a little like the whitewashed
+crater of an active volcano. At any rate, it is the glorious companion
+piece to Kilauea in Hawaii. In these wonders of nature you behold the
+extremes, fire and ice, having it all their own way, and a world of
+adamant shall not prevail against them.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i123.png" width="300" height="73"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XII.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span><br />
+Alaska's Capital.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sitka has always seemed to me the jumping-off place. I have vaguely
+imagined that somehow&mdash;I know not just how&mdash;it had a mysterious affinity
+with Moscow, and was in some way a dependence of that Muscovite
+municipality. I was half willing to believe that an underground passage
+connected the Kremlin with the Castle of Sitka; that the tiny capital of
+Great Alaska responded, though feebly, to every throb of the Russian
+heart. Perhaps it did in the good old days now gone; but there is little
+or nothing of the Russian element left, and the place is as dead as dead
+can be without giving offence to the olfactory organ.</p>
+
+<p>We were picking our way through a perfect wilderness of islands, on the
+lookout for the capital, of which we had read and heard so much. Surely
+the Alaskan pilot must have the eye and the instinct of a sea bird or he
+could never find a port in that labyrinth. Moreover, the air was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> misty:
+we felt that we were approaching the sea. Lofty mountains towered above
+us; sometimes the islands swam apart&mdash;they seemed all in motion, as if
+they were swinging to and fro on the tide,&mdash;and then down a magnificent
+vista we saw the richly wooded slopes of some glorious height that
+loomed out of the vapor and bathed its forehead in the sunshine.
+Sometimes the mist grew denser, and we could see hardly a ship's-length
+ahead of us; and the air was so chilly that our overcoats were drawn
+snugly about us, and we wondered what the temperature might be "down
+south" in Dakota and New England.</p>
+
+<p>In the grayest of gray days we came to Sitka, and very likely for this
+reason found it a disappointment at first sight. Certainly it looked
+dreary enough as we approached it&mdash;a little cluster of tumbledown houses
+scattered along a bleak and rocky shore. We steamed slowly past it, made
+a big turn in deep water, got a tolerable view of the city from one end
+of it to the other, and then crept up to the one little dock, made fast,
+and were all granted the freedom of the capital for a couple of days. It
+is a gray place&mdash;gray with a greenish tinge in it&mdash;the kind of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> green
+that looks perennial&mdash;a dark, dull evergreen.</p>
+
+<p>There was some show of color among the costumes of the people on
+shore&mdash;bright blankets and brighter calicoes,&mdash;but there was no
+suspicion of gaiety or of a possible show of enthusiasm among the few
+sedate individuals who came down to see us disembark. I began to wonder
+if these solemn spectators that were grouped along the dock were ghosts
+materialized for the occasion; if the place were literally dead&mdash;dead as
+the ancient Russian cemetery on the hill, where the white crosses with
+their double arms, the upper and shorter one aslant, shone through the
+sad light of the waning day.</p>
+
+<p>We had three little Russian maids on our passenger list, daughters of
+Father Mitropolski, the Greek priest at Sitka. They were returning from
+a convent school at Victoria, and were bubbling over with delight at the
+prospective joys of a summer vacation at home. But no sooner had they
+received the paternal embraces upon the deck than the virtue of
+happiness went out of them; and they became sedate little Sitkans, whose
+dignity belied the riotous spirit that had made them the life of the
+ship on the way up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We also brought home a little Russian chap who had been working down at
+Fort Wrangell, and, having made a fortune&mdash;it was a fortune in his
+eyes,&mdash;he was returning to stay in the land of his nativity. He was
+quiet enough on shipboard&mdash;indeed, he had almost escaped observation
+until we sighted Sitka; but then his heart could contain itself no
+longer, and he made confidants of several of us to whom he had spoken
+never a word until this moment. How glad he was to greet its solemn
+shores, to him the dearest spot in all the earth! A few hours later we
+met him. He was swinging on the gate at the homestead in the edge of the
+town: a sweet, primitive place, that caught our eye before the youngster
+caught our ears with his cheerful greeting. "Oh, I so glad!" said he,
+with a mist in his eye that harmonized with everything else. "I make
+eighty dollar in four month at Wrangell. My sister not know me when I
+get home. I so glad to come back to Sitka. I not go away any more."</p>
+
+<p>Of course we poured out of the ship in short order, and spread through
+the town like ants. At the top of the dock is the Northwest Trading
+Company's store&mdash;how we learned to know these establishments!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> Some
+scoured it for a first choice, and got the pick of the wares; but here,
+as elsewhere, we found the same motley collection of semi-barbarous
+bric-a-brac&mdash;brilliantly painted Indian paddles spread like a sunburst
+against the farther wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fantastical
+carvings such as the aborigines delight in, and in which they almost
+excel. Up the main street of the town is another store, where a series
+of large rooms, crowded with curios bewilders the purchaser of those
+grotesque wares.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of Katalan's rock, on the edge of the sea, stands the
+Colonial Castle. It is a wooden structure, looking more like a barrack
+than a castle. At the foot of the rock are the barracks and Custom
+House. A thin sprinkling of marines, a few foreign-looking citizens&mdash;the
+full-fledged Rusk of the unmistakable type is hard to find
+nowadays,&mdash;and troops of Indians give a semblance of life to this
+quarter. At the head of the street stands the Russian Orthodox Church;
+and this edifice, with its quaint tower and spire, is really the lion of
+the place. St. Michael's was dedicated in 1844 by the Venerable Ivan
+Venianimoff, the metropolitan of Moscow, for years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> priest and Bishop at
+Ounalaska and Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>In his time the little chapel was richly decorated; but as the
+settlement began falling to decay, the splendid vestments and sacred
+vessels and altar ornaments, and even the Bishop himself, were
+transferred to San Francisco. It then became the duty of the Bishop to
+visit annually the churches at Sitka, Ounalaska and Kodiak, as the
+Russian Government still allowed these dependencies an annuity of
+$50,000. But the last incumbent of the office, Bishop Nestor, was lost
+tragically at sea in May, 1883; and, as the Russian priesthood seems to
+be less pious than particular, the office is still a-begging&mdash;unless I
+have been misinformed. Probably the mission will be abandoned. Certainly
+the dilapidated chapel, with its remnants of tarnished finery, its three
+surviving families of Russian blood, its handful of Indian converts,
+seems not likely to hold long together.</p>
+
+<p>We witnessed a service in St. Michael's. The tinkling bells in the green
+belfry&mdash;a bulbous, antique-looking belfry it is&mdash;rang us in from the
+four quarters of the town. As there were neither pews, chairs nor prayer
+carpets, we stood in serio-comic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> silence while the double mysteries of
+the hidden Holy of Holies were celebrated. Not more than a dozen
+devotees at most were present. These gathered modestly in the rear of
+the nave and put us to shame with their reverent gravity. Strange chants
+were chanted; it was a weird music, like a litany of bumblebees. Dense
+clouds of incense issued from gilded recesses that were screened from
+view.</p>
+
+<p>It was all very strange, very foreign, very unintelligible to us. It was
+also very monotonous; and when some of the unbelievers grew restless and
+stole quietly about on voyages of exploration and discovery, they were
+duly rewarded at the hands of the custodian of the chapel, who rather
+encouraged the seeming sacrilege. He left his prayers unsaid to pilot us
+from nook to nook; he exhibited the old paintings of Byzantine origin,
+and in broken English endeavored to interpret their meaning. He opened
+antique chests that we might examine their contents; and when a volume
+of prayers printed in rustic Russian type and bound with clumsy metal
+clasps, was bartered for, he seemed quite willing to dispose of it,
+though it was the only one of the kind visible on the premises. This
+excited our cupidity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> and, with a purse in our hand, we groped into the
+sacristy seeking what we might secure.</p>
+
+<p>A set of small chromos came to light: bright visions of the Madonna,
+done in three or four colors, on thin paper and fastened to blocks of
+wood. They were worth about two cents&mdash;perhaps three for five. We paid
+fifty cents apiece, and were glad to get them at that price&mdash;oh, the
+madness of the seeker after souvenirs! Then all unexpectedly we came
+upon a collection of half-obliterated panel paintings. They were thrown
+carelessly in a deep window-seat, and had been overlooked by many. They
+were Russian to the very grain of the wood; they were quaint to the
+verge of the ludicrous; they were positively black with age; thick
+layers of dust and dirt and smoke of incense coated them, so that the
+faint colors that were laid upon them were sunk almost out of sight. The
+very wood itself was weather-stained, and a chip out of it left no trace
+of life or freshness beneath. Centuries old they seemed, these small
+panels, sacred <i>Ikons</i>. In far-away Russia they may have been venerated
+before this continent had verified the dream of Columbus. As we were
+breaking nearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> all the laws of propriety, I thought it safe to inquire
+the price of these. I did so. Would I had been the sole one within
+hearing that I might have glutted my gorge on the spot! They were
+fifteen cents apiece, and they were divided among us as ruthlessly as if
+they were the seamless shirt of blessed memory.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the ceremonies at the high altar had come to an end. The
+amiable assistant of Father Mitropolski was displaying the treasures of
+the sanctuary with pardonable pride,&mdash;jewelled crosiers, golden
+chalices, robes resplendent with rubies, amethysts and pearls, paintings
+upon ivory, and images clothed in silver and precious stones. The little
+chapel, cruciform, is decorated in white and gold; the altar screens are
+of bronze set with images of silver. Soft carpets of the Orient were
+spread upon the steps of the altar.</p>
+
+<p>How pretty it all seemed as we turned to leave the place and saw
+everything dimly in the blue vapor that still sweetened and hallowed it!
+And when the six bells in the belfry all fell to ringing riotously, and
+the sun let slip a few stray beams that painted the spire a richer
+green, and the grassy street that stretches from the church porch to the
+shore was dotted with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> groups of strollers, St Michael's at Sitka, in
+spite of its dingy and unsymmetrical exterior, seemed to us one of the
+prettiest spots it had ever been our lot to see.</p>
+
+<p>It is a grassy and a mossy town that gathers about the Russian chapel.
+All the old houses were built to last (as they are likely to do) for
+many generations to come. They are log-houses&mdash;the public buildings, the
+once fashionable officers' club, and many of the residences,&mdash;formed of
+solid square brown logs laid one upon another until you come to the
+roof. At times the logs are clapboarded without, and are all lathed and
+plastered within. The floors are solid and the stairs also. The wonder
+is how the town can ever go to ruin&mdash;save by fire; for wood doesn't rot
+in Alaska, but will lie in logs exposed to the changes of the season for
+an indefinite period.</p>
+
+<p>I saw in a wood back of the town an immense log. It was in the primeval
+forest, and below it were layers of other logs lying crosswise and in
+confusion. I know not how far below me was the solid earth, for mats of
+thick moss and deep beds of dead leaves filled the hollows between the
+logs; but this log, nearly three feet in diameter, was above them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> all;
+and out of it&mdash;from a seed no doubt imbedded in the bark&mdash;had sprung a
+tree that is to-day as great in girth as the log that lies prostrate
+beneath its roots. These mighty roots have clasped that log in an
+everlasting embrace and struck down into the soil below. You can
+conjecture how long the log has been lying there in that tangle of
+mighty roots&mdash;yet the log is to-day as sound a bit of timber as one is
+likely to find anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Alaska is buried under forests like these&mdash;I mean that part of it which
+is not still cased in ice and snow. A late official gave me out of his
+cabinet a relic of the past. It is a stone pestle, rudely but
+symmetrically hewn,&mdash;evidently the work of the aborigines. This pestle,
+with several stone implements of domestic utility, was discovered by a
+party of prospectors who had dug under the roots of a giant tree. Eleven
+feet beneath the surface, directly under the tree and surrounded by
+gigantic roots, this pestle, and some others of a similar character,
+together with mortars and various utensils, were scattered through the
+soil. Most of the collection went to the Smithsonian Institute, and
+perhaps their origin and history may be some day conjectured.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> How many
+ages more, I wonder, will be required to develop the resources of this
+vast out-of-door country?</p>
+
+<p>When the tardy darkness fell upon Sitka&mdash;toward midnight&mdash;the town was
+hardly more silent than it had been throughout the day. A few lights
+were twinkling in distant windows; a few Indians were prowling about;
+the water rippled along the winding shore; and from time to time as the
+fresh gusts blew in from the sea, some sleepless bird sailed over us on
+shadowy wings, and uttered a half-smothered cry that startled the
+listener. Then, indeed, old Sitka, which was once called New Archangel,
+seemed but a relic of the past, whose vague, romantic history will
+probably never be fully known.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i135.png" width="250" height="100"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span><br />
+Katalan's Rock.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Katalan's Rock towers above the sea at the top corner of Sitka. Below
+it, on the one hand, the ancient colonial houses are scattered down the
+shore among green lawns like pasture lands, and beside grass-grown
+streets with a trail of dust in the middle of them. On the other hand,
+the Siwash Indian lodges are clustered all along the beach. This
+rancheria was originally separated from the town by a high stockade, and
+the huge gates were closed at night for the greater security of the
+inhabitants; but since the American occupation the gates have been
+destroyed, and only a portion of the stockade remains.</p>
+
+<p>Katalan's Rock is steep enough to command the town, and ample enough to
+afford all the space necessary for fortifications and the accommodation
+of troops and stores. A natural Gibraltar, it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> the site of the first
+settlement, and has ever remained the most conspicuous and distinguished
+quarter of the colony. The first building erected on this rock was a
+block-house, which was afterward burned. A second building, reared on
+the ruins of the first, was destroyed by an earthquake; but a third, the
+colonial castle and residence of the governors, stands to this day. It
+crowns the summit of the rock, is one hundred and forty feet in length,
+seventy feet in depth, two stories with basement and attic, and has a
+lookout that commands one of the most romantic and picturesque
+combinations of land and sea imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a handsome edifice, nor is it in the least like a castle, nor
+like what one supposes a castle should be. Were it anywhere else, it
+might pass for the country residence of a gentleman of the old school,
+or for an unfashionable suburban hotel, or for a provincial seminary. It
+is built of solid cedar logs that seem destined to weather the storms of
+ages. These logs are secured by innumerable copper bolts; and the whole
+structure is riveted to the rocks, so that neither wind nor wave nor
+earthquake shock is likely to prevail against it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Handsomely finished within, it was in the colonial days richly
+furnished; and as Sitka was at that time a large settlement composed of
+wealthy and highbred Russians, governed by a prince or a baron whose
+petty court was made up of the representatives of the rank and fashion
+of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the colonial castle was most of the time
+the scene of social splendor.</p>
+
+<p>The fame of the brilliant and beautiful Baroness Wrangell, first
+chatelaine of the castle, lives after her. She was succeeded by the wife
+of Governor Kupreanoff, a brave lady, who in 1835 crossed Siberia on
+horseback to Behring Sea on her way to Sitka. Later the Princess
+Maksontoff became the social queen, and reigned in the little castle on
+Katalan's Rock as never queen reigned before. A flagship was anchored
+under the windows, and the proud Admiral spent much of his time on
+shore. The officers' clubhouse, yonder down the grassy street, was the
+favorite lounging place of the navy. The tea-gardens have run to seed,
+and the race-course is obliterated, where, doubtless, fair ladies and
+brave men disported themselves in the interminable twilights of the
+Alaskan summer. In the reign of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> Princess Maksontoff the ladies were
+first shown to the sideboard. When they had regaled themselves with
+potent punch and caviare, the gentlemen followed suit. But the big
+brazen samovar was forever steaming in the grand salon, and delicious
+draughts of caravan tea were in order at all hours.</p>
+
+<p>What days they were, when the castle was thronged with guests, and those
+of all ages and descriptions and from every rank in and out of society!
+The presidential levee is not more democratic than were the <i>f&eacute;tes</i> of
+the Princess Maksontoff. To the music of the Admiral's band combined
+with the castle orchestra, it was "all hands round." The Prince danced
+with each and every lady in turn. The Princess was no less gracious, for
+all danced with her who chose, from the Lord High Admiral to midshipmite
+and the crew of the captain's gig.</p>
+
+<p>You will read of these things in the pages of Lutka, Sir George Simpson,
+Sir Edward Belcher, and other early voyagers. They vouch for the unique
+charm of the colonial life at that day. Washington Irving, in his
+"Astoria," has something to say of New Archangel (Michael), or
+"Sheetka," as he spells it; but it is of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> time when the ships of
+John Jacob Astor were touching in that vicinity, and the reports are not
+so pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>While social life in the little colony was still more enjoyable, a
+change came that in a single hour reversed the order of affairs. For
+years Russia had been willing, if not eager, to dispose of the great
+lands that lay along the northwestern coast of America. She seemed never
+to have cared much for them, nor to have believed much in their present
+value or possible future development. No enterprise was evinced among
+the people: they were comparative exiles, who sought to relieve the
+monotony of their existence by one constant round of gaity. <i>Soir&eacute;es</i> at
+the castle, tea-garden parties, picnics upon the thousand lovely isles
+that beautify the Sitkan Sea; strolls among the sylvan retreats in which
+the primeval forest, at the very edge of the town, abounds; fishing and
+hunting expeditions, music, dancing, lively conversation, strong punch,
+caviare and the steaming samovar,&mdash;those were the chief diversions with
+which noble and serf alike sought to lighten the burden of the day.</p>
+
+<p>While Russia was willing to part with the lone land on the Pacific, she
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> determined that it should not pass into the hands of certain of the
+powers for whom she had little or no love. Hence there was time for the
+United States to consider the question of a purchase and to haggle a
+little over the price. For years the bargain hung in the balance. When
+it was finally settled, it was settled so suddenly that the witnesses
+had to be wakened and called out of their beds. They assembled secretly,
+in the middle of the night, as if they were conspirators; and before
+sunrise the whole matter was fixed forever.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th of October, 1867, three United States ships of war anchored
+off Katalan's Rock. These were the Ossipee, the Jamestown and the
+Resaca. In the afternoon, at half-past three o'clock, the terrace before
+the castle was surrounded by United States troops, Russian soldiers,
+officials, citizens and Indians. The town was alive with Russian
+bunting, and the ships aflutter with Stars and Stripes and streamers.
+There was something ominous in the air and in the sunshine. Bang! went
+the guns from the Ossipee, and the Russian flag slowly descended from
+the lofty staff on the castle; but the wind caught it and twisted it
+round and round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> the staff, and it was long before a boatswain's chair
+could be rigged to the halyards, and some one hauled up to disentangle
+the rebellious banner.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the rain began to fall, and the Princess Maksontoff was in
+tears. It was a dismal hour for the proud court of the doughty governor.
+The Russian water battery was firing a salute from the dock as the Stars
+and Stripes were climbing to the skies&mdash;the great continent of icy peaks
+and pine was passing from the hands of one nation to the other. In the
+silence that ensued, Captain Pestehouroff stepped forward and said: "By
+authority of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United
+States the Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered
+his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time
+fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but
+three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding
+which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of
+the United States government&mdash;both the acquisition and the fault-finding
+were on the part of our government&mdash;had best be left unmentioned. Now
+that the glorious waters of that magnificent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> archipelago have become
+the resort of summer tourists, every man, woman and child can see for
+his, her and its self; and this is the only way in which to convince an
+American of anything.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years ago Sitka was what I have attempted to describe above.
+To-day how different! Passing its barracks at the foot of Katalan's
+Rock, one sees a handful of marines looking decidedly bored if off duty.
+The steps that lead up to the steep incline of the rock to the castle
+terrace are fast falling to decay. Weeds and rank grass trail over them
+and cover the whole top of the rock. The castle has been dismantled. The
+walls will stand until they are blown up or torn down, but all traces of
+the original ornamentation of the interior have disappeared. The carved
+balustrades, the curious locks, knobs, hinges, chandeliers, and
+fragments of the wainscoting, have been borne away by enterprising curio
+hunters. There was positively nothing left for me to take.</p>
+
+<p>One may still see the chamber occupied by Secretary Seward, who closed
+the bargain with the Russian Government at $7,200,000, cash down. Lady
+Franklin occupied that chamber when she was scouring these waters in the
+fearless and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> indefatigable, but fruitless, search for the relics of the
+lost Sir John. One handsome apartment has been partially restored and
+suitably furnished for the use of the United States District Attorney.
+Two rooms on the groundfloor are occupied by the signal officers; but
+the rest of the building is in a shameful condition, and only its
+traditions remain to make it an object of interest to every stranger
+guest.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that twice in the year, at the dead hour of the night, the
+ghost of a bride wanders sorrowfully from room to room. She was the
+daughter of one of the old governors&mdash;a stern parent, who forced her
+into a marriage without love. On the bridal eve, while all the guests
+were assembled, and the bride, in wedding garments, was the centre of
+attraction, she suddenly disappeared. After a long search her body was
+found in one of the apartments of the castle, but life was extinct. At
+Eastertide the shade of this sad body makes the round of the deserted
+halls, and in passing leaves after it a faint odor of wild roses.</p>
+
+<p>The basement is half filled with old rubbish. I found rooms where an
+amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the
+walls recorded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with
+index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork <i>d&eacute;bris</i> was scattered
+about, and there were "old soldiers" enough on the premises to have
+quite staggered a moralist. The Muscovite reign is over. The Princess is
+in her grave on the hill yonder,&mdash;a grave that was forgotten for a time
+and lost in the jungle that has overgrown the old Russian cemetery. The
+Indians mutilated that tomb; but Lieutenant Gilman, in charge of the
+marines attached to the Adams, restored it; and he, with his men, did
+much toward preserving Sitka from going to the dogs.</p>
+
+<p>Gone are the good old days, but the Americanized Sitka does not propose
+to be behind the times. I discovered a theatre. It was in one of the
+original Russian houses, doomed to last forever&mdash;a long, narrow hall,
+with a stage at the upper end of it. A few scenes, evidently painted on
+the spot and in dire distress; a drop-curtain depicting an utterly
+impracticable roseate ice-gorge in the ideal Alaska, and four
+footlights, constituted the sum total of the properties. The stage was
+six feet deep, about ten feet broad, and the "flies" hung like "bangs"
+above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> the foreheads of the players. In the next room, convenient in
+case of a panic, was the Sitka fire department, consisting of a machine
+of one-man-power, which a small boy might work without endangering
+anybody or anything.</p>
+
+<p>Suburban Sitka is sweet and sad. One passes on the way to the wildwood,
+where everybody goes as often as may be,&mdash;a so-called "blarney stone."
