iV€R TH^OCKY 
 ^ MOUNTAINS 
 
 ALASKA 
 
 CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
 
 6*^
 
 
 C ^ 

 
 a Hjf
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains 
 to Alaska. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. 
 
 uj>r-j6 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO., 1899. 
 Published by B. HERDER, 
 
 17 South Broadway. 
 
 Santa Barbara, Califoriii*
 
 Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Gummersbach. 
 
 >**-«. 
 
 '%ry^> 
 
 *^^< 
 
 — BECKTOLD— 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
 ST. LOUIS MO.
 
 To 
 KENNETH O'CONNOR, 
 
 First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers, 
 Geu'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps, 
 
 Santiago de Cuba: 
 
 In Memory of Oue '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. ^*^^- 
 
 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 - - - - HI 
 
 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 Notie 
 ^ Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Mul- 
 titudes of guests who liad been camping 
 foi a nigbt or two in the recitation rooms 
 -our temporary dormitories-gave them- 
 selves up to the boyish delights of school- 
 Ufe, and set numerous exainpLe%^,^^^^^ 
 the students were only too glad to follow. 
 The boat race on the lake was a pictnie; 
 the champion baseball match a com- 
 panion piece; but the highly decorated 
 ^rize scholars, glittering with gold and 
 Silver medals, and badges of satin and 
 bullion: the bevies of beautiful girls who 
 ^l, once - once only in the year - were 
 ^ven the liberty of the lawns, the campus 
 Ld the winding forest ways,_ that make 
 of Notre Dame an elysium m summer; 
 the frequent and inspiring blasts ot the 
 University Band, and the general ]oy that 
 filled every heart to overflowing, rendered 
 the last day of the scholastic year romantic 
 to a degree and memorable torever. 
 (7)
 
 8 Over Die Hocky ^fountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 
 mde-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 hun- 
 dred possible presidents were to be dis- 
 tributed 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 phed to and fro, groaning under
 
 Over the Rochy Moimtains to Alaska. 9 
 
 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 scho- 
 lastic 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 proces- 
 sion 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 leav- 
 ing South Bend for Chicago ; a train that
 
 10 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 was not to be dismembered or its exclu- 
 siveness violated until it had been run in- 
 to the station at Denver. 
 
 After this last negaiive 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. 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, tower- 
 ing 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 11 
 
 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 houtonnieres. 
 
 As we drew near the Lake City, the 
 excitement Aasibly 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 bro- 
 ken ; 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 train-
 
 12 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 fills of his f ellowmen — 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 
 cUck of the ivories. It was a forcible 
 reminder of Clapham Junction ; the per- 
 fect 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 easj^-chairs of 
 every conceivable pattern. The dining 
 car was in reahty a cardroom between 
 meals — and s^lcll meals, for we had stocked 
 the larder ourselves. Everj^where 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 13 
 
 dish of berries or an ice, — for they in- 
 variably accompanied us down the road a 
 few miles ; and at last would bid us fare- 
 well with a flattering figure of speech, 
 which is infinitely preferable to the tra- 
 ditional ''Tickets, please; tickets! " 
 
 At every town and village crowds came 
 down to see us. We were e^ddently 
 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 dormito- 
 ries, and the boys paired off, two and two, 
 above and below, through the length of 
 our fljing university, and made a night 
 of it, without fear of notes or detentions, 
 and with no prefect stalking ghosthke in 
 their midst. 
 
 It would be hard to say which we found 
 most diverting, the long, long landscape 
 that di^^.ded 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 ;
 
 14 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 the delicious temperature of the high- 
 lands, 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 ghded swiftly 
 hour after hour: the Mississippi by moon- 
 light — 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
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 15 
 
 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. Per- 
 haps 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 infer- 
 nal 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 broad- 
 side 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
 
 16 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 famous Indian scout built early camp 
 fires. Near it, in 1850, thirty-six whites 
 vrere 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, audit 
 has been razed to the ground in memory 
 of the block-heads whose bodies were not 
 worthy to enrich the roots of it. Tradi- 
 tion 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 hstened 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 17 
 
 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! 
 
 -*^^#'^
 
 Chaptek II. 
 In Denver Town. 
 
