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diff --git a/22871.txt b/22871.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acb7576 --- /dev/null +++ b/22871.txt @@ -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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO ALASKA *** + +***** This file should be named 22871.txt or 22871.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/7/22871/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Constanze Hofmann and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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