+Many a fellow has chipped away at that stone while he chatted with his
+girl&mdash;I suppose that is where the blarney comes in,&mdash;and left his name
+or initials for a sacred memory. There are dull old Russian hieroglyphs
+there likewise. Love is alike in all languages, you know. The truth
+about the stone is merely this: it is a big soft stone by the sea, and
+of just the right height to rest a weary pilgrim. There old Baranoff,
+the first governor, used to sit of a summer afternoon and sip his
+Russian brandy until he was as senseless as the stone beneath him; and
+then he was carried in state up to the colonial castle and suffered to
+sober off.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the stone, and the curving beach with the grass-grown highway
+skirting it, is the forest; and through this forest is the lovers' lane,
+made long ago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> by the early colonists and kept in perfect trim by the
+latest,&mdash;a lane that is green-arched overhead and fern-walled on either
+side, and soft with the dust of dead pine boughs underfoot. There also
+are streams and waterfalls and rustic bridges such as one might look for
+in some stately park in England, but hardly in Alaska. Surely there is
+no bit of wilderness finer than this. All is sweet and grave and silent,
+save for the ripple of waters and the sighing of winds.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Siwash village on the other side of Sitka, it is a Siwash
+village over again. How soon one wearies of them! But one ought never to
+weary of the glorious sea isles and the overshadowing mountains that lie
+on every side of the quaint, half-barbarous capital. Though it is dead
+to the core and beginning to show the signs of death, it is one of the
+dreamiest spots on earth, and just the one for long summer solitude,&mdash;at
+least so we all thought, for on the morrow we were homeward bound.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i147.png" width="250" height="128"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XIV.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span><br />
+From the Far North.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sitka is the turning-point in the Alaskan summer cruise. It is the
+beginning of the end; and I am more than half inclined to think that in
+most cases&mdash;charming as the voyage is and unique in its way beyond any
+other voyage within reach of the summer tourist&mdash;the voyager is glad of
+it. One never gets over the longing for some intelligence from the outer
+world; never quite becomes accustomed to the lonely, far-away feeling
+that at times is a little painful and often is a bore.</p>
+
+<p>During the last hours at Sitka, Mount Edgecombe loomed up gloriously,
+and reminded one of Fugjyamma. It is a very handsome and a highly
+ornamental mountain. So are the islands that lie between it and the
+Sitkan shore handsome and ornamental, but there are far too many of
+them. The picture is overcrowded, and in this respect is as unlike the
+Bay of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> Naples as possible; though some writers have compared them, and
+of course, as is usual in cases of comparison, to the disadvantage of
+the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Sitka, we ran out to sea. It was much easier to do this than go
+a long way round among the islands; and, as the weather was fair, the
+short cut was delightful. We rocked like a cradle&mdash;the <i>Ancon</i> rocks
+like a cradle on the slightest provocation. The sea sparkled, the
+wavelets leaped and clapped their hands. Once in awhile a plume of spray
+was blown over the bow, and the delicate stomach recoiled upon itself
+suggestively; but the deliciousness of the air in the open sea and the
+brevity of the cruise&mdash;we were but five or six hours outside&mdash;kept us in
+a state of intense delight. Presently we ran back into the maze of
+fiords and land-locked lakes, and resumed the same old round of daily
+and nightly experiences.</p>
+
+<p>Juneau, Douglas Island, Fort Wrangell, and several fishing stations were
+revisited. They seemed a little stale to us, and we were inclined to
+snub them slightly. Of course we thought we knew it all&mdash;most of us knew
+as much as we cared to know; and so we strolled leisurely about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+solemn little settlements, and, no doubt, but poorly succeeded in
+disguising the superior air which distinguishes the new arrival in a
+strange land. It is but a step from a state of absolute greenness on
+one's arrival at a new port to a <i>blas&eacute;</i> languor, wherein nothing can
+touch one further; and the step is easily and usually taken inside of a
+week. May the old settlers forgive us our idiocy!</p>
+
+<p>There was a rainy afternoon at Fort Wrangell,&mdash;a very proper background,
+for the place is dismal to a degree. An old stern-wheel steamboat,
+beached in the edge of the village, was used as a hotel during the
+decline of the gold fever; but while the fever was at its height the
+boat is said to have cleared $135,000 per season. The coolie has bored
+into its hollow shell and washes there, clad in a semi-Boyton suit of
+waterproof.</p>
+
+<p>I made my way through the dense drizzle to the Indian village at the far
+end of the town. The untrodden streets are grass-grown; and a number of
+the little houses, gray with weather stains, are deserted and falling to
+decay. Reaching a point of land that ran out and lost itself in mist, I
+found a few Indians smoking and steaming, as they sat in the damp sand
+by their canoes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A long footbridge spans a strip of tide land. I ventured to cross it,
+though it looked as if it would blow away in the first gust of wind. It
+was a long, long bridge, about broad enough for a single passenger; yet
+I was met in the middle of it by a well-blanketed squaw, bound inland.
+It was a question in my mind whether it were better to run and leap
+lightly over her, since we must pass on a single rail, or to lie down
+and allow her to climb over me. O happy inspiration! In the mist and the
+rain, in the midst of that airy path, high above the mud flats, and with
+the sullen tide slowly sweeping in from the gray wastes beyond the
+capes, I seized my partner convulsively, and with our toes together we
+swung as on a pivot and went our ways rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge led to the door of a chief's house, and the door stood open.
+It was a large, square house, of one room only, and with the floor sunk
+to the depth of three feet in the centre. It was like looking into a dry
+swimming bath. A step, or terrace, on the four sides of the room made
+the descent easy, and I descended. The chief, in a cast-off military
+jacket, gave me welcome with a mouthful of low gutterals. I found a good
+stove in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> lodge and several comfortable-looking beds, with chintz
+curtains and an Oriental superabundance of pillows. A few photographs in
+cheap frames adorned the walls; a few flaming chromos&mdash;Crucifixions and
+the like&mdash;hung there, along with fathoms of fishnet, clusters of
+fish-hooks, paddles, kitchen furniture, wearing apparel, and a
+blunderbuss or two. Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings,
+supported the heavy beams of the roof in the manner of caryatides. These
+figures, half veiled in shadow, were most impressive, and gave a kind of
+Egyptian solemnity to the dimly lighted apartment.</p>
+
+<p>The chief was not alone. His man Friday was with him, and together we
+sat and smoked in a silence that was almost suffocating. It fairly
+snapped once or twice, it was so dense; and then we three exchanged
+grave smiles and puffed away in great contentment. The interview was
+brought to a sudden close by the chief's making me a very earnest offer
+of $6 for my much-admired gum ulster, and I refusing it with scorn&mdash;for
+it was still raining. So we parted coldly, and I once more walked the
+giddy bridge with fear and trembling; for I am not a somnambulist, who
+alone might perform there with impunity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a bad day for curios. The town had been sacked on the voyage up;
+yet I prowled in these quarters, where one would least expect to find
+treasure, inasmuch as it is mostly found just there. Presently the most
+hideous of faces was turned up at me from the threshold of a humble
+lodge. It was of a dead green color, with blood trimmings; the nose
+beaked like a parrot's, the mouth a gaping crescent; the eyeless sockets
+seemed to sparkle and blink with inner eyes set in the back of the
+skull; murderous scalp locks streamed over the ill-shapen brow; and from
+the depths of this monstrosity some one, or something, said, "Boo!" I
+sprang backward, only to hear the gurgle of baby laughter, and see the
+wee face of a half-Indian cherub peering from behind the mask. Well,
+that mask is mine now; and whenever I look at it I think of the falling
+dusk in Fort Wrangell, and of the child on all-fours who startled me on
+my return from the chief's house beyond the bridge, and who cried as if
+her little heart would break when I paid for her plaything and cruelly
+bore it away.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the happiest hours of the voyage were the "wee sma'" ones, when
+I lounged about the deserted deck with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> Captain George, the pilot. A
+gentleman of vast experience and great reserve, for years he has haunted
+that archipelago; he knows it in the dark, and it was his nightly duty
+to pace the deck while the ship was almost as still as death. He has
+heard the great singers of the past, the queens of song whose voices
+were long since hushed. We talked of these in the vast silence of the
+Alaskan night, and of the literature of the sea, and especially of that
+solitary northwestern sea, while we picked our way among the unpeopled
+islands that crowded all about us.</p>
+
+<p>On such a night, while we were chatting in low voices as we leaned over
+the quarter-rail, and the few figures that still haunted the deck were
+like veritable ghosts, Captain George seized me by the arm and
+exclaimed: "Look there!" I looked up into the northern sky. There was
+not a cloud visible in all that wide expanse, but something more filmy
+than a cloud floated like a banner among the stars. It might almost have
+been a cobweb stretched from star to star&mdash;each strand woven from a star
+beam,&mdash;but it was ever changing in form and color. Now it was
+scarf-like, fluttering and waving in a gentle breeze; and now it hung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+motionless&mdash;a deep fringe of lace gathered in ample folds. Anon it
+opened suddenly from the horizon, and spread in panels like a fan that
+filled the heavens. As it opened and shut and swayed to and fro as if it
+were a fan in motion, it assumed in turn all the colors of the rainbow,
+but with a delicacy of tint and texture even beyond that of the rainbow.
+Sometimes it was like a series of transparencies&mdash;shadow pictures thrown
+upon the screen of heaven, lit by a light beyond it&mdash;the mysterious
+light we know not of. That is what the pilot and I saw while most of the
+passengers were sleeping. It was the veritable <i>aurora borealis</i>, and
+that alone were worth the trip to Alaska.</p>
+
+<p>One day we came to Fort Tongass&mdash;a port of entry, and our last port in
+the great, lone land&mdash;for all the way down through the British
+possessions we touch no land until we reach Victoria or Nanaimo. Tongass
+was once a military post, and now has the unmistakable air of a desert
+island. Some of us were not at all eager to go on shore. You see, we
+were beginning to get our fill of this monotonous out-of-the-world and
+out-of-the-way life. Yet Tongass is unique, and certainly has the most
+interesting collection of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> totem poles that one is likely to see on the
+voyage. At Tongass there is a little curving beach, where the ripples
+sparkle among the pebbles. Beyond the beach is a strip of green lawn,
+and at the top of the lawn the old officers' quarters, now falling to
+decay. For background there are rocks and trees and the sea. The sea is
+everywhere about Tongass, and the sea-breezes blow briskly, and the
+sea-gulls waddle about the lawn and sit in rows upon the sagging roofs
+as if they were thoroughly domesticated. Oh, what a droll place it is!</p>
+
+<p>After a little deliberation we all went ashore in several huge
+boat-loads; and, to our surprise, were welcomed by a charming young
+bride in white muslin and ribbons of baby-blue. Somehow she had found
+her way to the desert island&mdash;or did she spring up there like a wild
+flower? And the grace with which she did the honors was the subject of
+unbounded praise during the remainder of the voyage.</p>
+
+<p>This pretty Bret Harte heroine, with all of the charms and virtues and
+none of the vices of his camp-followers, led us through the jagged rocks
+of the dilapidated quarters, down among the spray-wet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> rocks on the
+other side of the island, and all along the dreary waste that fronts the
+Indian village. Oh, how dreary that waste is!&mdash;the rocks, black and
+barren, and scattered far into the frothing sea; the sandy path along
+the front of the Indian lodges, with rank grass shaking and shivering in
+the wind; the solemn and grim array of totem poles standing in front or
+at the sides of the weather-stained lodges&mdash;and the whole place
+deserted. I know not where the Indians had gone, but they were not
+there&mdash;save a sick squaw or two. Probably, being fishermen, the tribe
+had gone out with their canoes, and were now busy with the spoils
+somewhere among the thousand passages of the archipelago.</p>
+
+<p>The totem poles at Tongass are richly carved, brilliantly colored, and
+grotesque in the extreme. Some of the lodges were roomy but sad-looking,
+and with a perpetual shade hovering through them. We found inscriptions
+in English&mdash;very rudely lettered&mdash;on many of the lodges and totem poles:
+"In memory of" some one or another chief or notable red-man. Over one
+door was this inscription: "In memory of &mdash;&mdash;, who died by his own
+hand." The lodge door was fastened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> with a rusty padlock, and the place
+looked ghoulish.</p>
+
+<p>I think we were all glad to get out of Tongass, though we received our
+best welcome there. At any rate, we sat on the beach and got our feet
+wet and our pockets full of sand waiting for the deliberate but
+dead-sure boatmen to row us to the ship. When we steamed away we left
+the little bride in her desert island to the serene and sacred joy of
+her honeymoon, hoping that long before it had begun to wane she might
+return to the world; for in three brief weeks we were beginning to lust
+after it. That evening we anchored in a well-wooded cove and took on
+several lighter-loads of salmon casks. Captain Carroll and the best
+shots in the ship passed the time in shooting at a barrel floating three
+hundred yards distant. So ran our little world away, as we were homeward
+bound and rapidly nearing the end of the voyage.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i158.png" width="250" height="98"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><span class="smcap">Chapter XV.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span><br />
+Out of the Arctic.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Captain Cook&mdash;who, with Captain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young
+ladies' ideal romance of the seas&mdash;was in these waters, he asked the
+natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied:
+"Alaska"&mdash;great land. It <i>is</i> a great land, lying loosely along the
+northwest coast,&mdash;great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of
+its forests and in the fruitfulness of its many waters; great in the
+splendor of its ice fields; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence
+of its snow-clad peaks; great also in its possibilities, and greatest of
+all in its measureless wealth of gold.</p>
+
+<p>In the good old days of the Muscovite reign&mdash;1811,&mdash;Governor Baranoff
+sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where
+grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of
+Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> The
+Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his
+wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if
+his fresh food fails.</p>
+
+<p>The stagnation of life in Alaska is all but inconceivable. The summer
+tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the
+only variety it knows; and this comes so seldom&mdash;once or twice a
+month&mdash;that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the
+steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the excitement
+is over, quietly subsiding into a comatose state, and remaining in it
+until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically;
+takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one of the goat-paths
+that strike inland; nodding now and again to the familiar faces that
+seem never to change in expression except during tourist's hours; and
+then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of the solitary, for
+sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the
+brief night&mdash;barely forty winks in length&mdash;is so silvery and so soft
+that it is a delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and
+shadows play with one another, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> are reflected in sea and sky until
+the eye is almost dazzled with the loveliness of the scene. I believe if
+I were banished to Alaska I would sleep in the daytime&mdash;say from 8 a.&nbsp;m.
+to 5 p.&nbsp;m.,&mdash;and revel in the wakeful beauty of the other hours.</p>
+
+<p>But the winter, and the endless night of winter!&mdash;when the sun sinks to
+rest in discouragement at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and
+rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the
+forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name&mdash;for the dull
+luminary, having barely got above the fence at twelve o'clock, backs out
+of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to
+endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty! Since the moon is
+no more obliging to the Alaskans than the sun is, what is a poor fellow
+to do? He can watch the aurora until his eyes ache; he can sit over a
+game of cards and a glass of toddy&mdash;he can always get the latter up
+there; he can trim his lamp and chat with his chums and fill his pipe
+over and over again. But the night thickens and the time begins to lag;
+he looks at his watch, to find it is only 9 p.&nbsp;m., and there are twelve
+hours between him and daylight. It is a great land in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> which to store
+one's mind with knowledge, provided one has the books at hand and good
+eyes and a lamp that won't flicker or smoke. Yet why should I worry
+about this when there are people who live through it and like it?&mdash;or at
+least they say they do.</p>
+
+<p>In my mind's eye I see the Alaska of the future&mdash;and the not far-distant
+future. Among the most beautiful of the islands there will be fine
+openings; lawns and flowers will carpet the slopes from the dark walls
+of the forest to the water's edge. In the midst of these favored spots
+summer hotels will throw wide their glorious windows upon vistas that
+are like glimpses of fairy land. Along the beach numerous skiffs await
+those who are weary of towns; steam launches are there, and small barges
+for the transportation of picnic parties to undiscovered islands in the
+dim distance. Sloop yachts with the more adventurous will go forth on
+voyages of exploration and discovery, two or three days in length, under
+the guidance of stolid, thoroughbred Indian pilots. There may be an
+occasional wreck, with narrow escapes from the watery grave&mdash;let us hope
+so, for the sake of variety. There will be fishing parties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> galore, and
+camping on foreign shores, and eagle hunts, and the delights of the
+chase; with Indian retinues and Chinese cooks, and the "swell toggery"
+that is the chief, if not the only, charm of that sort of thing. There
+will be circulating libraries in each hotel, and grand pianos, and
+private theatricals, and nightly hops that may last indefinitely, or at
+least until sunrise, without shocking the most prudent; for day breaks
+at 2 a.&nbsp;m.</p>
+
+<p>There will be visits from one hotel to the other, and sea-voyages to
+dear old Sitka, where the Grand Hotel will be located; and there will be
+the regular weekly or semi-weekly boat to the Muir glacier, with
+professional guides to the top of it, and all the necessary traps
+furnished on board if desired. And this wild life can begin as early as
+April and go on until the end of September without serious injury. There
+will be no hay fever or prickly-heat; neither will there be sunstrokes
+nor any of the horrors of the Eastern and Southern summer. It will
+remain true to its promise of sweet, warm days, and deliciously cool
+evenings, in which the young lover may woo his fair to the greatest
+advantage; for there is no night there. Then everyone will come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> home
+with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with,
+and the rarest nowadays; and with a pocketful of Alaskan garnets, which
+are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utterly
+valueless, and unhandsome even when they are beautifully symmetrical.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the memory of the voyage, which is perhaps the most precious of
+all!&mdash;this we bring home with us forever. The memory of all that is half
+civilized and wholly unique and uncommon: of sleepy and smoky wigwams,
+where the ten tribes hold powwow in a confusion of gutturals, with a
+plentiful mixture of saliva; for it is a moist language, a gurgle that
+approaches a gargle, and in three weeks the unaccustomed ear scarcely
+recovers from the first shock of it; a memory of totem poles in stark
+array, and of the high feast in the Indian villages, where the beauty
+and chivalry of the forest gathered and squatted in wide circles
+listening to some old-man-eloquent in the very ecstasy of expectoration;
+the memory of a non-committing, uncommunicative race, whose religion is
+a feeble polytheism&mdash;a kind of demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not
+injure one, one's whole time is given to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> the propitiation of the evil.
+This is called Shamanism, and is said to have been the religion of the
+Tartar race before the introduction of Buddhism, and is still the creed
+of the Siberians; a memory of solitary canoes on moonlit seas and of
+spicy pine odors mingled with the tonic of moist kelp and salt-sea air.</p>
+
+<p>A memory of friends who were altogether charming, of a festival without
+a flaw. O my kind readers! when the Alaska Summer Hotel Company has
+stocked the nooks and corners of the archipelago with caravansaries, and
+good boats are filling them with guests who go to spend the season in
+the far Northwest, fail not to see that you are numbered among the
+elect; for Alaska outrivers all rivers and out-lakes all lakes&mdash;being
+itself a lake of ten thousand islands; it out-mountains the Alps of
+America, and certainly outdoes everything else everywhere else, in the
+shape of a watering place. And when you have returned from there, after
+two or three months' absence from the world and its weariness, you will
+begin to find that your "tum-tum is white" for the first time since your
+baptismal day, and that you have gained enough in strength and energy to
+topple the totem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> pole of your enemy without shedding a feather. There
+is hope for Alaska in the line of a summer resort.</p>
+
+<p>As ghosts scent the morning air and are dispersed, so we scented the
+air, which actually seemed more familiar as we approached Washington in
+the great Northwest; and the spirit of peace, of ease and of lazy
+contentment that had possessed our souls for three weeks took flight. It
+was now but a day's sail to Victoria, and yet we began to think we would
+never get there.</p>
+
+<p>We were hungry for news of the world which we had well-nigh forgotten.
+Three weeks! It seemed to us that in this little while cities might have
+been destroyed, governments overthrown, new islands upheaved and old
+ones swallowed out of sight. Then we were all expecting to find heaps of
+letters from everybody awaiting us at Victoria or Port Townsend, and our
+mouths fairly watered for news.</p>
+
+<p>We took a little run into the sea and got lost in a fog; but the pilot
+whistled for the landmarks, and Echo answered; so that by the time the
+fog was ready to roll away, like a snowy drop-curtain, we knew just
+where we were, and ran quietly into a nook that looked as if it would
+fit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> us like a bootjack. The atmosphere grew smoky; forest fires painted
+the sky with burnt umber, and through this veil the sun shone like a
+copper shield. Then a gorgeous moonlight followed. There was blood upon
+that moon, and all the shores were like veins in moss-agate and the sea
+like oil. We wound in and out, in and out, among dreamy islands; touched
+for a little while at Nanaimo, where we should have taken in a cargo of
+coal for Portland, whither the <i>Ancon</i> was bound; but Captain Carroll
+kindly put us all ashore first and then returned for his freight.</p>
+
+<p>We hated to sleep that night, and did not sleep very much. But when we
+awakened it was uncommonly quiet; and upon going on deck&mdash;lo! we were at
+Victoria. What a quiet, pretty spot! What a restful and temperate
+climate! What jutting shores, soft hills, fine drives, old-countrified
+houses and porters' lodges and cottages, with homely flowers in the
+door-yards and homely people in the doors!&mdash;homely I mean in the
+handsomest sense, for I can not imagine the artificial long survives in
+that community.</p>
+
+<p>How dear to us seemed civilization after our wanderings in the
+wilderness! We bought newspapers and devoured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> them; ran in and out of
+shops just for the fun of it and because our liberty was so dear to us
+then. News? We were fairly staggered with the abundance of it, and
+exchanged it with one another in the most fraternal fashion, sharing our
+joys and sorrows with the whole ship's company. And deaths? What a lot
+of these, and how startling when they come so unexpectedly and in such
+numbers! Why is it, I wonder, that so many people die when we are away
+somewhere beyond reach of communication?</p>
+
+<p>But enough of this. A few jolly hours on shore, a few drives in the
+suburbs and strolls in the town, and we headed for Port Townsend and the
+United States, where we parted company with the good old ship that
+carried us safely to and fro. And there we ended the Alaskan voyage
+gladly enough, but not without regret; for, though uneventful, I can
+truly say it was one of the pleasantest voyages of my life; and one
+that&mdash;thanks to every one who shared it with me&mdash;I shall ever remember
+with unalloyed delight.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+     <img src="images/i168.png" width="300" height="68"
+       alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by 
+Charles Warren Stoddard
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,3503 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by
+Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
+
+Author: Charles Warren Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO ALASKA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Vachuska, Constanze Hofmann and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
+
+BY
+
+CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
+
+_Third Edition_
+
+
+ST. LOUIS, MO., 1914
+
+Published by B. HERDER
+17 South Broadway
+
+FREIBURG (BADEN)
+Germany
+
+LONDON, W. C.
+68 Great Russell Str.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Gummersbach.
+
+
+--BECKTOLD--
+PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO.
+ST. LOUIS, MO.
+
+
+
+
+                       To
+               KENNETH O'CONNOR,
+     First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers,
+Gen'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba:
+   IN MEMORY OF OUR HOME-LIFE IN THE BUNGALOW.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+The Author returns thanks to the Editor of the _Ave Maria_ for the
+privilege of republishing these notes of travel and adventure.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  Chapter.                                        Page.
+        I. Due West to Denver                         7
+       II. In Denver Town                            18
+      III. The Garden of the Gods                    29
+       IV. A Whirl across the Rockies                40
+        V. Off for Alaska                            47
+       VI. In the Inland Sea                         56
+      VII. Alaskan Village Life                      66
+     VIII. Juneau                                    74
+       IX. By Solitary Shores                        86
+        X. In Search of the Totem-Pole               98
+       XI. In the Sea of Ice                        111
+      XII. Alaska's Capital                         124
+     XIII. Katalan's Rock                           136
+      XIV. From the Far North                       148
+       XV. Out of the Arctic                        159
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Due West to Denver.
+
+
+Commencement week at Notre Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Multitudes of
+guests who had been camping for a night or two in the recitation
+rooms--our temporary dormitories--gave themselves up to the boyish
+delights of school-life, and set numerous examples which the students
+were only too glad to follow. The boat race on the lake was a picture;
+the champion baseball match, a companion piece; but the highly decorated
+prize scholars, glittering with gold and silver medals, and badges of
+satin and bullion; the bevies of beautiful girls who for once--once only
+in the year--were given the liberty of the lawns, the campus, and the
+winding forest ways, that make of Notre Dame an elysium in summer; the
+frequent and inspiring blasts of the University Band, and the general
+joy that filled every heart to overflowing, rendered the last day of the
+scholastic year romantic to a degree and memorable forever.
+
+There was no sleep during the closing night--not one solitary wink; all
+laws were dead-letters--alas that they should so soon arise again from
+the dead!--and when the wreath of stars that crowns the golden statue of
+Our Lady on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the
+wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into
+flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the
+plains of Indiana--then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched
+that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you
+which we did. The moon was very full that night, and I didn't blame it!
+
+But the picnic really began at the foot of the great stairway in front
+of the dear old University next morning. Five hundred possible
+presidents were to be distributed broadcast over the continent; five
+hundred sons and heirs to be returned with thanks to the yearning bosoms
+of their respective families. The floodgates of the trunk-rooms were
+thrown open, and a stream of Saratogas went thundering to the station at
+South Bend, two miles away. Hour after hour, and indeed for several
+days, huge trucks and express wagons plied to and fro, groaning under
+the burden of well-checked luggage. It is astonishing to behold how big
+a trunk a mere boy may claim for his very own; but it must be remembered
+that your schoolboy lives for several years within the brass-bound
+confines of a Saratoga. It is his bureau, his wardrobe, his private
+library, his museum and toy shop, the receptacle of all that is near and
+dear to him; it is, in brief, his _sanctum sanctorum_, the one inviolate
+spot in his whole scholastic career of which he, and he alone, holds the
+key.
+
+We came down with the tide in the rear of the trunk freshet. The way
+being more or less clear, navigation was declared open. The next moment
+saw a procession of chariots, semi-circus wagons and barouches filled
+with homeward-bound schoolboys and their escorts, dashing at a brisk
+trot toward the railroad station. Banners were flying, shouts rent the
+air; familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved benedictions from all
+points of the compass; while the gladness and the sadness of the hour
+were perpetuated by the aid of instantaneous photography. The
+enterprising kodaker caught us on the fly, just as the special train was
+leaving South Bend for Chicago; a train that was not to be dismembered
+or its exclusiveness violated until it had been run into the station at
+Denver.
+
+After this last negative attack we were set free. Vacation had begun in
+good earnest. What followed, think you? Mutual congratulations,
+flirtations and fumigations without ceasing; for there was much lost
+time to be made up, and here was a golden opportunity. O you who have
+been a schoolboy and lived for months and months in a pent-up Utica,
+where the glimpse of a girl is as welcome and as rare as a sunbeam in a
+cellar, you can imagine how the two hours and forty-five minutes were
+improved--and Chicago eighty miles away. It is true we all turned for a
+moment to catch a last glimpse of the University dome, towering over the
+treetops; and we felt very tenderly toward everyone there. But there
+were "sweet girl graduates" on board; and, as you know well enough, it
+required no laureate to sing their praises, though he has done so with
+all the gush and fervor of youth.