 (COLORADO ! What an opeu-air sound 
 ^ that word has! The music of the 
 wind is in it, and a peculiarly free, 
 rhythmical swing, suggestive of the swirl- 
 ing lariat. Colorado is not, as some con- 
 jecture, 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 ra^dnes 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 IJnited States purchased from 
 France a vast territory for $15,000,000; it 
 was then known as Louisiana, and that 
 purchase included the district long re- 
 ferred to as the Creat American Desert. 
 In 1806 Zebulon Pike camped where 
 Pueblo now stands. He was a pedestrian. 
 One day he started to climb a peak whose 
 (18)
 
 Over the Rocky Moimtains to Alaska. 19 
 
 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 am- 
 bition. 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 blush- 
 ingly declines. The two men were ex- 
 ceptionally well-bred pioneers. In 1820 
 Colonel Long named a peak in memory 
 of his explorations. The peak sur\ives. 
 Then came Greneral Fremont, in 1843, 
 and the discovery of gold near Denver 
 fifteen years later; but I believe Grreen
 
 20 Over the RocTcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 Russell, a G-eorgian, 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 over- 
 flowed 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 vital- 
 ity; ambitions, unconquerable, irrepress- 
 ible — 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
 
 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 21 
 
 — 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 thej^ 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 laud 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 primi- 
 tive ones at that — lay along Ben Holh- 
 day's overland stage route. They were 
 far between. Indians waylaid the voy- 
 agers; 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 varietv. The
 
 22 Over the Rocky Moimtains to Alaska. 
 
 menu of the Colorado banquet July 4, 
 1859, will re\dve in the minds of many an 
 old Cahfornian 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. 
 
 SOXTP. 
 
 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. 
 
 VEGETABI^ES. 
 
 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,
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 23 
 
 and judiciously salted Grregory gulch. Of 
 course Horace was invited to inspect it. 
 Being somewhat horny-handed, he seized 
 pick and shovel and went to work in ear- 
 nest. The pan-out was astonishing. He 
 flew back to New York laden with the 
 glittering proofs of wealth ; gave a whole 
 page of the Trihune to his tale of the 
 golden fleece ; and a rush to the new digg- 
 ings followed as a matter of course. 
 
 Denver and Auraria were rival settle- 
 ments on the opposite shores of Cherry 
 Creek; in 1860 they consolidated, and 
 then boasted a population of 4000, in a 
 vast territoiy containing but 60,000 souls. 
 The boom was on, and it was not long be- 
 fore 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 with- 
 out 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 
 3861, and was loyal to the Union.
 
 24 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 massa- 
 cred, and the veiytown itself threatened. 
 Alarm-bells warned the frightened in- 
 habitants of impending danger; many 
 fled to the United States Mint for refuge, 
 and to cellars, cisterns, and dark alleys. 
 This was during the mid reign of Spotted 
 Horse along the shores of the Platte, be- 
 fore 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 25 
 
 a prospector, like all the rest, and in an 
 absent-minded way he had tearfully been 
 sifting the soil through his fingers. Sud- 
 denly 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 \\.^\t was fully appre- 
 ciated, 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 Tr'ihmie, 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 be- 
 trayed 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 ex-
 
 26 Over the Eocky Mountcmis to Alaska, 
 
 pect at the hands of the noble red-man. 
 They were rescued in due season; but 
 what was rescue to them save a prolonga- 
 tion of inconsolable bereavement! 
 
 When General Grrant 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 pro\4n- 
 cialism, a kind of ill-disguised ''pre\dous- 
 ness," noticeable that made her seem like 
 the brisk suburb of some other place, and 
 that other place, alas! in^dsible to mortal 
 eye. Rectangular blocks make a checker-
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 27 
 
 board of the town map. The streets are 
 appropriately named Antelope, Bear, 
 Bison, Boulder, Buffalo, Coyote, Cedar, 
 Cottonwood, Deer, Grolden, Granite, 
 Moose, etc. The names of most trees, 
 most precious stones, the great States and 
 Territories of the West, with a sprinkling 
 of Spanish, hkewise beguile you off into 
 space, and leave the once nebulous burg 
 beaming in the rear. 
 
 Denver's theatre is remarkably hand- 
 some. 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 man- 
 agement 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 per- 
 fectly new city that has just been un-
 
 28 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 packed ; as if the various parts of it had 
 been set up in a great huriy, 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 reaUties; 
 and there was always a consciousness of 
 everything being wide open and uncov- 
 ered. 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 un- 
 wittingly I should get lost, and lift up in 
 vain the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
 ness; for the blank and weird spaces 
 about there are as wide as the horizon 
 where the distant mountains seem to have 
 sUd 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. 
 