+
+It was summer. "It is always summer where they are," some youngster was
+heard to murmur. But it was really the summer solstice, or very near it.
+The pond-lilies were ripe; bushels of them were heaped upon the
+platforms at every station we came to; and before the first stage of our
+journey was far advanced the girls were sighing over lapfuls of lilies,
+and the lads tottering under the weight of stupendous _boutonnieres_.
+
+As we drew near the Lake City, the excitement visibly increased. Here,
+there were partings, and such sweet sorrow as poets love to sing. It
+were vain to tell how many promises were then and there made, and of
+course destined to be broken; how everybody was to go and spend a happy
+season with everybody or at least somebody else, and to write meanwhile
+without fail. There were good-byes again and again, and yet again; and,
+with much mingled emotion, we settled ourselves in luxurious seats and
+began to look dreamily toward Denver.
+
+In the mazes of the wonderful city of Chicago we saw the warp of that
+endless steel web over which we flew like spiders possessed. The sunken
+switches took our eye and held it for a time. But a greater marvel was
+the man with the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of iron, who
+sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played with
+trainfuls of his fellowmen--a mere question of life or death to be
+answered over and over again; played with them as the conjurer tosses
+his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one
+click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction;
+the perfect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little
+world, but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it
+every moment in the hour, and every hour in the day, and every day in
+the year.
+
+It did not take us long to discover the advantages of our special-car
+system. There were nigh fifty of us housed in a brace of excursion cars.
+In one of these--the parlor--the only stationary seats were at the two
+ends, while the whole floor was covered with easy-chairs of every
+conceivable pattern. The dining car was in reality a cardroom between
+meals--and _such_ meals, for we had stocked the larder ourselves.
+Everywhere the agents of the several lines made their appearance and
+greeted us cordially; they were closeted for a few moments with the
+shepherd of our flock, Father Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame,
+Indiana; then they would take a bite with us--a dish of berries or an
+ice,--for they invariably accompanied us down the road a few miles; and
+at last would bid us farewell with a flattering figure of speech, which
+is infinitely preferable to the traditional "Tickets, please; tickets!"
+
+At every town and village crowds came down to see us. We were evidently
+objects of interest. Even the nimble reporter was on hand, and looked
+with a not unkindly eye upon the lads who were celebrating the first
+hours of the vacation with an enthusiasm which had been generating for
+some weeks. There was such a making up of beds when, at dark, the parlor
+and dining cars were transformed into long, narrow dormitories, and the
+boys paired off, two and two, above and below, through the length of our
+flying university, and made a night of it, without fear of notes or
+detentions, and with no prefect stalking ghostlike in their midst.
+
+It would be hard to say which we found most diverting, the long, long
+landscape that divided as we passed, through it and closed up in the
+rear, leaving only the shining iron seam down the middle; the beautiful,
+undulating prairie land; the hot and dusty desolation of the plains;
+the delicious temperature of the highlands, as we approached the Rockies
+and had our first glimpse of Pike's Peak in its mantle of snow: the
+muddy rivers, along whose shores we glided swiftly hour after hour: the
+Mississippi by moonlight--we all sat up to see that--or the Missouri at
+Kansas City, where we began to scatter our brood among their far Western
+homes. At La Junta we said good-bye to the boys bound for Mexico and the
+Southwest. It was like a second closing of the scholastic year; the
+good-byes were now ringing fast and furious. Jolly fellows began to grow
+grave and the serious ones more solemn; for there had been no cloud or
+shadow for three rollicking days.
+
+To be sure there was a kind of infantile cyclone out on the plains,
+memorable for its superb atmospheric effects, and the rapidity with
+which we shut down the windows to keep from being inflated
+balloon-fashion. And there was a brisk hail-storm at the gate of the
+Rockies that peppered us smartly for a few moments. Then there were some
+boys who could not eat enough, and who turned from the dessert in
+tearful dismay; and one little kid who dived out of the top bunk in a
+moment of rapture, and should have broken his neck--but he didn't!
+
+We were quite sybaritical as to hours, with breakfast and dinner
+courses, and mouth-organs and cigarettes and jam between meals. Frosted
+cake and oranges were left untouched upon the field after the
+gastronomical battles were fought so bravely three or four times a day.
+Perhaps the pineapples and bananas, and the open barrel of strawberries,
+within reach of all at any hour, may account for the phenomenon.
+
+Pueblo! Ah me, the heat of that infernal junction! Pueblo, with the
+stump of its one memorable tree, or a slice of that stump turned up on
+end--to make room for a new railway-station, that could just as well
+have been built a few feet farther on,--and staring at you, with a full
+broadside of patent-medicine placards trying to cover its nakedness. On
+closer inspection we read this legend: "The tree that grew here was 380
+years old; circumference, 28 feet; height, 79 feet; was cut down June
+25, 1883, at a cost of $250." So perished, at the hands of an amazingly
+stupid city council, the oldest landmark in Colorado. Under the shade of
+this cottonwood Kit Carson, Wild Bill, and many another famous Indian
+scout built early camp fires. Near it, in 1850, thirty-six whites were
+massacred by Indians; upon one of its huge limbs fourteen men were
+hanged at convenient intervals; and it is a pity that the city council
+did not follow this admirable lead and leave the one glory of Pueblo to
+save it from damnation. It afforded the only grateful shelter in this
+furnace heat; it was the one beautiful object in a most unbeautiful
+place, and it has been razed to the ground in memory of the block-heads
+whose bodies were not worthy to enrich the roots of it. Tradition adds,
+pathetically enough, that the grave of the first white woman who died in
+that desert was made beneath the boughs of the "Old Monarch." May she
+rest in peace under the merciless hands of the baggage-master and his
+merry crew! Lightly lie the trunks that are heaped over her nameless
+dust! Well, there came a time when we forgot Pueblo, but we never will
+forgive the town council.
+
+Then we listened in vain at evening for the strumming of fandango music
+on multitudinous guitars, as was our custom so long as the _muchachos_
+were with us. Then we played no more progressive euchre games many miles
+in length, and smoked no more together in the ecstasy of unrestraint;
+but watched and waited in vain--for those who were with us were no
+longer of us for some weeks to come, and the mouths of the singers were
+hushed. The next thing we knew a city seemed to spring suddenly out of
+the plains--a mirage of brick and mortar--an oasis in the
+wilderness,--and we realized, with a gasp, that we had struck the
+bull's-eye of the Far West--in other words, Denver!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+In Denver Town.
+
+
+Colorado! What an open-air sound that word has! The music of the wind is
+in it, and a peculiarly free, rhythmical swing, suggestive of the
+swirling lariat. Colorado is not, as some conjecture, a corruption or
+revised edition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by
+the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven cities of
+Cibola: it is from the verb _colorar_--colored red, or ruddy--a name
+frequently given to rivers, rocks, and ravines in the lower country. Nor
+do we care to go back as far as the sixteenth century for the beginning
+of an enterprise that is still very young and possibly a little fresh.
+In 1803 the United States purchased from France a vast territory for
+$15,000,000; it was then known as Louisiana, and that purchase included
+the district long referred to as the Great American Desert.
+
+In 1806 Zebulon Pike camped where Pueblo now stands. He was a
+pedestrian. One day he started to climb a peak whose shining summit had
+dazzled him from the first; it seemed to soar into the very heavens, yet
+lie within easy reach just over the neighboring hill. He started bright
+and early, with enthusiasm in his heart, determination in his eye, and a
+cold bite in his pocket. He went from hill to hill, from mountain to
+mountain; always ascending, satisfied that each height was the last, and
+that he had but to step from the next pinnacle to the throne of his
+ambition. Alas! the peak was as far away as ever, even at the close of
+the second day; so famished, foot-frozen and well-nigh in extremity, he
+dragged his weary bones back to camp, defeated. That peak bears his name
+to this day, and probably he deserves the honor quite as much as any
+human molecule who godfathers a mountain.
+
+James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky., was a greater explorer than Pike; but
+Pursley gives Pike much credit which Pike blushingly declines. The two
+men were exceptionally well-bred pioneers. In 1820 Colonel Long named a
+peak in memory of his explorations. The peak survives. Then came General
+Fremont, in 1843, and the discovery of gold near Denver fifteen years
+later; but I believe Green Russell, a Georgian, found _color_ earlier
+on Pike's Peak.
+
+Colorado was the outgrowth of the great financial crisis of 1857. That
+panic sent a wave westward,--a wave that overflowed all the wild lands
+of the wilderness, and, in most cases, to the advantage of both wave and
+wilderness. Of course there was a gradual settling up or settling down
+from that period. Many people who didn't exactly come to stay got stuck
+fast, or found it difficult to leave; and now they are glad of it.
+Denver was the result.
+
+Denver! It seems as if that should be the name of some out-of-door
+production; of something brawny and breezy and bounding; something
+strong with the strength of youth; overflowing with vitality; ambitions,
+unconquerable, irrepressible--and such is Denver, the queen city of the
+plains. Denver is a marvel, and she knows it. She is by no means the
+marvel that San Francisco was at the same interesting age; but, then,
+Denver doesn't know it; or, if she knows it, she doesn't care to mention
+it or to hear it mentioned.
+
+True it is that the Argonauts of the Pacific were blown in out of the
+blue sea--most of them. They had had a taste of the tropics on the way;
+paroquets and Panama fevers were their portion; or, after a long pull
+and a strong pull around the Horn, they were comparatively fresh and
+eager for the fray when they touched dry land once more. There was much
+close company between decks to cheer the lonely hours; a very bracing
+air and a very broad, bright land to give them welcome when the voyage
+was ended--in brief, they had their advantages.
+
+The pioneers of Denver town were the captains or mates of prairie
+schooners, stranded in the midst of a sealike desert. It was a voyage of
+from six to eight weeks west of the Mississippi in those days. The only
+stations--and miserably primitive ones at that--lay along Ben Holliday's
+overland stage route. They were far between. Indians waylaid the
+voyagers; fires, famine and fatigue helped to strew the trail with the
+graves of men and the carcasses of animals. Hard lines were these; but
+not so hard as the lines of those who pushed farther into the
+wilderness, nor stayed their adventurous feet till they were planted on
+the rich soil of the Pacific slope.
+
+Pioneer life knows little variety. The _menu_ of the Colorado banquet
+July 4, 1859, will revive in the minds of many an old Californian the
+fast-fading memories of the past; but I fear, twill be a long time
+before such a _menu_ as the following will gladden the eyes of the
+average prospector in the Klondyke:
+
+     MENU.
+
+     SOUP.
+     A la Bean.
+
+     FISH.
+     Brook Trout, a la catch 'em first.
+
+     MEATS.
+     Antelope larded, pioneer style.
+
+     BREAD.
+     Biscuit, hand-made, full weight, a la
+     yellow.
+
+     VEGETABLES.
+     Beans, mountain style, warranted boiled
+     forty-eight hours, a la soda.
+
+     DESSERT.
+     Dried Apples, Russell gulch style.
+     Coffee, served in tin cups, to be washed
+     clean for the occasion, overland
+     style, a la no cream.
+
+In those days Horace Greeley, returning from his California tour, halted
+to cast his eye over the now West. The miners primed an old blunderbus
+with rich dust, and judiciously salted Gregory gulch. Of course Horace
+was invited to inspect it. Being somewhat horny-handed, he seized pick
+and shovel and went to work in earnest. The pan-out was astonishing. He
+flew back to New York laden with the glittering proofs of wealth; gave a
+whole page of the _Tribune_ to his tale of the golden fleece; and a rush
+to the new diggings followed as a matter of course.
+
+Denver and Auraria were rival settlements on the opposite shores of
+Cherry Creek; in 1860 they consolidated, and then boasted a population
+of 4000, in a vast territory containing but 60,000 souls. The boom was
+on, and it was not long before a parson made his appearance. This was
+the Rev. George Washington Fisher of the Methodist Church, who accepted
+the offer of a saloon as a house of worship, using the bar for a pulpit.
+His text was: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth! come ye to the waters. And
+he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk
+without money and without price." On the walls were displayed these
+legends: "No trust," "Pay as you go," "Twenty-five cents a drink," etc.
+
+Colorado Territory was organized in 1861, and was loyal to the Union.
+Denver was still booming, though she suffered nearly all the ills that
+precocious settlements are heir to. The business portion of the town was
+half destroyed in 1863; Cherry Creek flooded her in 1864, floating
+houses out of reach and drowning fifteen or twenty of the inhabitants.
+Then the Indians went on the war-path; stages and wagon trains were
+attacked; passengers and scattered settlers massacred, and the very town
+itself threatened. Alarm-bells warned the frightened inhabitants of
+impending danger; many fled to the United States Mint for refuge, and to
+cellars, cisterns, and dark alleys. This was during the wild reign of
+Spotted Horse along the shores of the Platte, before he was captured by
+Major Downing at the battle of Sand Creek, and finally sent to Europe on
+exhibition as a genuine child of the forest.
+
+Those were stirring times, when every man had an eye to business, and
+could hardly afford to spare it long enough to wink. It is related of a
+certain minister who was officiating at a funeral that, while standing
+by the coffin offering the final prayer, he noticed one of the mourners
+kneeling upon the loose earth recently thrown from the grave. This man
+was a prospector, like all the rest, and in an absent-minded way he had
+tearfully been sifting the soil through his fingers. Suddenly he arose
+and began to stake out a claim adjoining the grave. This was, of course,
+observed by the clergyman, who hastened the ceremonials to a conclusion,
+and ended his prayer thus: "Stake me off a claim, Bill. We ask it for
+Christ's sake. Amen."
+
+Horace Greeley's visit was fully appreciated, and his name given to a
+mountain hamlet, long after known familiarly as "Saint's Rest," because
+there was nothing stimulating to be found thereabout. Poor Meeker, for
+many years agricultural editor of the New York _Tribune_, founded that
+settlement. He was backed by Greeley, and established the Greeley
+_Tribune_ at Saint's Rest. In 1877 Meeker was made Indian agent, and he
+did his best to live up to the dream of the Indian-maniacs; but, after
+two years of self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, he was brutally
+betrayed and murdered by Chief Douglas, of the Utes, his guest at the
+time. Mrs. Meeker and her daughters, and a Mrs. Price and her child,
+were taken captive and subjected to the usual treatment which all women
+and children may expect at the hands of the noble red-man. They were
+rescued in due season; but what was rescue to them save a prolongation
+of inconsolable bereavement?
+
+When General Grant visited Central, the little mountain town received
+him royally. A pavement of solid silver bricks was laid for him to walk
+upon from his carriage to the hotel door. One sees very little of this
+barbaric splendor nowadays even in Denver, the most pretentious of far
+Western burgs. She is a metropolis of magnificent promises. Alighting at
+the airy station, you take a carriage for the hotel, and come at once to
+the centre of the city. Were you to continue your drive but a few blocks
+farther, you would come with equal abruptness to the edge of it. The
+surprise is delightful in either case, but the suddenness of the
+transition makes the stranger guest a little dizzy at first. There are
+handsome buildings in Denver--blocks that would do credit to any city
+under the sun; but there was for years an upstart air, a palpable
+provincialism, a kind of ill-disguised "previousness," noticeable that
+made her seem like the brisk suburb of some other place, and that other
+place, alas! invisible to mortal eye. Rectangular blocks make a
+checker-board of the town map. The streets are appropriately named
+Antelope, Bear, Bison, Boulder, Buffalo, Coyote, Cedar, Cottonwood,
+Deer, Golden, Granite, Moose, etc. The names of most trees, most
+precious stones, the great States and Territories of the West, with a
+sprinkling of Spanish, likewise beguile you off into space, and leave
+the once nebulous burg beaming in the rear.
+
+Denver's theatre is remarkably handsome. In hot weather the atmosphere
+is tempered by torrents of ice-water that crash through hidden aqueducts
+with a sound as of twenty sawmills. The management _dams_ the flood when
+the curtain rises and the players begin to speak; the music lovers
+_damn_ it from the moment the curtain falls. They are absorbed in
+volumes of silent profanity between the acts; for the orchestra is
+literally drowned in the roar of the rushing element. There was nothing
+that interested me more than a copy of Alice Polk Hill's "Tales of the
+Colorado Pioneers"; and to her I return thanks for all that I borrowed
+without leave from that diverting volume.
+
+Somehow Denver, after my early visit, leaves with me an impression as of
+a perfectly new city that has just been unpacked; as if the various
+parts of it had been set up in a great hurry, and the citizens were now
+impatiently awaiting the arrival of the rest of the properties. Some of
+the streets that appeared so well at first glance, seemed, upon
+inspection, more like theatrical flats than realities; and there was
+always a consciousness of everything being wide open and uncovered.
+Indeed, so strongly did I feel this that it was with difficulty I could
+refrain from wearing my hat in the house. Nor could I persuade myself
+that it was quite safe to go out alone after dark, lest unwittingly I
+should get lost, and lift up in vain the voice of one crying in the
+wilderness; for the blank and weird spaces about there are as wide as
+the horizon where the distant mountains seem to have slid partly down
+the terrestrial incline,--spaces that offer the unwary neither hope nor
+hospice,--where there is positively shelter for neither man nor beast,
+from the red-brick heart of the ambitious young city to her snow-capped
+ultimate suburb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The Garden of the Gods.
+
+
+The trains run out of Denver like quick-silver,--this is the prettiest
+thing I can say of Denver. They trickle down into high, green valleys,
+under the shadow of snow-capped cliffs. There the grass is of the
+liveliest tint--a kind of salad-green. The air is sweet and fine;
+everything looks clean, well kept, well swept--perhaps the wind is the
+keeper and the sweeper. All along the way there is a very striking
+contrast of color in rock, meadows, and sky; the whole is as appetizing
+to the sight as a newly varnished picture.
+
+We didn't down brakes until we reached Colorado Springs; there we
+changed cars for Manitou. Already the castellated rocks were filling us
+with childish delight. Fungi decked the cliffs above us: colossal,
+petrified fungi, painted Indian fashion. At any rate, there is a kind of
+wild, out-of-door, subdued harmony in the rock-tints upon the exterior
+slopes of the famed Garden of the Gods, quite in keeping with the spirit
+of the decorative red-man. Within that garden color and form run riot,
+and Manitou is the restful outpost of this erratic wilderness.
+
+It is fitting that Manitou should be approached in a rather primitive
+manner. I was glad when we were very politely invited to get out of the
+train and walk a plank over a puddle that for a moment submerged the
+track; glad when we were advised to foot it over a trestle-bridge that
+sagged in the swift current of a swollen stream; and gladder still when
+our locomotive began to puff and blow and slaken its pace as we climbed
+up into the mouth of a ravine fragrant with the warm scents of
+summer--albeit we could boast but a solitary brace of cars, and these
+small ones, and not overcrowded at that.
+
+Only think of it! We were scarcely three hours by rail from Denver; and
+yet here, in Manitou, were the very elements so noticeably lacking
+there. Nature in her natural state--primitive forever; the air seasoned
+with the pungent spices of odoriferous herbs; the sweetest sunshine in
+abundance, and all the shade that makes sunshine most agreeable.
+
+Manitou is a picturesque hamlet that has scattered itself up and down a
+deep ravine, regardless of the limiting lines of the surveyor. The
+railway station at Manitou might pose for a porter's lodge in the
+prettiest park in England. Surely there is hope for America when she can
+so far curb her vulgar love of the merely practical as to do that sort
+of thing at the right time and in the right place.
+
+A fine stream brawls through the bed of this lovely vale. There are
+rustic cottages that cluster upon the brink of the stream, as if charmed
+by the music of its song; and I am sure that the cottagers dwelling
+therein have no wish to hang their harps upon any willows whatever; or
+to mingle their tears, though these were indeed the waters of Babylon
+that flow softly night and day through the green groves of Manitou. The
+breeze stirs the pulse like a tonic; birds, bees, and butterflies dance
+in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish--there is no dust
+there,--and everything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the
+hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during
+the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts; there is nothing
+like it--except more of it. There is not overmuch dressing among the
+women, nor the beastly spirit of loudness among the men; the domestic
+atmosphere is undisturbed. A newspaper printed on a hand-press, and
+distributed by the winds for aught I know, has its office in the main
+lane of the village; its society column creates no scandal. A solitary
+bicycle that flashes like a shooting star across the placid foreground
+is our nearest approach to an event worth mentioning.
+
+Loungers lounge at the springs as if they really enjoyed it. An amiable
+booth-boy displays his well-dressed and handsomely mounted foxskins, his
+pressed flowers of Colorado, his queer mineralogical jewelry, and his
+uncouth geological specimens in the shape of hideous bric-a-brac, as if
+he took pleasure in thus entertaining the public; while everybody has
+the cosiest and most sociable time over the counter, and buys only by
+accident at last.
+
+There are rock gorges in Manitou, through which the Indian tribes were
+wont noiselessly to defile when on the war-path in the brave days of
+old; gorges where currents of hot air breathe in your face like the
+breath of some fierce animal. There are brilliant and noisy cataracts
+and cascades that silver the rocks with spray; and a huge winding cavern
+filled with mice and filth and the blackness of darkness, and out of
+which one emerges looking like a tramp and feeling like--well! There are
+springs bubbling and steeping and stagnating by the wayside; springs
+containing carbonates of soda, lithia, lime, magnesia, and iron;
+sulphates of potassa and soda, chloride of sodium and silica, in various
+solutions. Some of these are sweeter than honey in the honeycomb; some
+of them smell to heaven--what more can the pampered palate of man
+desire?
+
+Let all those who thirst for chalybeate waters bear in mind that the Ute
+Iron Spring of Manitou is 800 feet higher than St. Catarina, the highest
+iron spring in Europe, and nearly 1000 feet higher than St. Moritz; and
+that the bracing air at an elevation of 6400 feet has probably as much
+to do with the recovery of the invalid as has the judicious quaffing of
+medicinal waters. Of pure iron springs, the famous Schwalbach contains
+rather more iron than the Ute Iron, and Spa rather less. On the whole,
+Manitou has the advantage of the most celebrated medicinal springs in
+Europe, and has a climate even in midwinter preferable to all of them.
+
+On the edge of the pretty hamlet at Manitou stands a cottage half hidden
+like a bird's nest among the trees. I saw only the peaks of gables under
+green boughs; and I wondered when I was informed that the lovely spot
+had been long untenanted, and wondered still more when I learned that it
+was the property of good Grace Greenwood. Will she ever cease wandering,
+and return to weave a new chaplet of greenwood leaves gathered beneath
+the eaves of her mountain home?
+
+At the top of the village street stands Pike's Peak--at least it seems
+to stand there when viewed through the telescopic air. It is in reality
+a dozen miles distant; but is easily approached by a winding trail, over
+which ladies in the saddle may reach the glorious snow-capped summit and
+return to Manitou between breakfast and supper--unless one should prefer
+to be rushed up and down over the aerial railway. From the signal
+station the view reminds one of a map of the world. It rather dazes than
+delights the eye to roam so far, and imagination itself grows weary at
+last and is glad to fold its wings.
+
+Manitou's chief attraction lies over the first range of hills--the
+veritable Garden of the Gods. You may walk, ride or drive to it; in any
+case the surprise begins the moment you reach the ridge's top above
+Manitou, and ceases not till the back is turned at the close of the
+excursion--nor then either, for the memory of that marvel haunts one
+like a feverish dream. Fancy a softly undulating land, delicately wooded
+and decked with many an ornamental shrub; a landscape that composes so
+well one can scarcely assure himself that the artist or the landscape
+gardener has not had a hand in the beautifying of it.
+
+In this lonely, silent land, with cloud shadows floating across it, at
+long intervals bird voices or the bleating of distant flocks charm the
+listening ear. Out of this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclopean
+rocks, appalling in the splendor of their proportions and the
+magnificence of their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heavenward from breadths
+of level sward, and glow like living flames; peaks of various tinges
+overlook the tops of other peaks, that, in their turn, lord it among
+gigantic bowlders piled upon massive pedestals. It is Ossa upon Pelion,
+in little; vastly impressive because of the exceptional surroundings
+that magnify these magnificent monuments, unique in their design and
+almost unparalleled in their picturesque and daring outline. Some of the
+monoliths tremble and sway, or seem to sway; for they are balanced
+edgewise, as if the gods had amused themselves in some infantile game,
+and, growing weary of this little planet, had fled and left their toys
+in confusion. The top-heavy and the tottering ones are almost within
+reach; but there are slabs of rock that look like slices out of a
+mountain--I had almost said like slices out of a red-hot volcano; they
+stand up against the blue sky and the widespreading background in
+brilliant and astonishing perspective.
+
+I doubt if anywhere else in the world the contrasts in color and form
+are more violent than in the Garden of the Gods. They are not always
+agreeable to the eye, for there is much crude color here; but there are
+points of sight where these columns, pinnacles, spires and obelisks,
+with base and capital, are so grouped that the massing is as fantastical
+as a cloud picture, and the whole can be compared only to a petrified
+after-glow. I have seen pictures of the Garden of the Gods that made me
+nearly burst with laughter; I mean color studies that were supremely
+ridiculous in my eyes, for I had not then seen the original; but none of
+these makes me laugh any longer. They serve, even the wildest and the
+worst of them, to remind me of a morning drive, in the best of company,
+through that grand garden where our combined vocabularies of delight and
+wonderment were exhausted inside of fifteen minutes; and where we drove
+on and on, hour after hour, from climax to climax, lost in speechless
+amazement.
+
+Glen Eyrie is the valley of Rasselas--I am sure it is. The Prince of
+Abyssinia left the gate open when he, poor fool! went forth in search of
+happiness and found it not. Now any one may drive through the domain of
+the present possessor and admire his wealth of pictorial
+solitude--without, however, sharing it further. If it were mine, would I
+permit thus much, I wonder? Only the elect should enter there; and once
+the charmed circle was complete, we would wall up the narrow passage
+that leads to this terrestrial paradise, and you would hear no more from
+us, or of us, nor we of you, or from you, forever.
+
+On my first visit to Colorado Springs I made a little pilgrimage. I
+heard that a gentle lady, whom I had always wished to see, was at her
+home on the edge of the city. No trouble in finding the place: any one
+could direct me. It was a cosy cottage in the midst of a garden and
+shaded by thickly leaved trees. Some one was bowed down among the
+strawberry beds, busy there; yet the place seemed half deserted and
+very, very quiet. Big bamboo chairs and lounges lined the vine-curtained
+porch. The shades in the low bay-window were half drawn, and a glint of
+sunshine lighted the warm interior. I saw heaps of precious books on the
+table in that deep window. There was a mosquito door in the porch, and
+there I knocked for admittance. I knocked for a long time, but received
+no answer. I knocked again so that I might be heard even in the
+strawberry bed. A little kitten came up out of the garden and said
+something kittenish to me, and then I heard a muffled step within. The
+door opened--the inner door,--and beyond the wire-cloth screen, that
+remained closed against me, I saw a figure like a ghost, but a very
+buxom and wholesome ghost indeed.
+
+I asked for the hostess. Alas! she was far away and had been ill; it
+was not known when she would return. Her address was offered me, and I
+thought to write her,--thought to tell her how I had sought out her
+home, hoping to find her after years of patient waiting; and that while
+I talked of her through the wire-cloth screen the kitten, which she must
+have petted once upon a time, climbed up the screen until it had reached
+the face of the amiable woman within, and then purred and purred as only
+a real kitten can. I never wrote that letter; for while we were chatting
+on the porch she of whom we chatted, she who has written a whole armful
+of the most womanly and lovable of books, Helen Hunt Jackson, lay dying
+in San Francisco and we knew it not. But it is something to have stood
+by her threshold, though she was never again to cross it in the flesh,
+and to have been greeted by her kitten. How she loved kittens! And now I
+can associate her memory with the peacefulest of cottages, the easiest
+of veranda chairs, a bay-window full of books and sunshine, and a
+strawberry bed alive with berries and blossoms and butterflies and bees.
+And yonder on the heights her body was anon laid to rest among the
+haunts she loved so dearly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A Whirl across the Rockies.
+
+
+A long time ago--nearly a quarter of a century--California could boast a
+literary weekly capable of holding its own with any in the land. This
+was before San Francisco had begun to lose her unique and delightful
+individuality--now gone forever. Among the contributors to this once
+famous weekly were Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin
+Miller, Dan de Quille, Orpheus C. Kerr, C. H. Webb, "John Paul," Ada
+Clare, Ada Isaacs Menken, Ina Coolbrith, and hosts of others. Fitz Hugh
+Ludlow wrote for it a series of brilliant descriptive letters recounting
+his adventures during a recent overland journey; they were afterward
+incorporated in a volume--long out of print--entitled "The Heart of the
+Continent."
+
+In one of these letters Ludlow wrote as follows of the probable future
+of Manitou: "When Colorado becomes a populous State, the springs of the
+Fontaine-qui-Bouille will constitute its Spa. In air and scenery no more
+glorious summer residence could be imagined. The Coloradian of the
+future, astonishing the echoes of the rocky foothills by a railroad from
+Denver to the springs, and running down on Saturday to stop over Sunday
+with his family, will have little cause to envy us Easterners our
+Saratoga as he paces up and down the piazza of the Spa hotel, mingling
+his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air, unbreathed before, which
+is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range." His
+prophecy has become true in every particular. But what would he have
+thought had he threaded the tortuous path now marked by glistening
+railway tracks? What would he have said of the Grand Canon of the
+Arkansas, the Black Canon of the Gunnison, Castle Canon and Marshall
+Pass over the crest of the continent?
+
+I suppose a narrow-gauge road can go anywhere. It trails along the slope
+of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole
+tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes
+water-courses; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated
+to remind one of the days when he played "snap-the-whip" and happened
+to be the snapper himself. This is especially the case if one is sitting
+on the rear platform of the last car. We shot a canon by daylight, and
+marvelled at the glazed surface of the red rock with never so much as a
+scratch over it. On the one hand we nearly scraped the abrupt
+perpendicular wall that towered hundreds of feet above us; on the other,
+a swift, muddy torrent sprang at our stone-bedded sleepers as if to
+snatch them away; while it flooded the canon to the opposite wall, that
+did not seem more that a few yards distant. The stream was swollen, and
+went howling down the ravine full of sound and fury--which in this case,
+however, signified a good deal.
+
+Once we stopped and took an observation, for the track was under water;
+then we waded cautiously to the mainland, across the sunken section, and
+thanked our stars that we were not boycotted by the elements at that
+inhospitable point. Once we paused for a few minutes to contemplate the
+total wreck of a palace car that had recently struck a projecting
+bowlder--and spattered.
+
+The camps along the track are just such as may be looked for in the
+waste places of the earth--temporary shelter for wayfarers whose homes
+are under their hats. The thin stream of civilization that trickles off
+into the wilderness, following the iron track, makes puddles now and
+again. Some of these dwindle away soon enough--or perhaps not quite soon
+enough; some of them increase and become permanent and beautiful.
+
+Night found us in the Black Canon of the Gunnison. Could any time be
+more appropriate? Clouds rolled over us in dense masses, and at
+intervals the moon flashed upon us like a dark lantern. Could anything
+be more picturesque? We knew that much of the darkness, the blackness of
+darkness, was adamantine rock; some of it an inky flood--a veritable
+river of death--rolling close beneath us, but quite invisible most of
+the time; and the night itself a profound mystery, through which we
+burned an endless tunnel--like a firebrand hurled into space.
+
+Now and again the heavens opened, and then we saw the moon soaring among
+the monumental peaks; but the heights were so cloudlike and the cloud
+masses so solid we could not for the life of us be certain of the nature
+of either. There were canons like huge quarries, and canons like rocky
+mazes, where we seemed to have rushed headlong into a _cul de sac_, and
+were in danger of dashing our brains out against the mighty walls that
+loomed before us. There was many a winding stream which we took at a
+single bound, and occasionally an oasis, green and flowery; but, oh, so
+few habitations and so few spots that one would really care to inhabit!
+
+Marshall Pass does very well for once; it is an experience and a
+novelty--what else is there in life to make it livable save a new
+experience or the hope of one? Such a getting up hill as precedes the
+rest at the summit! We stopped for breath while the locomotive puffed
+and panted as if it would burst its brass-bound lungs; then we began to
+climb again, and to wheeze, fret and fume; and it seemed as if we
+actually went down on hands and knees and crept a bit when the grade
+became steeper than usual. Only think of it a moment--an incline of two
+hundred and twenty feet to the mile in some places, and the track
+climbing over itself at frequent intervals. Far below us we saw the
+terraces we had passed long before; far above us lay the great land we
+were so slowly and so painfully approaching. At last we reached the
+summit, ten thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above sea level--a
+God-forsaken district, bristling with dead trees, and with hardly air
+enough to go around.
+
+We stopped in a long shed--built to keep off the sky, I suppose.
+Gallants prospected for flowers and grass-blades, and received the
+profuse thanks of the fair in exchange for them. Then we glided down
+into the snow lands that lay beyond--filled with a delicious sense of
+relief, for a fellow never feels so mean or so small a pigmy as when
+perched on an Alpine height.
+
+More canons followed, and no two alike; then came plain after plain,
+with buttes outlined in the distance; more plains, with nothing but
+their own excessive plainness to boast of. We soon grew vastly weary;
+for most plains are, after all, mere platitudes. And then Salt Lake
+City, the Mormon capital, with its lake shimmering like a mirage in the
+great glow of the valley; and a run due north through the well-tilled
+lands of the thrifty "saints," getting our best wayside meals at
+stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and
+west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer dust that
+makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far
+north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore
+to follow as is worth a week's travel merely to get one glimpse of; and
+at last Portland, the prettiest of Pacific cities, and heaps of friends
+to greet me there.
+
+Bright days were to follow, as you shall soon see; for I was still bound
+northward, with no will to rest until I had plowed the floating fields
+of ice and dozed through the pale hours of an arctic summer under the
+midnight sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Off for Alaska.
+
+
+If you are bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most
+conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon,
+and retaining your state-room until you land again in Portland, three
+weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board
+a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget
+Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at
+Port Townsend, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which
+makes its excursion trip monthly--at least it used to before the
+Klondyke hoards deranged the time-table and the times.
+
+If this does not satisfy you, you may take passage at San Francisco for
+Port Townsend or Victoria, and connect at either port with the Alaska
+boat. Those who are still unsuited had better wait a bit, when, no
+doubt, other as entirely satisfactory arrangements will be made for
+their especial convenience. I went by train to Tacoma. I wanted to sniff
+the forest scents of Washington State, and to get a glimpse of the brave
+young settlements scattered through the North-western wilderness. I
+wanted to skirt the shore of the great Sounds, whose praises have been
+ringing in my ears ever since I can remember--and that is a pretty long
+time now.
+
+I wanted to loaf for a while in Port Townsend, the old jumping-off
+place, the monogram in the extreme northwest corner of the map of the
+United States of America--at least such it was until the Alaskan annex
+stretched the thing all out of shape, and planted our flag so far out in
+the Pacific that San Francisco lies a little east of the centre of the
+Union, and the Hawaiian islands come within our boundaries; for our
+Aleutian-island arm, you know, stretches a thousand miles to the west of
+Hawaii--it even chucks Asia under the chin.
+
+But now let me offer you a stray handful of leaves from my
+note-book--mere suggestions of travel.
+
+At Portland took morning train for Tacoma, one hundred and forty-seven
+miles. Swarms of people at the station, and some ominous "good-byes";
+the majority talking of Alaska in a superior fashion, which implies that
+they are through passengers, and they don't care who knows it. Alaska
+boat left Portland two days ago; we are to catch her at Port Townsend,
+and it looks as if we should crowd her. Train crosses the Columbia River
+on a monster ferry; a jolly and restful half hour in the cars and out of
+them.
+
+A very hot and dusty ride through Washington State,--part of it pretty
+enough and part of it by no means so. Cars full of screaming babies,
+sweltering tourists, and falling cinders that sting like dumb
+mosquitoes. Rather a mixed neighborhood on the rail. An effusively
+amiable evangelist bobs up almost immediately,--one of those fellows
+whom no amount of snubbing can keep under. Old Probabilities is also on
+board, discoursing at intervals to all who will give ear. Some quiet and
+interesting folk in a state of suspense, and one young fellow--a regular
+trump,--promise better things.
+
+We reach Tacoma at 6.30 p. m.; a queer, scattering town on Commencement
+Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. Very deep water just off shore. Two
+boys in a sailboat are blown about at the mercy of the fitful wind; boat
+on beam-ends; boys on the uppermost gunwale; sail lying flat on the
+water. But nobody seems to care, not even the young castaways. Perhaps
+the inhabitants of Tacoma are amphibious. Very beautiful sheet of water,
+this Puget Sound; long, winding, monotonous shores; trees all alike,
+straight up and down, mostly pines and cedars; shores rather low, and
+outline too regular for much picturesque effect. Tacoma commands the
+best view of the Sound and of Mt. Tacoma, with its fifteen thousand
+perpendicular feet looming rose-pink in the heavens, and all its fifteen
+glaciers seeming to glow with an inner tropic warmth. There are eighteen
+hundred miles of shore-line embroidering this marvellous Sound. We are
+continually rounding abrupt points, as in a river,--points so much alike
+that an untutored eye can not tell one from another. Old Probabilities
+industriously taking his reckonings and growing more and more
+enthusiastic at every turn--especially so when the after-glow burns the
+sea to a coal; it reminds him of a volcanic eruption. There are some
+people who when they see anything new to them are instantly reminded of
+something else they have seen, and the new object becomes second rate on
+the spot. A little travel is a dangerous thing.
+
+Pay $3.25 for my fare from Tacoma to Port Townsend, and find a moment
+later that some are paying only $1 for the same accommodations.
+Competition is the mother of these pleasant surprises, but it is worth
+thrice the original price--the enjoyment of this twilight cruise. More
+after-glow, much more, with the Olympian Mountains lying between us and
+the ocean. In the foreground is a golden flood with scarlet ripples
+breaking through it--a vision splendid and long continued. Air growing
+quite chilly; strong draughts at some of the turns in the stream.
+Surely, in this case, the evening and the morning are not the same day.
+
+At 9.30 p. m. we approach Seattle--a handsome town, with its terraces of
+lights twinkling in the gloaming. Passengers soon distribute themselves
+through the darkness. I am left alone on the after-deck to watch the
+big, shadowy ships that are moored near us, and the exquisite
+phosphorescent light in the water--a wave of ink with the luminous trail
+of a struck match smouldering across it. Far into the night there was
+the thundering of freight rolling up and down the decks, and the ring of
+invisible truck-wheels.
+
+Slept by and by, and was awakened by the prolonged shriek of a steam
+whistle and a stream of sunlight that poured in at my state-room window.
+We were backing and slowing off Port Ludlow. Big sawmill close at hand.
+Four barks lie at the dock in front of it; a few houses stand on the
+hill above; pine woods crowd to the water's edge, making the place look
+solemn. Surely it is a solemn land and a solemn sea about here. After
+breakfast, about 8.30 o'clock, Port Townsend hove in sight, and here we
+await the arrival of the Alaska boat. What an odd little town it is--the
+smallest possible city set upon a hill; the business quarter huddled at
+the foot of the hill, as if it had slid down there and lodged on the
+very edge of the sea! The hotels stalk out over the water on stilts. One
+sleeps well in the sweet salt air, lulled by the murmur of the waves
+under the veranda.
+
+I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty
+steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and
+reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed
+leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes
+near to being pretty, yet stops just short of it. But there is a kind of
+unpretending prettiness in the bright and breezy heights environed by
+black forest and blue sea.
+
+A revenue cutter--this is a port of customs, please remember--lies in
+the offing. She looks as if she were suspended in air, so pure are the
+elements in the northland. I lean from a parapet, on my way down the
+seaward face of the cliff, and hear the order, "Make ready!" Then comes
+a flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and a crash that shatters an
+echo into fragments all along the shore; while beautiful smoke rings
+roll up against the sky like victorious wreaths.
+
+I call on the Hon. J. G. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of "The Northwest
+Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." Find him
+delightful, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian
+relics; himself full of the liveliest recollections of Indian life, and
+quite an authority on Indian tongues and traditions; find also an old
+schoolmate, after long years of separation, and am most courteously
+entertained. What a drive we had over the hills and along the beach,
+where the crows haunt the water's edge like sea-birds! It has been
+repeatedly affirmed that these crows have been seen to seize a clam,
+raise it high in the air, let it drop upon a rock, and then pounce upon
+the fragments and feast furiously. But I have never seen one who has had
+ocular proof of this.
+
+There was a very happy hour spent at Colonel Douglas' quarters, over at
+the camp; and then such a long, long drive through the deep wildwood,
+with its dense undergrowth, said to be the haunt of bear, panther, wild
+cat, deer, and other large game. Bearberries grew in profusion
+everywhere. The road, kept in splendid repair by the army men, dipped
+into a meadow full of savage mosquitoes; but escaping through two gates,
+we struck again into the forest, where the road was almost overgrown
+with dew-damp brush, that besprinkled us profusely as we passed.
+
+We paused upon the slope above Port Discovery Bay; saw an old fellow on
+the porch of a wee cottage looking steadfastly into the future--across
+the Bay; with pipe in mouth, he was the picture of contentment,
+abstraction and repose. He never once turned to look at us, though few
+pass that way; but kept his eyes fixed upon a vision of surpassing
+beauty, where the vivid coloring was startling to the eye and the
+morning air like an elixir. Nothing but the great summer hotel of the
+future--it will surely come some day and stand right there--can rob the
+spot of its blissful serenity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+In the Inland Sea.
+
+
+We were waiting the arrival of the Alaska boat,--wandering aimlessly
+about the little town, looking off upon the quiet sea, now veiled in a
+dense smoke blown down from the vast forest fires that were sweeping the
+interior. The sun, shorn of his beams, was a disk of copper; the
+sun-track in the sea, a trail of blood. The clang of every ship's bell,
+the scream of every whistle, gave us new hope; but we were still
+waiting, waiting, waiting. Port Townsend stands knee-deep in the edge of
+a sea-garden. I sat a long time on the dock, watching for some sign of
+the belated boat. Great ropes of kelp, tubes of dark brown sea-grass,
+floated past me on the slow tide. Wonderful anemones, pink,
+balloon-shaped, mutable, living and breathing things,--these panted as
+they drifted by. At every respiration they expanded like the sudden
+blossoming of a flower; then they closed quite as suddenly, and became
+mere buds. When the round core of these sea-flowers was exposed to the
+air--the palpitating heart was just beneath the surface most of the
+time,--they withered in a breath; but revived again the moment the water
+glazed them over, and fairly revelled in aqueous efflorescence.
+
+"Bang!" It was the crash of an unmistakable gun, that shook the town to
+its foundations and brought the inhabitants to their feet in an instant.
+Out of the smoke loomed a shadowy ship, and, lo! it was the Alaska boat.
+A goodly number of passengers were already on board; as many more were
+now to join her; and then her prow was to be turned to the north star
+and held there for some time to come. In a moment the whole port was in
+a state of excitement. New arrivals hurried on shore to see the lions of
+the place. We, who had been anxiously awaiting this hour for a couple of
+long summer days, took the ship by storm, and drove the most amiable and
+obliging of pursers nearly frantic with our pressing solicitations.
+
+Everybody was laying in private stores, this being our last chance to
+supply all deficiencies. Light literature we found scattered about at
+the druggist's and the grocer's and the curiosity shops; also ink,
+pens, note-books, tobacco, scented soap and playing-cards were
+discovered in equally unexpected localities. We all wanted volumes on
+the Northwest--as many of them as we could get; but almost the only one
+obtainable was Skidmore's "Alaska, the Sitkan Archipelago," which is as
+good as any, if not the best. A few had copies of the "Pacific Coast
+Pilot. Alaska. Part I. Dixon's Entrance to Yakutat Bay,"--invaluable as
+a practical guide, and filled with positive data. Dall and Whimper we
+could not find, nor Bancroft at that time. Who will give us a handy
+volume reprint of delightful old Vancouver?
+
+We were busy as bees all that afternoon; yet the night and the starlight
+saw us satisfactorily hived, and it was not long before the buzzing
+ceased, as ship and shore slept the sleep of the just. By and by we
+heard pumping, hosing, deck-washing, the paddling of bare feet to and
+fro, and all the familiar sounds of an early morning at sea. The ship,
+however, was motionless: we were lying stock-still. Doubtless everybody
+was wondering at this, as I was, when there came a crash, followed by a
+small avalanche of broken timber, while the ship quaked in her watery
+bed. I thought of dynamite and the _Dies Irae_; but almost immediately
+the cabin-boy, who appeared with the matutinal coffee, said it was only
+the _Olympian_, the fashionable Sound steamer, that had run into us, as
+was her custom. She is always running into something, and she succeeded
+in carrying away a portion of our stern gear on this occasion.
+Nevertheless, we were delayed only a few hours; for the _Olympian_ was
+polite enough not to strike us below the water-line, and so by high noon
+we were fairly under way.
+
+From my log-book I take the following: This is slow and easy sailing--a
+kind of jog-trot over the smoothest possible sea, with the paddles
+audibly working every foot of the way. We run down among the San Juan
+Islands, where the passages are so narrow and so intricate they make a
+kind of watery monogram among the fir-lined shores. A dense smoke still
+obscures the sun,--a rich haze that softens the distance and lends a
+picturesqueness that is perhaps not wholly natural to the locality,
+though the San Juan Islands are unquestionably beautiful.
+
+The Gulf of Georgia, the Straits of Fuca, and Queen Charlotte Sound are
+the words upon the lips of everybody. Shades of my schoolboy days! How
+much sweeter they taste here than in the old geography class! Before us
+stretches a wilderness of islands, mostly uninhabited, which penetrates
+even into the sunless winter and the shadowless summer of Behring Sea.
+
+As for ourselves, Old Probabilities has got down to business. He has
+opened an impromptu peripatetic school of navigation, and triumphantly
+sticks a pin into every point that tallies with his yard-square chart.
+The evangelist has his field-glass to his eye in search of the
+unregenerated aborigines. The swell tourists are much swollen with
+travel; they loosen the belts of their Norfolks, and at intervals affect
+a languid interest in this mundane sphere. There are delightful people
+on board--many of them--and not a few others. There are bevies of
+girls--all young, all pretty; and all, or nearly all, bubbling over with
+hearty and wholesome laughter.
+
+What richness! A good, clean deck running the whole length of the ship;
+a cosy and cheerful social hall, with a first-class upright piano of
+delicious tone, and at least a half dozen creditable performers to
+awaken the soul of it; a good table, good weather, good luck, and
+positively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in
+the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on
+board this ship; the telegraph, with metallic tick, can not once startle
+us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off; wars and
+rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of
+a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the
+possibility of a rain-shower this afternoon, or the solution of the
+vexed question, "Will the aurora dazzle us before dawn?" We do not
+propose to wait upon the aurora: for days and days and days we are going
+to climb up the globe due North, getting nearer and nearer to it all the
+while. Now, inasmuch as everything is new to us, we can easily content
+ourselves for hours by lounging in the easy-chairs, and looking off upon
+the placid sea, and at the perennial verdure that springs out of it and
+mantles a lovely but lonely land.
+
+Only think of it for a moment! Here on the northwest coast there are
+islands sown so thickly that many of the sea-passages, though deep
+enough for a three-decker to swim in, are so narrow that one might
+easily skim his hat across them. There are thousands of these
+islands--yea, tens of thousands,--I don't know just how many, and
+perhaps no man does. They are of all shapes and sizes, and the majority
+of them are handsomely wooded. The sombre green of the woods, stretching
+between the sombre blue-green of the water and the opaline sheen of the
+sky, forms a picture--a momentary picture,--the chief features of which
+change almost as suddenly and quite as completely as the transformations
+in a kaleidoscope. We are forever turning corners; and no sooner are we
+around one corner than three others elbow us just ahead. Now, toward
+which of the three are we bound, and will our good ship run to larboard
+or to starboard? This is a turn one might bet on all day long--and lose
+nearly every time.
+
+A bewildering cruise! Vastly finer than river sailing is this Alaskan
+expedition. Here is a whole tangle of rivers full of strange tides,
+mysterious currents, and sweet surprises. Moreover, we can get lost if
+we want to--no one can get lost in a river. We can rush in where pilots
+fear to tread, strike sunken rocks, toss among dismal eddies, or plunge
+into whirlpools. We can rake overhanging boughs with our yard-arms if
+we want to--but we don't want to. In 1875 the United States steamer
+_Saranac_ went down in Seymour Narrows, and her fate was sudden death.
+The United States steamer _Suwanee_ met with a like misfortune on
+entering Queen Charlotte Sound. It is rather jolly to think of these
+things, and to realize that we were in more or less danger; though the
+shores are as silent as the grave, the sea sleeps like a mill-pond, and
+the sun sinks to rest with great dignity and precision, nightly bathing
+the lonely North in sensuous splendor.
+
+It is getting late. Most of us are indulging in a constitutional. We
+rush up and down the long flush decks like mad; we take fiendish delight
+in upsetting the pious dignity of the evangelist; we flutter the smokers
+in the smoking-room--because, forsooth, we are chasing the girls from
+one end of the ship to the other; and consequently the denizens of the
+masculine cabin can give their undivided attention to neither cards nor
+tobacco. What fun it all is--when one is not obliged to do it for a
+living, and when it is the only healthy exercise one is able to take!
+
+By and by the girls fly to their little nests. As we still stroll in the
+ever-so-late twilight, at 10 p. m., we hear them piping sleepily, one to
+another, their heads under their wings no doubt. They are early
+birds--but that is all right. They are the life of the ship; but for
+their mirth and music the twilight would be longer and less delightful.
+Far into the night I linger over a final cigarette. An inexpressible
+calm steals over me,--a feeling as of deliverance, for the time being at
+least, from all the cares of this world. We are steaming toward a mass
+of shadows that, like iron gates, seem shut against us. A group of
+fellow-voyagers gathers on the forward deck, resolved to sit up and
+ascertain whether we really manage to squeeze through some crevice, or
+back out at last and go around the block. I grow drowsy and think fondly
+of my little bunk.
+
+What a night! Everything has grown vague and mysterious. Not a voice is
+heard--only the throb of the engine down below and the articulated
+pulsation of the paddles, every stroke of which brings forth a hollow
+sound from the sea, as clear and as well defined as a blow upon a
+drumhead; but these are softened by the swish of waters foaming under
+the wheel. Echoes multiply; myriads of them, faint and far, play
+peek-a-boo with the solemn pilot, who silently paces the deck when all
+the ship is wrapped in a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Alaskan Village Life.
+
+
+With the morning coffee came a rumor of an Indian village on the
+neighboring shore. We were already past it, a half hour or more, but
+canoes were visible. Now this was an episode. Jack, the cabin-boy, slid
+back the blind; and as I sat up in my bunk, bolstered among the pillows,
+I saw the green shore, moist with dew and sparkling in the morning
+light, sweep slowly by--an endless panorama. There is no dust here, not
+a particle. There is rain at intervals, and a heavy dew-fall, and
+sometimes a sea fog that makes it highly advisable to suspend all
+operations until it has lifted. After coffee I found the deck gaily
+peopled. The steamer was running at half speed; and shortly she took a
+big turn in a beautiful lagoon and went back on her course far enough to
+come in sight of the Indian village, but we did not stop there. It seems
+that one passage we were about to thread was reached at a wrong stage
+of the tide; and, instead of waiting there for better water, we loafed
+about for a couple of hours, enjoying it immensely, every soul of us.
+
+Vancouver Island lay upon our left. It was half veiled in mist, or
+smoke; and its brilliant constellation of sky-piercing peaks, green to
+the summit, with glints of sunshine gilding the chasms here and there,
+and rich shadows draping them superbly, reminded me of Nukahiva, one of
+the Marquesas Islands--the one where Herman Melville found his famed
+Typee. It seems extravagant to associate any feature in the Alaskan
+archipelago with the most romantic island in the tropical sea; but there
+are points of similarity, notwithstanding the geographical
+discrepancy--daring outlines, magnificent cloud and atmospheric effects,
+and a fragrance, a pungent balsamic odor ever noticeable. This
+impalpable, invisible balm permeates everything; it is wafted out over
+the sea to us, even as the breath of the Spice Islands is borne over the
+waves to the joy of the passing mariner.
+
+Surely there can be no finer tonic for a fagged fellow with feeble lungs
+than this glorious Alaskan air. There is no danger of surfeit here; the
+over-sweet is not likely to be met with in this latitude; and, then, if
+one really feels the need of change, why, here is a fishing station. The
+forest is trimmed along the shore so that there is scant room for a few
+shanties between the water and the wilderness. A dock runs but a little
+way out into the sea, for the shores are precipitous and one finds a
+goodly number of fathoms only a few yards from the shingle.
+
+At the top of the dock, sometimes nearly housing the whole of it, stands
+a shed well stored with barrels, sacks of salt, nets, and all the
+necessary equipments of a first-class fish-canning establishment. A few
+Indian lodges are scattered along the shore. The Indians, a hearty and
+apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about
+here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere
+is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with
+cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies
+batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun.
+The blood-red interiors of drying fish--rackfuls of them turned wrong
+side out--are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and
+everything is sombre and subdued.
+
+Yet not all fishing stations are cheerless. The salmon fishery and
+trading store located at Loring are picturesque. The land-lock nook is
+as lovely as a Swiss lake; and, oh, the myriad echoes that waken in
+chorus among these misty mountains! The waters of the Alaskan
+archipelago are prolific. Vast shoals of salmon, cod, herring, halibut,
+mullet, ulicon, etc., silver the surface of the sea, and one continually
+hears the splash of leaping fish.
+
+A traveller has written of his visit to the fishing-grounds on the Naass
+river, where the tribes had gathered for what is called their "small
+fishing"--the salmon catch is at another time. These small fish are
+valuable for food and oil. They run up the river for six weeks only, and
+with the utmost regularity. At the point he visited, the Naass was about
+a mile and a half wide; yet so great was the quantity of fish that, with
+three nails driven into a stick, an Indian would rake up a canoeful in a
+short time. Five thousand Indians were congregated from British Columbia
+and Alaska; their faces painted red and black; feathers upon their
+heads, and imitations of wild beasts upon their dresses. Over the fish
+was an immense cloud of sea-gulls--so many were there, and so thick
+were they, that the fluttering of their wings was like a swift fall of
+snow. Over the gulls were eagles soaring and watching their chance. The
+halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finback whale had followed the
+little ones out of the deep; and there was confusion worse confounded,
+and chaos came again in the hours of wild excitement that followed the
+advent of the small fry, for each and all in sea and air were bent upon
+the destruction of these little ones.
+
+Seven thousand salmon have been taken at one haul of the seine in this
+latitude. Most of these salmon weigh sixty pounds each, and some have
+been caught that weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. Yet there are no
+game fish in Alaska. Let sportsmen remember that far happier hunting
+grounds lie within twenty miles of San Francisco, and in almost any
+district of the Northern or Eastern States. On a certain occasion three
+of our fellow-voyagers, armed in fashionable fishing toggery, went forth
+from Sitka for a day's sport. A steam launch bore them to a land where
+the rank grass and rushes grew shoulder high. Having made their way with
+difficulty to the margin of a lake, they came upon a boat which
+required incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept
+the craft afloat while the others fished until evening. They caught
+nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the
+seats; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say
+again, on good authority, there are no game fish in Alaska. There are
+salmon enough in these waters to supply the world--but the world can be
+supplied without coming to these waters at all. The truth is, I fear,
+that the market has been glutted and the business overdone.
+
+One evening we anchored off a sad and silent shore. A few Indian lodges
+were outlined against the woods beyond. A few Indians stolidly awaited
+the arrival of a small boat containing one of our fellow-passengers.
+Then for some hours this boat was busily plying to and fro, bringing out
+to us all that was portable of a once flourishing, or at least
+promising, fishery and cannery, now defunct. Meanwhile the mosquitoes
+boarded our ship on a far more profitable speculation. It was pitiful to
+see our friend gathering together the _debris_ of a wrecked fortune--for
+he had been wealthy and was now on the down grade of life--hoping
+almost against hope to be able to turn an honest penny somehow,
+somewhere, before he dies.
+
+At times we saw solitary canoes containing a whole family of Indians
+fishing in the watery waste. What solemn lives they must lead! But a
+more solemn and more solitary scene occurred a little later. All the
+afternoon we had been sailing under splendid icy peaks. We came in out
+of the hot sun, and were glad of the cool, snow-chilled air that visited
+us lightly at intervals.
+
+It was the hour of 9.30 p. m. The sun was dropping behind a lofty
+mountain range, and in its fine glow we steamed into a lovely cove under
+a towering height. A deserted, or almost deserted, fishing village stood
+upon a green bottom land--a mere handful of lodges, with a young growth
+of trees beyond, and an older growth between these and the glacier that
+was glistening above them all. A cannery looking nearly new stood at the
+top of a tall dock on stilts. On the extreme end of the dock was a
+figure--a man, and a white man at that--with both hands in his pockets,
+and an attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The figure stood
+stock-still. We wondered if it lived, if it breathed, or if it was an
+effigy set up there in scorn of American enterprise. We slowed up and
+drew near to the dock. It was a curious picture: a half dozen log-built
+lodges; a few tall piles driven into the land for steamer or trading
+schooner to make fast to; a group of Indians by a feeble camp
+fire,--Indians who never once changed their postures more than to
+wearily lift their heads and regard us with absolute indifference.
+
+When we were near enough to hail the motionless figure on the dock, we
+did not hail him. Everybody was wildly curious: Everybody was perfectly
+dumb. The whole earth was silent at last; the wheels had stopped; the
+boat was scarcely moving through the water. The place, the scene, the
+hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep
+silence; the paddles plunged into the sea again; we made a graceful
+sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away.
+Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the
+dock; we merely touched our hats at the last moment; he lifted his,
+stalked solemnly to the top of the dock and disappeared. There is a bit
+of Alaskan life for you!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Juneau.
+
+
+Sitka, the capital of Alaska, sleeps, save when she is awakened for a
+day or two by the arrival of a steamer-load of tourists. Fort Wrangell,
+the premature offspring of a gold rumor, died, but rose again from the
+dead when the lust of gold turned the human tide toward the Klondike.
+Juneau, the metropolis, was the only settlement that showed any signs of
+vigor before the Klondike day; and she lived a not over-lively village
+life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow
+straits. There were sea-birds skimming the water as we threaded the
+labyrinthine channels that surround Juneau. We were evidently not very
+far from the coast-line; for the gulls were only occasional visitors on
+the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared
+aloft among the pines that crowned the mountain heights; they glossed
+their wings in the spray of the sky-tipped waterfalls, and looked down
+upon us from serene summits with the unwinking eye of scorn. It is
+awfully fine sailing all about Juneau. Superb heights, snow-capped in
+many cases, forest-clad in all, and with cloud belts and sunshine
+mingling in the crystalline atmosphere, form a glorious picture, which,
+oddly enough, one does not view with amazement and delight, but in the
+very midst of which, and a very part of which, he is; and the proud
+consciousness of this marks one of the happiest moments of his life.
+
+Steaming into a lagoon where its mountain walls are so high it seemed
+like a watery way in some prodigious Venice; steaming in, stealing in
+like a wraith, we were shortly saluted by the miners on Douglas Island,
+who are, perhaps, the most persistent and least harmful of the
+dynamiters. It was not long before we began to get used to the batteries
+that are touched off every few minutes, night and day; but how strange
+to find in that wild solitude a 120-stamp mill, electric lights, and all
+the modern nuisances! Never was there a greater contrast than the one
+presented at Douglas Island. The lagoon, with its deep, dark waters,
+still as a dead river, yet mirroring the sea-bird's wing; a strip of
+beach; just above it rows of cabins and tents that at once suggest the
+mining camps of early California days; then the rather handsome quarters
+of the directors; and then the huge mill, admirably constructed and set
+so snugly among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore
+mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big
+game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose
+themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro
+between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the
+opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the
+explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that
+prevails at Gastineaux Channel.
+
+Soon, weary of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect
+the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the
+dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of
+experience for a young one. It was first known as Pilsbury; then some
+humorist dubbed it Fliptown. Later it was called Rockwell and
+Harrisburg; and finally Juneau, the name it still bears with more or
+less dignity. The customary Indian village hangs upon the borders of the
+town; in fact, the two wings of the settlement are aboriginal; but the
+copper-skin seems not particularly interested in the progress of
+civilization, further than the occasional chance it affords him of
+turning an honest penny in the disposal of his wares.
+
+No sooner was the gang-plank out than we all made a rush for the trading
+stores in search of curios. The faculty of acquisitiveness grows with
+what it feeds on; and before the Alaskan tour is over, it almost amounts
+to a mania among the excursionists. You should have seen us--men, women
+and children--hurrying along the beach toward the heart of Juneau, where
+we saw flags flying from the staves that stood by the trading-stores. It
+was no easy task to distance a competitor in those great thoroughfares.
+Juneau has an annual rainfall of nine feet; the streets are guttered:
+indeed the streets are gutters in some cases. I know of at least one
+little bridge that carries the pedestrian from one sidewalk to another,
+over the muddy road below. I was headed off on my way to the N. W. T.
+Co.'s warehouse, and sat me down on a stump to write till the rush on
+bric-a-brac was over. Meanwhile I noticed the shake shanties and the
+pioneers who hung about them, with their long legs crooked under rush
+chairs in the diminutive verandas.
+
+Indian belles were out in full feather. Some had their faces covered
+with a thick coating of soot and oil; the rims of the eyelids, the tip
+of the nose and the inner portions of the lips showing in striking
+contrast to the hideous mask, which they are said to wear in order to
+preserve their complexion. They look for the most part like black-faced
+monkeys, and appear in this guise a great portion of the time in order
+to dazzle the town, after a scrubbing, with skins as fair and sleek as
+soft-soap. Even some of the sterner sex are constrained to resort to art
+in the hope of heightening their manly beauty; but these are, of course,
+Alaskan dudes, and as such are doubtless pardonable.
+
+There is a bath-house in Juneau and a barber-shop. They did a big
+business on our arrival. There are many billiard halls, where prohibited
+drinks are more or less surreptitiously obtained. A dance-hall stands
+uninvitingly open to the street. At the doorway, as we passed it, was
+posted a hand-lettered placard announcing that the ladies of Juneau
+would on the evening in question give a grand ball in honor of the
+passengers of the _Ancon_. Tickets, 50 cents.
+
+It began to drizzle. We dodged under the narrow awnings of the shops,
+and bargained blindly in the most unmusical lingos. Within were to be
+had stores of toy canoes--graceful little things hewn after the Haida
+model, with prows and sides painted in strange hieroglyphics; paddles
+were there--life-size, so to speak,--gorgeously dyed, and just the
+things for hall decorations; also dishes of carved wood of quaint
+pattern, and some of them quite ancient, were to be had at very moderate
+prices; pipes and pipe-bowls of the weirdest description; halibut
+fish-hooks, looking like anything at all but fish-hooks; Shaman rattles,
+grotesque in design; Thlinket baskets, beautifully plaited and stained
+with subdued dyes--the most popular of souvenirs; spoons with bone bowls
+and handles carved from the horns of the mountain goat or musk-ox; even
+the big horn-spoon itself was no doubt made by these ingenious people;
+Indian masks of wood, inlaid with abalone shells, bears' teeth, or
+lucky stones from the head of the catfish; Indian wampum; deer-skin
+sacks filled with the smooth, pencil-shaped sticks with which the native
+sport passes the merry hours away in games of chance; bangles without
+end, and rings of the clumsiest description hammered out of silver coin;
+bows and arrows; doll papooses, totem poles in miniature. There were
+garments made of fish-skins and bird-skins, smelling of oil and
+semi-transparent, as if saturated with it; and half-musical instruments,
+or implements, made of twigs strung full of the beaks of birds that
+clattered with a weird, unearthly Alaskan clatter.
+
+There were little graven images, a few of them looking somewhat
+idolatrous; and heaps upon heaps of nameless and shapeless odds and ends
+that boasted more or less bead-work in the line of ornamentation; but
+all chiefly noticeable for the lack of taste displayed, both in design
+and the combination of color. The Chilkat blanket is an exception to the
+Alaskan Indian rule. It is a handsome bit of embroidery, of significant
+though mysterious design; rich in color, and with a deep, knotted fringe
+on the lower edge--just the thing for a lambrequin, and to be had in
+Juneau for $40, which is only $15 more than is asked for the same
+article in Portland, Oregon, as some of us discovered to our cost. There
+were quantities of skins miserably cured, impregnating the air with
+vilest odors; and these were waved at you and wafted after you at every
+step. In the forest which suddenly terminates at the edge of the town
+there is game worth hunting. The whistler, reindeer, mountain sheep and
+goat, ermine, musk-rat, marmet, wolf and bear, are tracked and trapped
+by the red-man; but I doubt if the foot of the white-man is likely to
+venture far into the almost impenetrable confusion of logs and brush
+that is the distinguishing feature of the Alaskan wilderness. Beautiful
+antlers are to be had in Juneau and elsewhere; and perhaps a cinnamon or
+a black cub as playful as a puppy, and full of a kind of half-savage
+fun.
+
+In the upper part of the town, where the stumps and brush are thickest,
+there are cosy little log-cabins, and garden patches that seem to be
+making the most of the summer sunshine. In the window of one of these
+cabins we saw a face--dusky, beautiful, sensitive. Dreamy eyes slumbered
+under fringes that might have won a song from a Persian poet; admirably
+proportioned features, delicious lips, almost persuaded us that a
+squaw-man might in some cases be excusable for his infatuation. Later we
+discovered that the one beauty of Alaska was of Hawaiian parentage; that
+she was married, and was as shy of intruders as a caged bird. Very
+dissimilar are the ladies of Juneau.
+
+In the evening the town-crier went to and fro announcing the opening of
+the ball. It was still drizzling; the cliffs that tower above the
+metropolis were capped with cloud; slender, rain-born rivulets plunged
+from these airy heights into space and were blown away like smoke.
+Sometimes we caught glimpses of white, moving objects, far aloft against
+the black wall of rock: these were mountain sheep.
+
+The cannonading at Douglas Island continued--muffled thunder that ceases
+neither night nor day. Nobody seemed to think of sleeping. The dock was
+swarming with Indians; you would have known it with your eyes shut, from
+the musky odor that permeated every quarter of the ship. The deck was
+filled with passengers, chatting, reading, smoking, looking off upon the
+queer little town and wondering what its future was likely to be. And
+so, we might have lingered on indefinitely, with the light of a dull
+day above us--a light that was to grow no less till dawn, for there is
+no night there,--were it not that some one looked at his watch, and lo!
+it was the midnight hour.
+
+Then we went to the ball given by the ladies of Juneau in our honor.
+Half a dozen young Indian maidens sat on a bench against the wall and
+munched peanuts while they smiled; a few straggling settlers gathered at
+the bar while they smiled; two fiddlers and a guitar made as merry as
+they could under the circumstances in an alcove at the top of the hall.
+Round dances were in vogue,--round dances interspersed with flirtations
+and fire-water; round dances that grew oblong and irregular before
+sunrise--and yet it was sunrise at the unearthly hour of 3.30 a. m., or
+thereabout. We all felt as if we had been cheated out of something when
+we saw his coming; but perhaps it was only the summer siesta that had
+been cut short,--the summer siesta that here passes for the more
+wholesome and old-fashioned sleep of the world lower down on the map.
+
+During the night, having discharged freight and exhausted the resources
+of Juneau, including a post-office, and a post-mistress who sorts the
+mail twice a month, we steamed back to Douglas Island, and dropped many
+fathoms of noisy chain into the deep abreast of the camp. The eve of the
+Fourth in the United States of America is nothing in comparison with the
+everlasting racket at this wonderful mine. The iron jaws of the
+120-stamp mill grind incessantly, spitting pulverized rock and ore into
+the vats that quake under the mastication of the mighty molars; cars
+slip down into the bowels of the earth, and emerge laden with precious
+freight; multitudinous miners relieve one another, watch and watch.
+Electric light banishes even a thought of dusk; and were it now
+winter--the long, dark, dreary winter of the North, with but half a
+dozen hours of legitimate daylight out of the four and twenty--the work
+at Douglas Island would go on triumphantly; and it will go forever--or,
+rather, until the bottom drops out of the mine, just as it drops out of
+everything in this life. All night long the terrible rattle and rumble
+and roar of the explosive agent robbed us of our rest. I could think of
+nothing but the gnomes of the German fairy tale; the dwarfs of the black
+mountain, with their glowworm lamps, darting in and out of the tunnels
+in the earth like moles, and heaping together the riches that are the
+cause of so much pleasure and pain, and envy and despair, and sorrow and
+sin, and too often death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+By Solitary Shores.
+
+
+Probably no one leaves Juneau with regret. Far more enjoyable was the
+day we spent in Ward's Cove, land-locked, wooded to the water's edge,
+and with forty-five fathoms of water of the richest sea-green hue. Here
+lay the _Pinta_ and the _Paterson_, two characteristic representatives
+of the United States Navy--as it was before the war--the former a
+promoted tug-boat, equipped at an expense of $100,000, and now looking
+top-heavy and unseaworthy, but just the thing for a _matinee_
+performance of Pinafore, if that were not out of date.
+
+This _Pinta_, terrible as a canal-boat, armed to the teeth, drew up
+under our quarter to take in coal. You see the _Ancon_ combined business
+with pleasure, and distributed coal in quantities to suit throughout the
+Alaskan lagoon. Now, there is not much fun in coaling, even when a
+craft as funny as the _Pinta_ is snuggling up under your quarter,
+looking more like the Pinafore than ever, with her skylarking sailors,
+midshipmite and all; so Captain Carroll secured a jaunty little
+steam-launch, and away we went on a picnic in the forest primeval. The
+launch was laden to the brim; three of our biggest boats were in tow; an
+abundant collation, in charge of a corps of cabin-boys, gave assurance
+of success in one line at least.
+
+We explored. Old Vancouver did the same thing long ago, and no doubt
+found these shores exactly as we find them to-day. We entered a shallow
+creek at the top of the cove; landed on a dreary point redolent of stale
+fish, and the beach literally alive and creeping with small worms above
+half an inch in length. A solitary squaw was splitting salmon for
+drying. She remained absorbed in her work while we gathered about and
+regarded her with impudent curiosity. Overcome by the fetid air of the
+place, we re-embarked and steamed gaily miles away over the sparkling
+sea.
+
+In an undiscovered country--so it seemed to us--we came to a smooth and
+sandy strip of shore and landed there. But a few paces from the
+lightly-breaking ripples was the forest--and such a forest! There were
+huge trees, looking centuries old, swathed in blankets of moss, and the
+moss gray with age. Impenetrable depths of shadow overhead, impenetrable
+depths of litter under foot. Log had fallen upon log crosswise and at
+every conceivable angle.
+
+Out of the fruitful dust of these deposed monarchs of the forest sprang
+a numerous progeny--lusty claimants, every one of them,--their foliage
+feathery and of the most delicate green, being fed only by the thin
+sunshine that sifts through the dense canopy, supported far aloft by the
+majestic columns that clustered about us. Under foot the russet moss was
+of astonishing depth and softness. One walks with care upon it, for the
+foot breaks through the thick matting that has in many cases spread from
+log to log, hiding treacherous traps beneath. The ferns luxuriate in
+this sylvan paradise; and many a beautiful shrub, new to us, bore
+flowers that blushed unseen until we made our unexpected and perhaps
+unwelcome appearance.
+
+Here we camped. The cloth was spread in a temple not made with hands;
+how hard it is to avoid ringing in these little old-time tags about
+flowers and forests! The viands were deftly served; the merry jest went
+round, and sometimes came back the same way, "returned with thanks." And
+thus we revelled in the midst of a solitude that may never before have
+been broken by the sound of human voice. When we held our peace--which
+we did at long intervals, and for a brief moment only--we realized this
+solemn fact; but it didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why,
+even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings
+under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy
+circles, piping sharp, peevish cries.
+
+It was a delightful day we passed together. The memory of it is one of
+the most precious souvenirs of the Alaskan tour; and it was with
+reluctance that we returned to the ship, after consulting our watches
+with astonishment; for the late hours gave no warning, and we might have
+passed the night there in the loveliest of twilights.
+
+The _Pinta_ was about to withdraw to her anchorage as we boarded the
+_Ancon_; and then, too late, I discovered among the officers of that
+terror of the sea an old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon
+days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S.
+man-of-war, _Alaska_ of jolly memory; and he, with his companions,
+constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the _Alaska_ is a sheer
+hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in
+the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I
+thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under _Old
+Glory_, then floating in the trade wind that blew over southern seas, I
+should find him last in the lone land that gave name to the ship that
+brought him over. Can the theosophists unravel this mystery, or see
+aught in it that verges upon the mystic philosophy? As we steamed out of
+Wood's Cove that night, with the echoes of a parting salute filling the
+heavens to overflowing, we saw a cluster of small, dark islets in the
+foreground; shining waters beyond flowed to the foot of far-away
+mountains; a silvery sky melted into gold as it neared the horizon: this
+picture, as delicate in tint as the most exquisite water-color, was
+framed in a setting of gigantic pines; and it was by this fairy portal
+we entered the sea of ice.
+
+From solitude to solitude is the order in Alaska. The solitude of the
+forest and the sea, of the mountain and ravine,--with these we had
+become more or less familiar when our good ship headed for the solitude
+of ice and snow. I began to feel as if we were being dragged out on the
+roof of the world--as if we were swimming in the flooded eaves of a
+continent. Sometimes there came over me a sense of loneliness--of the
+distance that lay between us and everybody else, and of the helplessness
+of our case should any serious accident befall us. It is this very
+state, perhaps, that ages the hearts of the hardiest of the explorers
+who seek vainly to unravel the polar mystery.
+
+From time to time as we sailed, the sea, now a brighter blue than ever,
+was strewn with fragments of ice. Very lovely they looked as they hugged
+the distant shore; a ghostly and fantastical procession, borne ever
+southward by the slow current; and growing more ghostly and fantastical
+hour by hour, as they dwindled in the clear sunshine of the long summer
+days. Anon the ice fragments increased in number and dimensions. The
+whole watery expanse was covered with brash, and we were obliged to pick
+our way with considerable caution. At times we narrowly escaped grazing
+small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision
+with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough,
+being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling;
+or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles
+and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a
+tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are decidedly limited.
+Often we thought of the miserable millions away down East simmering in
+the sultry summer heat, while the thermometer with us stood at 45
+degrees in the sun, and the bracing salt air was impregnated with
+balsamic odors.
+
+In this delectable state we sighted a bouncing baby iceberg, and at once
+made for it with the enthusiasm of veritable discoverers. It was pretty
+to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it,
+searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg
+is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is
+rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on,
+coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to
+it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun
+like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half
+dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes,
+and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season transferred
+to our iceboxes.
+
+Our iceberg was about fifty feet in length and twenty or thirty feet out
+of the water. It was a glittering island, with savage peaks, deep
+valleys, bluffs, and promontories. The edges were delicately frilled and
+resembled silver filigree. Some of these, which were transparent and as
+daintily turned as old Venetian glass, dripped continually like
+rain-beaten eaves. The portion nearest the water's edge was honeycombed
+by the wavelets that dashed upon it without ceasing, rushing in and out
+of the small, luminous caverns in swift, sparkling rivulets. Much of the
+surface was crusted with a fine frosting; it was full of wells deep
+enough to sink a man in. These wells were filled with water, and with a
+blue light, celestial in its loveliness,--a light ethereal and pellucid.
+It was as if the whole iceberg were saturated with transfused moonbeams,
+that gave forth a mellow radiance, which flashed at times like
+brilliants, and burst into flame and played like lightning along the
+almost invisible rims and ridges. The unspeakable, the incomprehensible
+light throbbed through and through; and was sometimes bluish green and
+sometimes greenish blue; but oftenest with the one was the other, both
+at once, and with a perfectly bewildering tint added,--in a word, it was
+frozen moonlight and no mistake. O my friend, I assure you there are
+many famous sports with not half the fun in them that there is in
+lassoing an iceberg!
+
+Once more I turn to my note-books. I find that the morning had been
+foggy; that we could see scarcely a ship's length ahead of us; that the
+water was like oil beneath and the mists like snow above and about,
+while we groped blindly. Of course we could not press forward under the
+circumstances; for we were surrounded by islands great and small, and
+any one of these might silently materialize at a moment's notice; but we
+were not idle. Now and again our paddles beat the water impetuously, and
+they hung dripping, while the sea stretched around us as we leisurely
+drifted on like a larger bubble in danger of bursting upon an
+unexpected rock. We sounded frequently. There was an abundance of
+water--there nearly always is throughout the Alaskan archipelago; enough
+and to spare; but the abrupt shore might be but a stone's-throw from us
+on the one hand or the other.
+
+What was to be done? In the vast stillness we blew a blast on our shrill
+whistle, and listened for the echo. Sometimes it returned to us almost
+on the instant and we cried, "Halt!" When we halted or veered off,
+creeping as it were on the surface of the oily sea, sometimes a faint or
+far-off whisper--"the horns of elf-land"--gave us assurance of plenty of
+space and the sea-room we were sorely in need of just then. Once we saw
+looming right under our prow a little islet with a tuft of fir-trees
+crowning it--the whole worthy to be made the head-piece or tail-piece to
+some poem on solitude. It was very picturesque; but it seemed to be
+crouching there, lying in wait for us, ready to arch its back the moment
+we came within reach. The rapidity with which we backed out of that
+predicament left us no time for apologies.
+
+Again we got some distance up the wrong channel. When the fog lifted for
+a moment, we discovered the error, put about without more ado, and went
+around the block in a hurry. Meanwhile we had schooled our ears to
+detect the most delicate shades of sound; to measure or weigh each
+individual echo with an accuracy that gave us the utmost
+self-satisfaction. Perhaps Captain Carroll or Captain George, who was
+spying out the land with his ears, would not have trusted the ship in
+our keeping for five minutes--but no matter.
+
+Presently the opaque atmosphere began to dissolve away; and as the sun
+brushed the webs from his face, and darted sharp beams upon the water
+all at once in a shower, the fog-banks went to pieces and rolled away in
+sections out of sight, like the transformation scene in a Christmas
+pantomime. And there we were in the very centre of the smiling island
+world, with splendid snow peaks towering all about us; and such a flood
+of blue sky and bluer water, golden sunshine and gilded fields of snow,
+of jutting shores clad in perennial verdure, and eagles and sea-birds
+wheeling round about us, as can be seen nowhere else in the wide world
+to the same advantage.
+
+We were entering a region of desolation. The ice was increasing, and the
+water took that ghastly hue, even a glimpse of which is enough to chill
+the marrow in one's bones. Vegetation was dying out. A canoe-full of
+shivering Indians were stemming the icy flood in search of some chosen
+fishery,--all of them blanketed, and all--squaw as well as
+papooses--taking a turn at the paddle. These were the children of
+Nature, whose song-birds are the screaming eagle, the croaking raven,
+and the crying sea-doves blown inland by the wild westerly gales.
+
+We were now nearly within sound of the booming glaciers; and as we drew
+nearer and nearer I could but brood over the oft imagined picture of
+that vast territory--our Alaska,--where, beyond that mountain range, the
+almost interminable winter is scarcely habitable, and the summers so
+brief it takes about six of them to make a swallow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+In Search of the Totem-Pole.
+
+
+Hour after hour and day after day we are coasting along shores that
+become monotonous in their beauty. For leagues the sea-washed roots of
+the forest present a fairly impassable barrier to the foot of man. It is
+only at infrequent intervals that a human habitation is visible, and
+still more seldom does the eye discover a solitary canoe making its way
+among the inextricable confusion of inlets. Sometimes a small cluster of
+Indian lodges enlivens the scene; and this can scarcely be said to
+enliven it, for most Indian lodges are as forlorn as a last year's
+bird's-nest. Sometimes a bright little village gives hope of a break in
+the serenity of the season--a few hours on shore and an extra page or
+two in our log-books. Yet again, sometimes it is a green jungle, above
+the sea, out of which rise diminutive box-houses, like exaggerated
+dove-cotes, with a goodly number of towering cedar columns, curiously
+carved, perhaps stained black or red in patches, scattered through them.
+These are Indian cemeteries. They are hedged about with staves, from the
+top of which flutter ragged streamers. They are rich in rude carvings of
+men and birds and beasts. Now and again a shield as big as a target, and
+looking not unlike an archery-target, marks the tomb of some warrior.
+The unerring shafts of death search out the obscurest handfuls of people
+scattered through these wide domains; and every village has its solemn
+suburb, where the houses of the dead are decorated with barbaric
+bric-a-brac.
+
+Many of the tombs are above ground--airy sarcophagi on high poles
+rocking in the wind and the rain. Some are nearer the earth, like
+old-fashioned four-poster bed-steads; and there the dead sleep well.
+Others are of stone, with windows and peaked roofs,--very comfortable
+receptacles. But most of the bodies are below ground, and the last
+vestiges of their graves are lost in the depths of the jungle.
+Incineration is not uncommon in Alaska, and in such cases the ashes are
+distributed among the winds and waves. Birds feast upon the bodies of
+certain tribes--meat-offerings, very gracious in the sight of the Death
+Angel; but by far the larger portion find decent burial, and they are
+all long and loudly and sincerely mourned.
+
+We awoke one morning at Casa-an, and found ourselves made fast to a
+dock. On the dock was a salmon-house, or shed, a very laboratory of
+ancient and fish-like smells. It was not long before the tide slipped
+away from us and left the steamer resting easily on her beam-ends in
+shallow water. We were prisoners for a few hours; but we were glad of
+this, for every hour was of interest to us. This was our first chance to
+thoroughly explore an Indian village; and, oh! the dogs, cousins-german
+to the coyotes, that shook off their fleas and bayed us dismally! Lodges
+of the rudest sort were scattered about in the most convenient
+localities. As for streets or lanes, there were none visible. The
+majority of the lodges were constructed of hemlock bark or of rough
+slabs, gaudily festooned with split salmon drying in the sun. The lodges
+are square, with roofs slightly inclined; they are windowless and have
+but one narrow door about shoulder high.
+
+The Casa-an Indians are a tribe of the Haidas, the cleverest of the
+northern races. They are expert craftsmen. From a half dollar they will
+hammer out or mold a bangle and cover it with chasing very deftly cut.
+Their wood-carvings, medicine-man rattles, spoons, broth bowls, and the
+like, are curious; but the demand for bangles keeps the more ingenious
+busy in this branch of industry. Unfortunately, some simple voyager gave
+the rude silversmiths a bangle of the conventional type, and this is now
+so cunningly imitated that it is almost impossible to secure a specimen
+of Haida work of the true Indian pattern. Very shortly the Indian
+villages of Alaska will be stocked with curios of genuine California
+manufacture. The supply of antiquities and originals has been already
+nearly, if not quite, exhausted. It is said that no sooner is the boom
+of the paddle-wheel heard in the noiseless Alaskan sea than the Indian
+proceeds to empty of its treasures his cedar chest or his red Chinese
+box studded with brass nails, and long before the steamer heaves in
+sight the primitive bazar is ready for the expected customer. There is
+much haggling over the price of a curio, and but little chance of a
+bargain. If one has his eye upon some coveted object, he had best
+purchase it at once at the first figure; for the Indian is not likely
+to drop a farthing, and there are others who will gladly outbid the
+hesitating shopper.
+
+Time is no object in the eyes of these people. If an Indian thought he
+could make a quarter more on the sale of a curio by holding it a month
+longer, until the arrival of the next excursion boat, or even by getting
+into his canoe and paddling a day or two over to the next settlement, he
+would as lief do it as not. By the merest chance I drew from a heap of
+rubbish in the corner of a lodge a Shaman rattle, unquestionably
+genuine. This Shaman rattle is a quaintly carved rattle-box, such as is
+used by sorcerers or medicine-men in propitiation of the evil spirit at
+the bedside of the dying. The one I have was not offered for sale, nor
+did the possessor seem to place much value on it; yet he would not budge
+one jot or tittle in the price he first set upon it, and seemingly set
+at a guess. Its discovery was a piece of pure luck, but I would not
+exchange it for any other curio which I chanced to see during the whole
+voyage.
+
+In one of the lodges at Casa-an a chief lay dying. He was said to be the
+last of his race; and, judging from appearances, his hours were fast
+drawing to a close. He was breathing painfully; his face was turned to
+the wall. Two or three other Indians sat silently about, stirring at
+intervals a bright wood-fire that burned in the centre of the lodge. The
+curling smoke floated gracefully through a hole in the roof--most of it,
+but not quite all. As we entered (we were in search of the dying chief;
+for, as he seemed to be the one lion in the settlement, his fame was
+soon noised abroad) we found that the evangelist had forestalled us. He
+was asking the price of salmon in San Francisco; but upon our appearance
+he added, solemnly enough: "Well, we all must die--Indians and all." An
+interpreter had reluctantly been pressed into service; but as the
+missionary work was not progressing, the evangelist dropped the
+interpreter, rolled up his spiritual sleeves and pitched in as follows:
+
+"Say, you Injun! you love God? You love Great Spirit?" No answer came
+from the thin, drawn lips, tightly compressed and visible just over the
+blankets edge in the corner of the lodge. "Say, John! you ready to die!
+You make your peace with God! You go to heaven--to the happy
+hunting-ground?" The chief, who had silenced the interpreter with a
+single look, was apparently beyond the hearing of human speech; so the
+evangelist, with a sigh, again inquired into the state of the salmon
+market on the Pacific coast. Then the stricken brave turned a glazed eye
+upon the man of God, and the latter once more sought to touch that heart
+of stone: "I say, you Injun! you prepared to meet Great Spirit? You
+ready to go to happy hunting-ground?" The chief's eyes flamed for a
+moment, as with infinite scorn he muttered between his teeth to the
+evangelist: "You ---- fool! You go to ----!" And he went.
+
+While the steamer was slowly righting we had ample time to inspect the
+beached hull of a schooner with a history. She was the Pioneer of
+Casa-an once commanded by a famous old smuggler named Baronovich. Long
+he sailed these waters; and, like Captain Kidd, he bore a charmed life
+as he sailed. It is a mystery to me how any sea-faring man can trust his
+craft to the mercy of the winds and tides of this myriad-islanded inland
+sea. This ancient mariner, Baronovich, not only braved the elements, but
+defied Russian officials, who kept an eye upon him night and day. On one
+occasion, having been boarded by the vigilant inspectors, and his
+piratical schooner thoroughly searched from stem to stern, he kindly
+invited the gentlemen to dine with him, and entertained them at a board
+groaning with the contraband luxuries which his suspicious guests had
+been vainly seeking all the afternoon. It is a wee little cabin and a
+shallow hold that furnish the setting for a sea-tale as wildly
+picturesque as any that thrills the heart of your youthful reader; but
+high and dry lies the moldering hulk of the dismantled smuggler, and
+there is no one left to tell the tale.
+
+As we lounged about, some hideous Indians--I trust they were not framed
+in the image of their Maker,--ill-shapen lads, dumpy, expressionless
+babies, green-complexioned half-breeds, sat and looked on with utter
+indifference. Many of the Haida Indians have kinky or wavy hair,
+Japanese or Chinese eyes, and most of them toe out; but they are, all
+things considered, the least interesting, the most ungainly and the most
+unpicturesque of people. If there is work for them to do they do it,
+heedless of the presence of inquisitive, pale-faced spectators. Indeed
+they seem to look down upon the white-man, and perhaps they have good
+reasons for so doing. If there is no work to be done, they are not at
+all disconcerted.
+
+I very much doubt if a Haida Indian--or any other Indian, for that
+matter--knows what it is to be bored or to find the time hanging heavily
+on his hands. I took note of one old Indian who sat for four solid hours
+without once changing his position. He might have been sitting there
+still but that his wife routed him out after a lively monologue, to
+which he was an apparently disinterested listener. At last he arose with
+a grunt, adjusted his blanket, strode grimly to his canoe and bailed it
+out; then he entered and paddled leisurely to the opposite shore, where
+he disappeared in the forest.
+
+Filth was everywhere, and evil odors; but far, far aloft the eagles were
+soaring, and the branches of a withered tree near the settlement were
+filled with crows as big as buzzards. Once in awhile some one or another
+took a shot at them--and missed. Thus the time passed at Casa-an. One
+magnifies the merest episode on the Alaskan voyage, and is grateful for
+it.
+
+Killisnoo is situated in a cosy little cove. It is a rambling village
+that climbs over the rocks and narrowly escapes being pretty, but it
+manages to escape. Most of the lodges are built of logs, have small,
+square windows, with glass in them, and curtains; and have also a kind
+of primitive chimney. We climbed among these lodges and found them quite
+deserted. The lodgers were all down at the dock. There were inscriptions
+on a few of the doors: the name of the tenant, and a request to observe
+the sacredness of the domestic hearth. This we were careful to do; but
+inasmuch as each house was set in order and the window-curtains looped
+back, we were no doubt welcome to a glimpse of an Alaskan interior. It
+was the least little bit like a peep-show, and didn't seem quite real.
+One inscription was as follows--it was over the door of the lodge of the
+laureate:
+
+             JOSEPH HOOLQUIN.
+
+             My tum-tum is white,
+             I try to do right:
+           All are welcome to come
+           To my hearth and my home.
+     So call in and see me, white, red or black man:
+     I'm de-late hyas of the Kootznahoo quan.
+
+Need I add that _tum-tum_ in the Chinook jargon signifies the soul!
+Joseph merely announced that he was clean-souled; also _de-late
+hyas_--that is, above reproach.
+
+At the store of the Northwest Trading Company we found no curios, and it
+is the only store in the place. Sarsaparilla, tobacco, blankets, patent
+medicines, etc., are there neatly displayed on freshly painted shelves,
+but no curios. On a strip of plank walk in front of the place are
+Indians luxuriously heaped, like prize porkers, and they are about as
+interesting a spectacle to the unaccustomed eye.
+
+Our whistle blew at noon. We returned on board, taking the cannery and
+oil-factory on the way, and finding it impossible to forget them for
+some time afterward. At 12.45 p. m. we were off, but we left one of the
+merriest and most popular of our voyagers behind us. He remained at
+Killisnoo in charge of the place. As we swam off into the sweet sea
+reaches, the poor fellow ran over the ridge of his little island,
+looking quite like a castaway, and no doubt feeling like one. He sprang
+from rock to rock and at last mounted a hillock, and stood waving his
+arms wildly while we were in sight. And the lassies? They swarmed like
+bees upon the wheelhouse, wringing their hands and their handkerchiefs,
+and weeping rivers of imaginary tears over our first bereavement! But
+really, now, what a life to lead, and in what a place, especially if
+one happens to be young, and good-looking and a bit of a swell withal!
+
+But is there no romance here? Listen! We came to anchor over night in a
+quiet nook where the cliffs and the clouds overshadowed us. Everything
+was of the vaguest description, without form and void. There seemed to
+be one hut on shore, with the spark of a light in it--a cannery of
+course. Canoes were drifting to and fro like motes in the darkness,
+tipped with a phosphorescent rim. Indian voices hailed us out of the
+ominous silence; Indian dogs muttered under their breath, yelping in a
+whisper which was mocked by Indian papooses, who can bark before they
+have learned to walk or talk.
+
+Softly out of the balmy night--for it was balmy and balsamic (we were to
+the windward of the cannery),--a shadowy canoe floated up just under our
+rail; two shadowy forms materialized, and voices like the voices of
+spirits--almost the softest voices in the world, voices of infantile
+sweetness--hailed us. "_Alah, mika chahko!_" babbled the flowers of the
+forest. My solitary companion responded glibly, for he was no stranger
+in these parts. The maids grew garrulous. There was much bantering, and
+such laughter as the gods delight in; and at last a shout that drew the
+attention of the captain. He joined us just in season to recognize the
+occupants of the canoe, as they shot through a stream of light under an
+open port, crying "_Anah nawitka mika halo shem!_" And then we learned
+that the sea-nymphs he had put to flight were none other than the belles
+of Juneau City, the Alaskan metropolis, who were spending the summer at
+this watering-place, and who were known to fame as "Kitty the Gopher,"
+and "Feather-Legged Sal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+In the Sea of Ice.
+
+
+We appreciated the sun's warmth so long as we were cruising among the
+ice-wrack. Some of the passengers, having been forewarned, were provided
+with heavy overcoats, oilskin hats, waterproofs, woolen socks, and
+stogies with great nails driven into the soles. They were iron-bound,
+copper-fastened tourists, thoroughly equipped--Alpine-stock and
+all,--and equal to any emergency.
+
+Certainly it rains whenever it feels like it in Alaska. It can rain
+heavily for days together, and does so from time to time. The
+excursion-boat may run out of one predicament into another, and the
+whole voyage be a series of dismal disappointments; but this is not to
+be feared. The chances are in favor of a round of sunshiny days and
+cloudless nights as bright as the winter days in New England; of the
+fairest of fair weather; bracing breezes tempered by the fragrant
+forests that mantle each of the ten thousand islands; cool nights in
+midsummer, when a blanket is welcome in one's bunk; a touch of a fog now
+and again, generally lasting but a few hours, and welcome, also, by way
+of change. As for myself, a rubber coat protected me in the few showers
+to which we were exposed, and afforded warmth enough in the coldest
+weather we encountered. For a climb over a glacier, the very thickest
+shoes are absolutely necessary; beyond these, all else seems superfluous
+to me, and the superfluous is the chief burden of travel.
+
+We were gathered about the deck in little groups. The unpremeditated
+coteries which naturally spring into existence on shipboard hailed one
+another across decks, from the captain's cabin--a favorite resort--or
+the smoking-room, as we sighted objects of interest. With us there was
+no antagonism, albeit we numbered a full hundred, and for three weeks
+were confined to pretty close quarters. Passing the hours thus, and
+felicitating ourselves upon the complete success of the voyage, we were
+in the happiest humor, and amiably awaited our next experience.
+
+Presently we ran under a wooded height that shut off the base of a great
+snow-capped mountain. The peak was celestial in its beauty,--a wraith
+dimly outlined upon the diaphanous sky, of which it seemed a more
+palpable part. When we had rounded this point we came face to face with
+a glacier. We saw at a glance the length and the breadth of it as it
+plowed slowly down between lofty rock-ridges to within a mile and a half
+of the shore. This was our first sight of one of those omnipotent
+architects of nature, and we watched it with a thrill of awe.
+
+Picture to yourself a vast river, two or three miles in breadth, pouring
+down from the eminence of an icy peak thirty miles away,--a river fed by
+numerous lateral tributaries that flow in from every declivity. Imagine
+this river lashed to a fury and covered from end to end, fathoms deep,
+with foam, and then the whole suddenly frozen and fixed for
+evermore--that is your glacier. Sometimes the surface is stained with
+the _debris_ of the mountain; sometimes the bluish-green tinge of the
+ancient ice crops out. Generally the surface is as white as down and
+very fair to look upon; for at a distance--we were about eight miles
+from the lower edge of it--the eye detects no flaw. It might be a
+torrent of milk and honey. It might almost be compared in its
+immaculate beauty to one of the rivers of Paradise that flow hard by
+the throne of God. It seems to be moving in majesty, and yet is
+stationary, or nearly so; for we might sit by its frozen shore and grow
+gray with watching, and ever our dull eyes could detect no change in a
+ripple of it. A river of Paradise, indeed, escaped from the gardens of
+the blessed; but, overcome by the squalor of this little globe, it has
+stopped short and turned to ice in its alabaster bed.
+
+One evening, about 8.30 o'clock, the sun still high above the western
+mountain range, we found ourselves opposite the Davidson glacier. It
+passes out of a broad ravine and spreads fanlike upon the shore under
+the neighboring cliffs. It is three miles in breadth along the front,
+and is twelve hundred feet in height when it begins to crumble and slope
+toward the shore. A terminal moraine, a mile and a half in depth,
+separates it from the sea. A forest, or the remnant of a forest, stands
+between it and the water it is slowly but surely approaching. The fate
+of this solemn wood is sealed. Anon the mightiest among these mighty
+trees will fall like grain before the sickle of the reaper.
+
+We are very near this glacier. We see all the wrinkles and fissures and
+the deep discolorations. We see how the monstrous mass winds in and out
+between the mountains, and crowds them on every side, and rubs their
+skin off in spots, and leaves grooved lines, like high-water marks,
+along the face of the cliffs; how it gathers as it goes, and grinds to
+powder and to paste whatever comes within its reach, growing worse and
+worse, and greedier and more rapacious as it creeps down into the
+lowlands; so that when it reaches the sea, where it must end its course
+and dissolve away, it will have covered itself with slime and confusion.
+It will have left ruin and desolation in its track, but it will likewise
+have cleft out a valley with walls polished like brass and a floor as
+smooth as marble,--one that will be utilized in after ages, when it has
+carpeted itself with green and tapestried its walls with vines. Surely
+no other power on earth could have done the job so neatly.
+
+One sees this work in process and in fresh completion in Alaska. The
+bald islet yonder, with a surface as smooth as glass and with delicate
+tracery along its polished sides--tracery that looks like etching upon
+glass,--was modelled by glaciers not so many years ago: within the
+century, some of them, perhaps. A glacier--probably the very glacier we
+are seeking--follows this track and grinds them all into shape. Every
+angle of action--of motion, shall I say?--is indelibly impressed upon
+each and every rock here about; so all these northlands, from sea to
+sea, the world over, have been laboriously licked into shape by the
+irresistible tide of ice. Verily, the mills of the gods grind slowly,
+but what a grist they grind!
+
+Let me record an episode that occasioned no little excitement among the
+passengers and crew of the _Ancon_. While we were picking our way among
+the floating ice--and at a pretty good jog, too,--a dark body was seen
+to fall from an open port, forward, into the sea. There was a splash and
+a shriek as it passed directly under the wheel and disappeared in the
+foam astern. "Man overboard!" was the cry that rang through the ship,
+while we all rushed breathlessly to the after-rail. Among the seething
+waters in our wake, we saw a head appearing and disappearing, and
+growing smaller and smaller all the while, though the swimmer was
+struggling bravely to hold his own. In a moment the engines were
+stopped; and then--an after-thought--we made as sharp a turn as
+possible, hoping to lessen the distance between us, while a boat was
+being manned and lowered for the rescue. We feared that it was the cook,
+who was running a fair chance of being drowned or chilled to death. His
+black head bobbed like a burnt cork on the crest of the waves; and,
+though we marked a snow-white circle in the sea, we seemed to get no
+nearer the strong swimmer in his agony; and all at once we saw him turn,
+as in desperation or despair, and make for one of the little rocky
+islets that were lying at no great distance. Evidently he believed
+himself deserted, and was about to seek this desolate rock in the hope
+of prolonging existence.
+
+By this time we had come to a dead halt, and a prolonged silence
+followed. Our sailor boys pulled lustily at the oars; yet the little
+boat seemed to crawl through yawning waves, and, as usual, every moment
+was an hour of terrible suspense. Then the captain, the most anxious
+among us all, made a trumpet of his hands and shouted: "Here, Pete, old
+boy! Here, Pete, you black rascal!" At the sound of his voice the
+swimmer suddenly turned and struck out for the ship with an enthusiasm
+that was actually ludicrous. We roared with laughter--we could not help
+it; for when the boat had pulled up to the almost water-logged swimmer,
+and he began to climb in with an energy that imperiled the safety of the
+crew, we saw that the black rascal in question was none other than Pete
+Bruin, Captain Carroll's pet bear. He shook himself and drenched the
+oarsmen, who were trying to get him back to the ship; for he was half
+frantic with delight, and it was pretty close quarters--a small boat in
+a chop sea dotted with lumpy ice; and a frantic bear puffing and blowing
+as he shambled bear-fashion from the stem to stern, and raised his voice
+at intervals in a kind of hoarse "hooray," that depressed rather than
+cheered his companions. It was ticklish business getting the boat and
+its lively crew back to the davits in safety.
+
+It was still more ticklish receiving the shaggy hero on deck; for he
+gave one wild bound and alighted in the midst of a group of terrified
+ladies and scattered the rest of us in dismay. But it was side-splitting
+when the little fellow, seeing an open door, made a sudden break for
+it, and plunged into the berth of a shy damsel, who, put to ignominious
+flight in the first gust of the panic, had sought safety in her
+state-room only to be singled out for the recipient of the rascal's
+special attentions. She was rescued by the bravest of the brave; but
+Bruin had to be dragged from behind the lace curtains with a lasso, and
+then he brought some shreds of lace with him as a trophy. He was more
+popular than ever after this little adventure, and many an hour we spent
+in recounting to one another the varied emotions awakened by the
+episode.
+
+Heading for Glacier Bay, we found a flood of bitter cold water so filled
+with floating ice that it was quite impossible to avoid frequent
+collisions with masses of more or less magnitude. There was an almost
+continual thumping along the ship's side as the paddle struck heavily
+the ice fragments which we found littering the frozen sea. There was
+also a dull reverberation as of distant thunder that rolled over the sea
+to us; and when we learned that this was the crackling of the ice-pack
+in the gorges, we thought with increasing solemnity of the majesty of
+the spectacle we were about to witness.
+
+Thus we pushed forward bravely toward an ice-wall that stretched across
+the top of the bay from one high shore to the other. This wall of ice, a
+precipitous bluff or palisade, is computed to be from two hundred to
+five hundred feet in height. It is certainly nowhere less than two
+hundred, but most of it far nearer five hundred feet above sea level,
+rising directly out of it, overhanging it, and chilling the air
+perceptibly. Picking our path to within a safe distance of the glacier,
+we cast anchor and were free to go our ways for a whole glorious day.
+According to Professor John Muir--for whom the glacier is deservedly
+named,--the ice-wall measures three miles across the front; ten miles
+farther back it is ten miles in breadth. Sixteen tributary glaciers
+unite to form the one.
+
+Professor Muir, accompanied by the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell,
+visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this
+region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to
+his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous
+speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most
+self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed
+this glacier. It is dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; so
+that although it is always advancing, it seems in reality to be
+retreating.
+
+Within the memory of the last three generations the Muir glacier filled
+the bay for miles below our anchorage; and while it recedes, it is
+creeping slowly down, scalping the mountains, grinding all the sharp
+edges into powder or leaving a polished surface behind it. It gathers
+rock dust and the wreck of every living thing, and mixes them up with
+snow and ice. These congeal again, or are compressed into soft, filthy
+monumental masses, waiting their turn to topple into the waves at last.
+The wash of the sea undermines the glacier; the sharp sunbeams blast it.
+It is forever sinking, settling, crushing in upon itself and splitting
+from end to end, with fearful and prolonged intestinal reverberations,
+that remind one of battle thunders and murder and sudden death. There
+was hardly a moment during the day free from rumble or a crash or a
+splash.
+
+The front elevation might almost be compared to Niagara Falls in winter;
+but here is a spectacular effect not often visible at Niagara. At
+intervals huge fragments of the ice cliffs fall, carrying with them
+torrents of snow and slush. Heaven only knows know many hundred thousand
+tons of this _debris_ plunged into the sea under our very eyes. Nor was
+it all _debris_: there were masses of solid ice so lustrous they looked
+like gigantic emeralds or sapphires, and these were fifty or even a
+hundred times the size of our ship. When they fell they seemed to
+descend with the utmost deliberation; for they fell a much greater
+distance than we could realize, as their bulk was beyond conception, so
+that a fall of two hundred or three hundred feet seemed not a tenth part
+of that distance.
+
+With this deliberate descent, as if they floated down, they also gave an
+impression of vast weight and when they struck the sea, the foam flew
+two-thirds of the way up the cliff--a fountain three hundred feet in
+height and of monstrous volume. Then after a long time--a very long time
+it seemed to us--the ice would rise slowly from the deep and climb the
+face of the cliff as if it were about to take its old place again; but
+it sank and rose, until it had found its level, when it joined the long
+procession drifting southward to warmer waves and dissolution.
+
+In the meantime the ground swell that followed each submersion
+resembled a tidal wave as it rolled down upon us and threatened to
+engulf us. But the _Ancon_ rode like a duck--I can not consistently say
+swan in this case,--and heaved to starboard and to larboard in
+picturesque and thoroughly nautical fashion. Some of us were on shore,
+wading in the mud and the slush, or climbing the steep bluffs that hem
+in the glacier upon one side. Here it was convenient to glance over the
+wide, wide snow-fields that seem to have been broken with colossal
+harrows. It was even possible to venture out upon the ice ridges,
+leaping the gaps that divided them in every direction. But at any moment
+the crust might have broken and buried us from sight; and we found the
+spectacle far more enjoyable when viewed from the deck of the steamer.
+
+What is that glacier like? Well, just a little like the whitewashed
+crater of an active volcano. At any rate, it is the glorious companion
+piece to Kilauea in Hawaii. In these wonders of nature you behold the
+extremes, fire and ice, having it all their own way, and a world of
+adamant shall not prevail against them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Alaska's Capital.
+
+
+Sitka has always seemed to me the jumping-off place. I have vaguely
+imagined that somehow--I know not just how--it had a mysterious affinity
+with Moscow, and was in some way a dependence of that Muscovite
+municipality. I was half willing to believe that an underground passage
+connected the Kremlin with the Castle of Sitka; that the tiny capital of
+Great Alaska responded, though feebly, to every throb of the Russian
+heart. Perhaps it did in the good old days now gone; but there is little
+or nothing of the Russian element left, and the place is as dead as dead
+can be without giving offence to the olfactory organ.
+
+We were picking our way through a perfect wilderness of islands, on the
+lookout for the capital, of which we had read and heard so much. Surely
+the Alaskan pilot must have the eye and the instinct of a sea bird or he
+could never find a port in that labyrinth. Moreover, the air was misty:
+we felt that we were approaching the sea. Lofty mountains towered above
+us; sometimes the islands swam apart--they seemed all in motion, as if
+they were swinging to and fro on the tide,--and then down a magnificent
+vista we saw the richly wooded slopes of some glorious height that
+loomed out of the vapor and bathed its forehead in the sunshine.
+Sometimes the mist grew denser, and we could see hardly a ship's-length
+ahead of us; and the air was so chilly that our overcoats were drawn
+snugly about us, and we wondered what the temperature might be "down
+south" in Dakota and New England.
+
+In the grayest of gray days we came to Sitka, and very likely for this
+reason found it a disappointment at first sight. Certainly it looked
+dreary enough as we approached it--a little cluster of tumbledown houses
+scattered along a bleak and rocky shore. We steamed slowly past it, made
+a big turn in deep water, got a tolerable view of the city from one end
+of it to the other, and then crept up to the one little dock, made fast,
+and were all granted the freedom of the capital for a couple of days. It
+is a gray place--gray with a greenish tinge in it--the kind of green
+that looks perennial--a dark, dull evergreen.
+
+There was some show of color among the costumes of the people on
+shore--bright blankets and brighter calicoes,--but there was no
+suspicion of gaiety or of a possible show of enthusiasm among the few
+sedate individuals who came down to see us disembark. I began to wonder
+if these solemn spectators that were grouped along the dock were ghosts
+materialized for the occasion; if the place were literally dead--dead as
+the ancient Russian cemetery on the hill, where the white crosses with
+their double arms, the upper and shorter one aslant, shone through the
+sad light of the waning day.
+
+We had three little Russian maids on our passenger list, daughters of
+Father Mitropolski, the Greek priest at Sitka. They were returning from
+a convent school at Victoria, and were bubbling over with delight at the
+prospective joys of a summer vacation at home. But no sooner had they
+received the paternal embraces upon the deck than the virtue of
+happiness went out of them; and they became sedate little Sitkans, whose
+dignity belied the riotous spirit that had made them the life of the
+ship on the way up.
+
+We also brought home a little Russian chap who had been working down at
+Fort Wrangell, and, having made a fortune--it was a fortune in his
+eyes,--he was returning to stay in the land of his nativity. He was
+quiet enough on shipboard--indeed, he had almost escaped observation
+until we sighted Sitka; but then his heart could contain itself no
+longer, and he made confidants of several of us to whom he had spoken
+never a word until this moment. How glad he was to greet its solemn
+shores, to him the dearest spot in all the earth! A few hours later we
+met him. He was swinging on the gate at the homestead in the edge of the
+town: a sweet, primitive place, that caught our eye before the youngster
+caught our ears with his cheerful greeting. "Oh, I so glad!" said he,
+with a mist in his eye that harmonized with everything else. "I make
+eighty dollar in four month at Wrangell. My sister not know me when I
+get home. I so glad to come back to Sitka. I not go away any more."
+
+Of course we poured out of the ship in short order, and spread through
+the town like ants. At the top of the dock is the Northwest Trading
+Company's store--how we learned to know these establishments! Some
+scoured it for a first choice, and got the pick of the wares; but here,
+as elsewhere, we found the same motley collection of semi-barbarous
+bric-a-brac--brilliantly painted Indian paddles spread like a sunburst
+against the farther wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fantastical
+carvings such as the aborigines delight in, and in which they almost
+excel. Up the main street of the town is another store, where a series
+of large rooms, crowded with curios bewilders the purchaser of those
+grotesque wares.
+
+At the top of Katalan's rock, on the edge of the sea, stands the
+Colonial Castle. It is a wooden structure, looking more like a barrack
+than a castle. At the foot of the rock are the barracks and Custom
+House. A thin sprinkling of marines, a few foreign-looking citizens--the
+full-fledged Rusk of the unmistakable type is hard to find
+nowadays,--and troops of Indians give a semblance of life to this
+quarter. At the head of the street stands the Russian Orthodox Church;
+and this edifice, with its quaint tower and spire, is really the lion of
+the place. St. Michael's was dedicated in 1844 by the Venerable Ivan
+Venianimoff, the metropolitan of Moscow, for years priest and Bishop at
+Ounalaska and Sitka.
+
+In his time the little chapel was richly decorated; but as the
+settlement began falling to decay, the splendid vestments and sacred
+vessels and altar ornaments, and even the Bishop himself, were
+transferred to San Francisco. It then became the duty of the Bishop to
+visit annually the churches at Sitka, Ounalaska and Kodiak, as the
+Russian Government still allowed these dependencies an annuity of
+$50,000. But the last incumbent of the office, Bishop Nestor, was lost
+tragically at sea in May, 1883; and, as the Russian priesthood seems to
+be less pious than particular, the office is still a-begging--unless I
+have been misinformed. Probably the mission will be abandoned. Certainly
+the dilapidated chapel, with its remnants of tarnished finery, its three
+surviving families of Russian blood, its handful of Indian converts,
+seems not likely to hold long together.
+
+We witnessed a service in St. Michael's. The tinkling bells in the green
+belfry--a bulbous, antique-looking belfry it is--rang us in from the
+four quarters of the town. As there were neither pews, chairs nor prayer
+carpets, we stood in serio-comic silence while the double mysteries of
+the hidden Holy of Holies were celebrated. Not more than a dozen
+devotees at most were present. These gathered modestly in the rear of
+the nave and put us to shame with their reverent gravity. Strange chants
+were chanted; it was a weird music, like a litany of bumblebees. Dense
+clouds of incense issued from gilded recesses that were screened from
+view.
+
+It was all very strange, very foreign, very unintelligible to us. It was
+also very monotonous; and when some of the unbelievers grew restless and
+stole quietly about on voyages of exploration and discovery, they were
+duly rewarded at the hands of the custodian of the chapel, who rather
+encouraged the seeming sacrilege. He left his prayers unsaid to pilot us
+from nook to nook; he exhibited the old paintings of Byzantine origin,
+and in broken English endeavored to interpret their meaning. He opened
+antique chests that we might examine their contents; and when a volume
+of prayers printed in rustic Russian type and bound with clumsy metal
+clasps, was bartered for, he seemed quite willing to dispose of it,
+though it was the only one of the kind visible on the premises. This
+excited our cupidity, and, with a purse in our hand, we groped into the
+sacristy seeking what we might secure.
+
+A set of small chromos came to light: bright visions of the Madonna,
+done in three or four colors, on thin paper and fastened to blocks of
+wood. They were worth about two cents--perhaps three for five. We paid
+fifty cents apiece, and were glad to get them at that price--oh, the
+madness of the seeker after souvenirs! Then all unexpectedly we came
+upon a collection of half-obliterated panel paintings. They were thrown
+carelessly in a deep window-seat, and had been overlooked by many. They
+were Russian to the very grain of the wood; they were quaint to the
+verge of the ludicrous; they were positively black with age; thick
+layers of dust and dirt and smoke of incense coated them, so that the
+faint colors that were laid upon them were sunk almost out of sight. The
+very wood itself was weather-stained, and a chip out of it left no trace
+of life or freshness beneath. Centuries old they seemed, these small
+panels, sacred _Ikons_. In far-away Russia they may have been venerated
+before this continent had verified the dream of Columbus. As we were
+breaking nearly all the laws of propriety, I thought it safe to inquire
+the price of these. I did so. Would I had been the sole one within
+hearing that I might have glutted my gorge on the spot! They were
+fifteen cents apiece, and they were divided among us as ruthlessly as if
+they were the seamless shirt of blessed memory.
+
+Meanwhile the ceremonies at the high altar had come to an end. The
+amiable assistant of Father Mitropolski was displaying the treasures of
+the sanctuary with pardonable pride,--jewelled crosiers, golden
+chalices, robes resplendent with rubies, amethysts and pearls, paintings
+upon ivory, and images clothed in silver and precious stones. The little
+chapel, cruciform, is decorated in white and gold; the altar screens are
+of bronze set with images of silver. Soft carpets of the Orient were
+spread upon the steps of the altar.
+
+How pretty it all seemed as we turned to leave the place and saw
+everything dimly in the blue vapor that still sweetened and hallowed it!
+And when the six bells in the belfry all fell to ringing riotously, and
+the sun let slip a few stray beams that painted the spire a richer
+green, and the grassy street that stretches from the church porch to the
+shore was dotted with groups of strollers, St Michael's at Sitka, in
+spite of its dingy and unsymmetrical exterior, seemed to us one of the
+prettiest spots it had ever been our lot to see.
+
+It is a grassy and a mossy town that gathers about the Russian chapel.
+All the old houses were built to last (as they are likely to do) for
+many generations to come. They are log-houses--the public buildings, the
+once fashionable officers' club, and many of the residences,--formed of
+solid square brown logs laid one upon another until you come to the
+roof. At times the logs are clapboarded without, and are all lathed and
+plastered within. The floors are solid and the stairs also. The wonder
+is how the town can ever go to ruin--save by fire; for wood doesn't rot
+in Alaska, but will lie in logs exposed to the changes of the season for
+an indefinite period.
+
+I saw in a wood back of the town an immense log. It was in the primeval
+forest, and below it were layers of other logs lying crosswise and in
+confusion. I know not how far below me was the solid earth, for mats of
+thick moss and deep beds of dead leaves filled the hollows between the
+logs; but this log, nearly three feet in diameter, was above them all;
+and out of it--from a seed no doubt imbedded in the bark--had sprung a
+tree that is to-day as great in girth as the log that lies prostrate
+beneath its roots. These mighty roots have clasped that log in an
+everlasting embrace and struck down into the soil below. You can
+conjecture how long the log has been lying there in that tangle of
+mighty roots--yet the log is to-day as sound a bit of timber as one is
+likely to find anywhere.
+
+Alaska is buried under forests like these--I mean that part of it which
+is not still cased in ice and snow. A late official gave me out of his
+cabinet a relic of the past. It is a stone pestle, rudely but
+symmetrically hewn,--evidently the work of the aborigines. This pestle,
+with several stone implements of domestic utility, was discovered by a
+party of prospectors who had dug under the roots of a giant tree. Eleven
+feet beneath the surface, directly under the tree and surrounded by
+gigantic roots, this pestle, and some others of a similar character,
+together with mortars and various utensils, were scattered through the
+soil. Most of the collection went to the Smithsonian Institute, and
+perhaps their origin and history may be some day conjectured. How many
+ages more, I wonder, will be required to develop the resources of this
+vast out-of-door country?
+
+When the tardy darkness fell upon Sitka--toward midnight--the town was
+hardly more silent than it had been throughout the day. A few lights
+were twinkling in distant windows; a few Indians were prowling about;
+the water rippled along the winding shore; and from time to time as the
+fresh gusts blew in from the sea, some sleepless bird sailed over us on
+shadowy wings, and uttered a half-smothered cry that startled the
+listener. Then, indeed, old Sitka, which was once called New Archangel,
+seemed but a relic of the past, whose vague, romantic history will
+probably never be fully known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Katalan's Rock.
+
+
+Katalan's Rock towers above the sea at the top corner of Sitka. Below
+it, on the one hand, the ancient colonial houses are scattered down the
+shore among green lawns like pasture lands, and beside grass-grown
+streets with a trail of dust in the middle of them. On the other hand,
+the Siwash Indian lodges are clustered all along the beach. This
+rancheria was originally separated from the town by a high stockade, and
+the huge gates were closed at night for the greater security of the
+inhabitants; but since the American occupation the gates have been
+destroyed, and only a portion of the stockade remains.
+
+Katalan's Rock is steep enough to command the town, and ample enough to
+afford all the space necessary for fortifications and the accommodation
+of troops and stores. A natural Gibraltar, it was the site of the first
+settlement, and has ever remained the most conspicuous and distinguished
+quarter of the colony. The first building erected on this rock was a
+block-house, which was afterward burned. A second building, reared on
+the ruins of the first, was destroyed by an earthquake; but a third, the
+colonial castle and residence of the governors, stands to this day. It
+crowns the summit of the rock, is one hundred and forty feet in length,
+seventy feet in depth, two stories with basement and attic, and has a
+lookout that commands one of the most romantic and picturesque
+combinations of land and sea imaginable.
+
+It is not a handsome edifice, nor is it in the least like a castle, nor
+like what one supposes a castle should be. Were it anywhere else, it
+might pass for the country residence of a gentleman of the old school,
+or for an unfashionable suburban hotel, or for a provincial seminary. It
+is built of solid cedar logs that seem destined to weather the storms of
+ages. These logs are secured by innumerable copper bolts; and the whole
+structure is riveted to the rocks, so that neither wind nor wave nor
+earthquake shock is likely to prevail against it.
+
+Handsomely finished within, it was in the colonial days richly
+furnished; and as Sitka was at that time a large settlement composed of
+wealthy and highbred Russians, governed by a prince or a baron whose
+petty court was made up of the representatives of the rank and fashion
+of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the colonial castle was most of the time
+the scene of social splendor.
+
+The fame of the brilliant and beautiful Baroness Wrangell, first
+chatelaine of the castle, lives after her. She was succeeded by the wife
+of Governor Kupreanoff, a brave lady, who in 1835 crossed Siberia on
+horseback to Behring Sea on her way to Sitka. Later the Princess
+Maksontoff became the social queen, and reigned in the little castle on
+Katalan's Rock as never queen reigned before. A flagship was anchored
+under the windows, and the proud Admiral spent much of his time on
+shore. The officers' clubhouse, yonder down the grassy street, was the
+favorite lounging place of the navy. The tea-gardens have run to seed,
+and the race-course is obliterated, where, doubtless, fair ladies and
+brave men disported themselves in the interminable twilights of the
+Alaskan summer. In the reign of the Princess Maksontoff the ladies were
+first shown to the sideboard. When they had regaled themselves with
+potent punch and caviare, the gentlemen followed suit. But the big
+brazen samovar was forever steaming in the grand salon, and delicious
+draughts of caravan tea were in order at all hours.
+
+What days they were, when the castle was thronged with guests, and those
+of all ages and descriptions and from every rank in and out of society!
+The presidential levee is not more democratic than were the _fetes_ of
+the Princess Maksontoff. To the music of the Admiral's band combined
+with the castle orchestra, it was "all hands round." The Prince danced
+with each and every lady in turn. The Princess was no less gracious, for
+all danced with her who chose, from the Lord High Admiral to midshipmite
+and the crew of the captain's gig.
+
+You will read of these things in the pages of Lutka, Sir George Simpson,
+Sir Edward Belcher, and other early voyagers. They vouch for the unique
+charm of the colonial life at that day. Washington Irving, in his
+"Astoria," has something to say of New Archangel (Michael), or
+"Sheetka," as he spells it; but it is of the time when the ships of
+John Jacob Astor were touching in that vicinity, and the reports are not
+so pleasing.
+
+While social life in the little colony was still more enjoyable, a
+change came that in a single hour reversed the order of affairs. For
+years Russia had been willing, if not eager, to dispose of the great
+lands that lay along the northwestern coast of America. She seemed never
+to have cared much for them, nor to have believed much in their present
+value or possible future development. No enterprise was evinced among
+the people: they were comparative exiles, who sought to relieve the
+monotony of their existence by one constant round of gaity. _Soirees_ at
+the castle, tea-garden parties, picnics upon the thousand lovely isles
+that beautify the Sitkan Sea; strolls among the sylvan retreats in which
+the primeval forest, at the very edge of the town, abounds; fishing and
+hunting expeditions, music, dancing, lively conversation, strong punch,
+caviare and the steaming samovar,--those were the chief diversions with
+which noble and serf alike sought to lighten the burden of the day.
+
+While Russia was willing to part with the lone land on the Pacific, she
+was determined that it should not pass into the hands of certain of the
+powers for whom she had little or no love. Hence there was time for the
+United States to consider the question of a purchase and to haggle a
+little over the price. For years the bargain hung in the balance. When
+it was finally settled, it was settled so suddenly that the witnesses
+had to be wakened and called out of their beds. They assembled secretly,
+in the middle of the night, as if they were conspirators; and before
+sunrise the whole matter was fixed forever.
+
+On the 18th of October, 1867, three United States ships of war anchored
+off Katalan's Rock. These were the Ossipee, the Jamestown and the
+Resaca. In the afternoon, at half-past three o'clock, the terrace before
+the castle was surrounded by United States troops, Russian soldiers,
+officials, citizens and Indians. The town was alive with Russian
+bunting, and the ships aflutter with Stars and Stripes and streamers.
+There was something ominous in the air and in the sunshine. Bang! went
+the guns from the Ossipee, and the Russian flag slowly descended from
+the lofty staff on the castle; but the wind caught it and twisted it
+round and round the staff, and it was long before a boatswain's chair
+could be rigged to the halyards, and some one hauled up to disentangle
+the rebellious banner.
+
+Meanwhile the rain began to fall, and the Princess Maksontoff was in
+tears. It was a dismal hour for the proud court of the doughty governor.
+The Russian water battery was firing a salute from the dock as the Stars
+and Stripes were climbing to the skies--the great continent of icy peaks
+and pine was passing from the hands of one nation to the other. In the
+silence that ensued, Captain Pestehouroff stepped forward and said: "By
+authority of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United
+States the Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered
+his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time
+fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but
+three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding
+which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of
+the United States government--both the acquisition and the fault-finding
+were on the part of our government--had best be left unmentioned. Now
+that the glorious waters of that magnificent archipelago have become
+the resort of summer tourists, every man, woman and child can see for
+his, her and its self; and this is the only way in which to convince an
+American of anything.
+
+Thirty years ago Sitka was what I have attempted to describe above.
+To-day how different! Passing its barracks at the foot of Katalan's
+Rock, one sees a handful of marines looking decidedly bored if off duty.
+The steps that lead up to the steep incline of the rock to the castle
+terrace are fast falling to decay. Weeds and rank grass trail over them
+and cover the whole top of the rock. The castle has been dismantled. The
+walls will stand until they are blown up or torn down, but all traces of
+the original ornamentation of the interior have disappeared. The carved
+balustrades, the curious locks, knobs, hinges, chandeliers, and
+fragments of the wainscoting, have been borne away by enterprising curio
+hunters. There was positively nothing left for me to take.
+
+One may still see the chamber occupied by Secretary Seward, who closed
+the bargain with the Russian Government at $7,200,000, cash down. Lady
+Franklin occupied that chamber when she was scouring these waters in the
+fearless and indefatigable, but fruitless, search for the relics of the
+lost Sir John. One handsome apartment has been partially restored and
+suitably furnished for the use of the United States District Attorney.
+Two rooms on the groundfloor are occupied by the signal officers; but
+the rest of the building is in a shameful condition, and only its
+traditions remain to make it an object of interest to every stranger
+guest.
+
+It is said that twice in the year, at the dead hour of the night, the
+ghost of a bride wanders sorrowfully from room to room. She was the
+daughter of one of the old governors--a stern parent, who forced her
+into a marriage without love. On the bridal eve, while all the guests
+were assembled, and the bride, in wedding garments, was the centre of
+attraction, she suddenly disappeared. After a long search her body was
+found in one of the apartments of the castle, but life was extinct. At
+Eastertide the shade of this sad body makes the round of the deserted
+halls, and in passing leaves after it a faint odor of wild roses.
+
+The basement is half filled with old rubbish. I found rooms where an
+amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the
+walls recorded the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with
+index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork _debris_ was scattered
+about, and there were "old soldiers" enough on the premises to have
+quite staggered a moralist. The Muscovite reign is over. The Princess is
+in her grave on the hill yonder,--a grave that was forgotten for a time
+and lost in the jungle that has overgrown the old Russian cemetery. The
+Indians mutilated that tomb; but Lieutenant Gilman, in charge of the
+marines attached to the Adams, restored it; and he, with his men, did
+much toward preserving Sitka from going to the dogs.
+
+Gone are the good old days, but the Americanized Sitka does not propose
+to be behind the times. I discovered a theatre. It was in one of the
+original Russian houses, doomed to last forever--a long, narrow hall,
+with a stage at the upper end of it. A few scenes, evidently painted on
+the spot and in dire distress; a drop-curtain depicting an utterly
+impracticable roseate ice-gorge in the ideal Alaska, and four
+footlights, constituted the sum total of the properties. The stage was
+six feet deep, about ten feet broad, and the "flies" hung like "bangs"
+above the foreheads of the players. In the next room, convenient in
+case of a panic, was the Sitka fire department, consisting of a machine
+of one-man-power, which a small boy might work without endangering
+anybody or anything.
+
+Suburban Sitka is sweet and sad. One passes on the way to the wildwood,
+where everybody goes as often as may be,--a so-called "blarney stone."
+Many a fellow has chipped away at that stone while he chatted with his
+girl--I suppose that is where the blarney comes in,--and left his name
+or initials for a sacred memory. There are dull old Russian hieroglyphs
+there likewise. Love is alike in all languages, you know. The truth
+about the stone is merely this: it is a big soft stone by the sea, and
+of just the right height to rest a weary pilgrim. There old Baranoff,
+the first governor, used to sit of a summer afternoon and sip his
+Russian brandy until he was as senseless as the stone beneath him; and
+then he was carried in state up to the colonial castle and suffered to
+sober off.
+
+Beyond the stone, and the curving beach with the grass-grown highway
+skirting it, is the forest; and through this forest is the lovers' lane,
+made long ago by the early colonists and kept in perfect trim by the
+latest,--a lane that is green-arched overhead and fern-walled on either
+side, and soft with the dust of dead pine boughs underfoot. There also
+are streams and waterfalls and rustic bridges such as one might look for
+in some stately park in England, but hardly in Alaska. Surely there is
+no bit of wilderness finer than this. All is sweet and grave and silent,
+save for the ripple of waters and the sighing of winds.
+
+As for the Siwash village on the other side of Sitka, it is a Siwash
+village over again. How soon one wearies of them! But one ought never to
+weary of the glorious sea isles and the overshadowing mountains that lie
+on every side of the quaint, half-barbarous capital. Though it is dead
+to the core and beginning to show the signs of death, it is one of the
+dreamiest spots on earth, and just the one for long summer solitude,--at
+least so we all thought, for on the morrow we were homeward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+From the Far North.
+
+
+Sitka is the turning-point in the Alaskan summer cruise. It is the
+beginning of the end; and I am more than half inclined to think that in
+most cases--charming as the voyage is and unique in its way beyond any
+other voyage within reach of the summer tourist--the voyager is glad of
+it. One never gets over the longing for some intelligence from the outer
+world; never quite becomes accustomed to the lonely, far-away feeling
+that at times is a little painful and often is a bore.
+
+During the last hours at Sitka, Mount Edgecombe loomed up gloriously,
+and reminded one of Fugjyamma. It is a very handsome and a highly
+ornamental mountain. So are the islands that lie between it and the
+Sitkan shore handsome and ornamental, but there are far too many of
+them. The picture is overcrowded, and in this respect is as unlike the
+Bay of Naples as possible; though some writers have compared them, and
+of course, as is usual in cases of comparison, to the disadvantage of
+the latter.
+
+Leaving Sitka, we ran out to sea. It was much easier to do this than go
+a long way round among the islands; and, as the weather was fair, the
+short cut was delightful. We rocked like a cradle--the _Ancon_ rocks
+like a cradle on the slightest provocation. The sea sparkled, the
+wavelets leaped and clapped their hands. Once in awhile a plume of spray
+was blown over the bow, and the delicate stomach recoiled upon itself
+suggestively; but the deliciousness of the air in the open sea and the
+brevity of the cruise--we were but five or six hours outside--kept us in
+a state of intense delight. Presently we ran back into the maze of
+fiords and land-locked lakes, and resumed the same old round of daily
+and nightly experiences.
+
+Juneau, Douglas Island, Fort Wrangell, and several fishing stations were
+revisited. They seemed a little stale to us, and we were inclined to
+snub them slightly. Of course we thought we knew it all--most of us knew
+as much as we cared to know; and so we strolled leisurely about the
+solemn little settlements, and, no doubt, but poorly succeeded in
+disguising the superior air which distinguishes the new arrival in a
+strange land. It is but a step from a state of absolute greenness on
+one's arrival at a new port to a _blase_ languor, wherein nothing can
+touch one further; and the step is easily and usually taken inside of a
+week. May the old settlers forgive us our idiocy!
+
+There was a rainy afternoon at Fort Wrangell,--a very proper background,
+for the place is dismal to a degree. An old stern-wheel steamboat,
+beached in the edge of the village, was used as a hotel during the
+decline of the gold fever; but while the fever was at its height the
+boat is said to have cleared $135,000 per season. The coolie has bored
+into its hollow shell and washes there, clad in a semi-Boyton suit of
+waterproof.
+
+I made my way through the dense drizzle to the Indian village at the far
+end of the town. The untrodden streets are grass-grown; and a number of
+the little houses, gray with weather stains, are deserted and falling to
+decay. Reaching a point of land that ran out and lost itself in mist, I
+found a few Indians smoking and steaming, as they sat in the damp sand
+by their canoes.
+
+A long footbridge spans a strip of tide land. I ventured to cross it,
+though it looked as if it would blow away in the first gust of wind. It
+was a long, long bridge, about broad enough for a single passenger; yet
+I was met in the middle of it by a well-blanketed squaw, bound inland.
+It was a question in my mind whether it were better to run and leap
+lightly over her, since we must pass on a single rail, or to lie down
+and allow her to climb over me. O happy inspiration! In the mist and the
+rain, in the midst of that airy path, high above the mud flats, and with
+the sullen tide slowly sweeping in from the gray wastes beyond the
+capes, I seized my partner convulsively, and with our toes together we
+swung as on a pivot and went our ways rejoicing.
+
+The bridge led to the door of a chief's house, and the door stood open.
+It was a large, square house, of one room only, and with the floor sunk
+to the depth of three feet in the centre. It was like looking into a dry
+swimming bath. A step, or terrace, on the four sides of the room made
+the descent easy, and I descended. The chief, in a cast-off military
+jacket, gave me welcome with a mouthful of low gutterals. I found a good
+stove in the lodge and several comfortable-looking beds, with chintz
+curtains and an Oriental superabundance of pillows. A few photographs in
+cheap frames adorned the walls; a few flaming chromos--Crucifixions and
+the like--hung there, along with fathoms of fishnet, clusters of
+fish-hooks, paddles, kitchen furniture, wearing apparel, and a
+blunderbuss or two. Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings,
+supported the heavy beams of the roof in the manner of caryatides. These
+figures, half veiled in shadow, were most impressive, and gave a kind of
+Egyptian solemnity to the dimly lighted apartment.
+
+The chief was not alone. His man Friday was with him, and together we
+sat and smoked in a silence that was almost suffocating. It fairly
+snapped once or twice, it was so dense; and then we three exchanged
+grave smiles and puffed away in great contentment. The interview was
+brought to a sudden close by the chief's making me a very earnest offer
+of $6 for my much-admired gum ulster, and I refusing it with scorn--for
+it was still raining. So we parted coldly, and I once more walked the
+giddy bridge with fear and trembling; for I am not a somnambulist, who
+alone might perform there with impunity.
+
+It was a bad day for curios. The town had been sacked on the voyage up;
+yet I prowled in these quarters, where one would least expect to find
+treasure, inasmuch as it is mostly found just there. Presently the most
+hideous of faces was turned up at me from the threshold of a humble
+lodge. It was of a dead green color, with blood trimmings; the nose
+beaked like a parrot's, the mouth a gaping crescent; the eyeless sockets
+seemed to sparkle and blink with inner eyes set in the back of the
+skull; murderous scalp locks streamed over the ill-shapen brow; and from
+the depths of this monstrosity some one, or something, said, "Boo!" I
+sprang backward, only to hear the gurgle of baby laughter, and see the
+wee face of a half-Indian cherub peering from behind the mask. Well,
+that mask is mine now; and whenever I look at it I think of the falling
+dusk in Fort Wrangell, and of the child on all-fours who startled me on
+my return from the chief's house beyond the bridge, and who cried as if
+her little heart would break when I paid for her plaything and cruelly
+bore it away.
+
+Some of the happiest hours of the voyage were the "wee sma'" ones, when
+I lounged about the deserted deck with Captain George, the pilot. A
+gentleman of vast experience and great reserve, for years he has haunted
+that archipelago; he knows it in the dark, and it was his nightly duty
+to pace the deck while the ship was almost as still as death. He has
+heard the great singers of the past, the queens of song whose voices
+were long since hushed. We talked of these in the vast silence of the
+Alaskan night, and of the literature of the sea, and especially of that
+solitary northwestern sea, while we picked our way among the unpeopled
+islands that crowded all about us.
+
+On such a night, while we were chatting in low voices as we leaned over
+the quarter-rail, and the few figures that still haunted the deck were
+like veritable ghosts, Captain George seized me by the arm and
+exclaimed: "Look there!" I looked up into the northern sky. There was
+not a cloud visible in all that wide expanse, but something more filmy
+than a cloud floated like a banner among the stars. It might almost have
+been a cobweb stretched from star to star--each strand woven from a star
+beam,--but it was ever changing in form and color. Now it was
+scarf-like, fluttering and waving in a gentle breeze; and now it hung
+motionless--a deep fringe of lace gathered in ample folds. Anon it
+opened suddenly from the horizon, and spread in panels like a fan that
+filled the heavens. As it opened and shut and swayed to and fro as if it
+were a fan in motion, it assumed in turn all the colors of the rainbow,
+but with a delicacy of tint and texture even beyond that of the rainbow.
+Sometimes it was like a series of transparencies--shadow pictures thrown
+upon the screen of heaven, lit by a light beyond it--the mysterious
+light we know not of. That is what the pilot and I saw while most of the
+passengers were sleeping. It was the veritable _aurora borealis_, and
+that alone were worth the trip to Alaska.
+
+One day we came to Fort Tongass--a port of entry, and our last port in
+the great, lone land--for all the way down through the British
+possessions we touch no land until we reach Victoria or Nanaimo. Tongass
+was once a military post, and now has the unmistakable air of a desert
+island. Some of us were not at all eager to go on shore. You see, we
+were beginning to get our fill of this monotonous out-of-the-world and
+out-of-the-way life. Yet Tongass is unique, and certainly has the most
+interesting collection of totem poles that one is likely to see on the
+voyage. At Tongass there is a little curving beach, where the ripples
+sparkle among the pebbles. Beyond the beach is a strip of green lawn,
+and at the top of the lawn the old officers' quarters, now falling to
+decay. For background there are rocks and trees and the sea. The sea is
+everywhere about Tongass, and the sea-breezes blow briskly, and the
+sea-gulls waddle about the lawn and sit in rows upon the sagging roofs
+as if they were thoroughly domesticated. Oh, what a droll place it is!
+
+After a little deliberation we all went ashore in several huge
+boat-loads; and, to our surprise, were welcomed by a charming young
+bride in white muslin and ribbons of baby-blue. Somehow she had found
+her way to the desert island--or did she spring up there like a wild
+flower? And the grace with which she did the honors was the subject of
+unbounded praise during the remainder of the voyage.
+
+This pretty Bret Harte heroine, with all of the charms and virtues and
+none of the vices of his camp-followers, led us through the jagged rocks
+of the dilapidated quarters, down among the spray-wet rocks on the
+other side of the island, and all along the dreary waste that fronts the
+Indian village. Oh, how dreary that waste is!--the rocks, black and
+barren, and scattered far into the frothing sea; the sandy path along
+the front of the Indian lodges, with rank grass shaking and shivering in
+the wind; the solemn and grim array of totem poles standing in front or
+at the sides of the weather-stained lodges--and the whole place
+deserted. I know not where the Indians had gone, but they were not
+there--save a sick squaw or two. Probably, being fishermen, the tribe
+had gone out with their canoes, and were now busy with the spoils
+somewhere among the thousand passages of the archipelago.
+
+The totem poles at Tongass are richly carved, brilliantly colored, and
+grotesque in the extreme. Some of the lodges were roomy but sad-looking,
+and with a perpetual shade hovering through them. We found inscriptions
+in English--very rudely lettered--on many of the lodges and totem poles:
+"In memory of" some one or another chief or notable red-man. Over one
+door was this inscription: "In memory of ----, who died by his own
+hand." The lodge door was fastened with a rusty padlock, and the place
+looked ghoulish.
+
+I think we were all glad to get out of Tongass, though we received our
+best welcome there. At any rate, we sat on the beach and got our feet
+wet and our pockets full of sand waiting for the deliberate but
+dead-sure boatmen to row us to the ship. When we steamed away we left
+the little bride in her desert island to the serene and sacred joy of
+her honeymoon, hoping that long before it had begun to wane she might
+return to the world; for in three brief weeks we were beginning to lust
+after it. That evening we anchored in a well-wooded cove and took on
+several lighter-loads of salmon casks. Captain Carroll and the best
+shots in the ship passed the time in shooting at a barrel floating three
+hundred yards distant. So ran our little world away, as we were homeward
+bound and rapidly nearing the end of the voyage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Out of the Arctic.
+
+
+When Captain Cook--who, with Captain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young
+ladies' ideal romance of the seas--was in these waters, he asked the
+natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied:
+"Alaska"--great land. It _is_ a great land, lying loosely along the
+northwest coast,--great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of
+its forests and in the fruitfulness of its many waters; great in the
+splendor of its ice fields; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence
+of its snow-clad peaks; great also in its possibilities, and greatest of
+all in its measureless wealth of gold.
+
+In the good old days of the Muscovite reign--1811,--Governor Baranoff
+sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where
+grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of
+Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise. The
+Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his
+wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if
+his fresh food fails.
+
+The stagnation of life in Alaska is all but inconceivable. The summer
+tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the
+only variety it knows; and this comes so seldom--once or twice a
+month--that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the
+steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the excitement
+is over, quietly subsiding into a comatose state, and remaining in it
+until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically;
+takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one of the goat-paths
+that strike inland; nodding now and again to the familiar faces that
+seem never to change in expression except during tourist's hours; and
+then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of the solitary, for
+sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the
+brief night--barely forty winks in length--is so silvery and so soft
+that it is a delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and
+shadows play with one another, and are reflected in sea and sky until
+the eye is almost dazzled with the loveliness of the scene. I believe if
+I were banished to Alaska I would sleep in the daytime--say from 8 a. m.
+to 5 p. m.,--and revel in the wakeful beauty of the other hours.
+
+But the winter, and the endless night of winter!--when the sun sinks to
+rest in discouragement at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and
+rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the
+forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name--for the dull
+luminary, having barely got above the fence at twelve o'clock, backs out
+of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to
+endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty! Since the moon is
+no more obliging to the Alaskans than the sun is, what is a poor fellow
+to do? He can watch the aurora until his eyes ache; he can sit over a
+game of cards and a glass of toddy--he can always get the latter up
+there; he can trim his lamp and chat with his chums and fill his pipe
+over and over again. But the night thickens and the time begins to lag;
+he looks at his watch, to find it is only 9 p. m., and there are twelve
+hours between him and daylight. It is a great land in which to store
+one's mind with knowledge, provided one has the books at hand and good
+eyes and a lamp that won't flicker or smoke. Yet why should I worry
+about this when there are people who live through it and like it?--or at
+least they say they do.
+
+In my mind's eye I see the Alaska of the future--and the not far-distant
+future. Among the most beautiful of the islands there will be fine
+openings; lawns and flowers will carpet the slopes from the dark walls
+of the forest to the water's edge. In the midst of these favored spots
+summer hotels will throw wide their glorious windows upon vistas that
+are like glimpses of fairy land. Along the beach numerous skiffs await
+those who are weary of towns; steam launches are there, and small barges
+for the transportation of picnic parties to undiscovered islands in the
+dim distance. Sloop yachts with the more adventurous will go forth on
+voyages of exploration and discovery, two or three days in length, under
+the guidance of stolid, thoroughbred Indian pilots. There may be an
+occasional wreck, with narrow escapes from the watery grave--let us hope
+so, for the sake of variety. There will be fishing parties galore, and
+camping on foreign shores, and eagle hunts, and the delights of the
+chase; with Indian retinues and Chinese cooks, and the "swell toggery"
+that is the chief, if not the only, charm of that sort of thing. There
+will be circulating libraries in each hotel, and grand pianos, and
+private theatricals, and nightly hops that may last indefinitely, or at
+least until sunrise, without shocking the most prudent; for day breaks
+at 2 a. m.
+
+There will be visits from one hotel to the other, and sea-voyages to
+dear old Sitka, where the Grand Hotel will be located; and there will be
+the regular weekly or semi-weekly boat to the Muir glacier, with
+professional guides to the top of it, and all the necessary traps
+furnished on board if desired. And this wild life can begin as early as
+April and go on until the end of September without serious injury. There
+will be no hay fever or prickly-heat; neither will there be sunstrokes
+nor any of the horrors of the Eastern and Southern summer. It will
+remain true to its promise of sweet, warm days, and deliciously cool
+evenings, in which the young lover may woo his fair to the greatest
+advantage; for there is no night there. Then everyone will come home
+with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with,
+and the rarest nowadays; and with a pocketful of Alaskan garnets, which
+are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utterly
+valueless, and unhandsome even when they are beautifully symmetrical.
+
+Oh, the memory of the voyage, which is perhaps the most precious of
+all!--this we bring home with us forever. The memory of all that is half
+civilized and wholly unique and uncommon: of sleepy and smoky wigwams,
+where the ten tribes hold powwow in a confusion of gutturals, with a
+plentiful mixture of saliva; for it is a moist language, a gurgle that
+approaches a gargle, and in three weeks the unaccustomed ear scarcely
+recovers from the first shock of it; a memory of totem poles in stark
+array, and of the high feast in the Indian villages, where the beauty
+and chivalry of the forest gathered and squatted in wide circles
+listening to some old-man-eloquent in the very ecstasy of expectoration;
+the memory of a non-committing, uncommunicative race, whose religion is
+a feeble polytheism--a kind of demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not
+injure one, one's whole time is given to the propitiation of the evil.
+This is called Shamanism, and is said to have been the religion of the
+Tartar race before the introduction of Buddhism, and is still the creed
+of the Siberians; a memory of solitary canoes on moonlit seas and of
+spicy pine odors mingled with the tonic of moist kelp and salt-sea air.
+
+A memory of friends who were altogether charming, of a festival without
+a flaw. O my kind readers! when the Alaska Summer Hotel Company has
+stocked the nooks and corners of the archipelago with caravansaries, and
+good boats are filling them with guests who go to spend the season in
+the far Northwest, fail not to see that you are numbered among the
+elect; for Alaska outrivers all rivers and out-lakes all lakes--being
+itself a lake of ten thousand islands; it out-mountains the Alps of
+America, and certainly outdoes everything else everywhere else, in the
+shape of a watering place. And when you have returned from there, after
+two or three months' absence from the world and its weariness, you will
+begin to find that your "tum-tum is white" for the first time since your
+baptismal day, and that you have gained enough in strength and energy to
+topple the totem pole of your enemy without shedding a feather. There
+is hope for Alaska in the line of a summer resort.
+
+As ghosts scent the morning air and are dispersed, so we scented the
+air, which actually seemed more familiar as we approached Washington in
+the great Northwest; and the spirit of peace, of ease and of lazy
+contentment that had possessed our souls for three weeks took flight. It
+was now but a day's sail to Victoria, and yet we began to think we would
+never get there.
+
+We were hungry for news of the world which we had well-nigh forgotten.
+Three weeks! It seemed to us that in this little while cities might have
+been destroyed, governments overthrown, new islands upheaved and old
+ones swallowed out of sight. Then we were all expecting to find heaps of
+letters from everybody awaiting us at Victoria or Port Townsend, and our
+mouths fairly watered for news.
+
+We took a little run into the sea and got lost in a fog; but the pilot
+whistled for the landmarks, and Echo answered; so that by the time the
+fog was ready to roll away, like a snowy drop-curtain, we knew just
+where we were, and ran quietly into a nook that looked as if it would
+fit us like a bootjack. The atmosphere grew smoky; forest fires painted
+the sky with burnt umber, and through this veil the sun shone like a
+copper shield. Then a gorgeous moonlight followed. There was blood upon
+that moon, and all the shores were like veins in moss-agate and the sea
+like oil. We wound in and out, in and out, among dreamy islands; touched
+for a little while at Nanaimo, where we should have taken in a cargo of
+coal for Portland, whither the _Ancon_ was bound; but Captain Carroll
+kindly put us all ashore first and then returned for his freight.
+
+We hated to sleep that night, and did not sleep very much. But when we
+awakened it was uncommonly quiet; and upon going on deck--lo! we were at
+Victoria. What a quiet, pretty spot! What a restful and temperate
+climate! What jutting shores, soft hills, fine drives, old-countrified
+houses and porters' lodges and cottages, with homely flowers in the
+door-yards and homely people in the doors!--homely I mean in the
+handsomest sense, for I can not imagine the artificial long survives in
+that community.
+
+How dear to us seemed civilization after our wanderings in the
+wilderness! We bought newspapers and devoured them; ran in and out of
+shops just for the fun of it and because our liberty was so dear to us
+then. News? We were fairly staggered with the abundance of it, and
+exchanged it with one another in the most fraternal fashion, sharing our
+joys and sorrows with the whole ship's company. And deaths? What a lot
+of these, and how startling when they come so unexpectedly and in such
+numbers! Why is it, I wonder, that so many people die when we are away
+somewhere beyond reach of communication?
+
+But enough of this. A few jolly hours on shore, a few drives in the
+suburbs and strolls in the town, and we headed for Port Townsend and the
+United States, where we parted company with the good old ship that
+carried us safely to and fro. And there we ended the Alaskan voyage
+gladly enough, but not without regret; for, though uneventful, I can
+truly say it was one of the pleasantest voyages of my life; and one
+that--thanks to every one who shared it with me--I shall ever remember
+with unalloyed delight.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by
+Charles Warren Stoddard
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