 ^j^^-o 
 
 75^ 
 
 '^m^^^^
 
 Chapter III. 
 The Garden of the Gods. 
 
 'J^HE 
 
 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 appe- 
 tizing 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- 
 (29)
 
 30 Over the Bocky Moimfains to Alasha. 
 
 tints upon the exterior slopes of the famed 
 Garden of the Gods, quite in keeping ^ith 
 the spirit of the decorative red-man. 
 AVithin that garden color and form run 
 riot, and Manitou is the restful outpost 
 of this erratic wilderness. 
 
 It is fitting that Manitou should be ap- 
 proached in a rather primitive manner. 
 I was glad when we were very politely in- 
 cited 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 smft 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 ra^dne 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.
 
 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 31 
 
 Manitou is a picturesque hamlet that 
 has scattered itself up and down a deep 
 rS regardless of the limiting lines ot 
 Ihe surveyor. The railway station at 
 Manitou might pose for a Porter's lodge 
 in the prettiest park m England. Suiely 
 there is hope for America when she can 
 so far curb her vulgar love f ^ the mf dy 
 practical as to do that sort of thing at the 
 ri^ht time and in the right place. 
 
 Ifine stream brawls through the bed 
 of ^this lovely vale. There are mstic cot- 
 tages that cluster upon the brink of the 
 stream, as if charmed by the music of its 
 son^ mid 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 
 o-re^n 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 varmsh -- there is no 
 dust theret- and even^hmg is cleanly 
 cheerful aAd 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.
 
 32 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 There is not overmuch dressmg among 
 the women, nor the beastly spirit of loud- 
 ness among the men; the domestic at- 
 mosphere 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 shoot- 
 ing star across the placid foreground i& 
 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 hand- 
 somely mounted foxskins, his pressed 
 flowers of Colorado, his queer mineralo- 
 gical jewelry, and his uncouth geological 
 specimens in the shape of hideous bric-a- 
 brac, as if he took pleasure in thus enter- 
 taining 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.
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 33 
 
 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 corbonates of soda, 
 lithia, lime, magnesia, andiron ; sulphates 
 of potassa and soda, chloride of sodium 
 and silica, in various solutions. Some of 
 these are sweeter than honey in the honey- 
 comb ; 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 3000 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 in- 
 valid 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
 
 34 Oi'er the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 modicinal 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 tlint 
 the lovely spot ha<l been long untenanted, 
 and wond(ired still more when I learned 
 that it Wiis the y)roY)erty of good Grace 
 Greenwood. Will she ever cease wander- 
 ing, and return to weave a new chaplet of 
 greenwood leaves gathered V)oneath the 
 eaves of her mountain home? 
 
 At the top of tlio 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 windiiig 
 trail, over which ladies in the saddle may 
 reach the glorious snow-capped summit 
 and I'eturn to Manitou between })reakfast 
 and supper — unless one should prefer to 
 bo 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 thnii d (flights the eyo to roam 
 so far, and imagination itself grows weary 
 at last and is glad to fold its wings.
 
 Over the Rocki/ Mountains to Alaska. 35 
 
 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 mar- 
 vel haunts one like a feverish dream. 
 Fancy a softly undulating land, delicately 
 wooded and decked with many an orna- 
 mental 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 ploud 
 shadows floating across it, at long inter- 
 vals bird voices or the bleating of distant 
 flocks charm the listening ear. Out of 
 this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclo- 
 pean rocks, appaUing in the splendor of 
 their proportions and the magnificence of 
 their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heaven- 
 ward from breadths of level sward, and 
 glow like li\dng 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 Osso upon Pelion, in little; vastly
 
 36 Over the Eocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 impressive because of the exceptional sur- 
 roundings that magnify these magnificent 
 monuments, unique in their design and 
 almost unparalleled in their picturesque 
 and daring outline. Some of the mono- 
 liths tremble and sway, or seem to sway ; 
 for they are balanced edgewise, as if the 
 gods had amused themselves in some in- 
 fantile 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 
 sUces 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 widespreadiug background in brilhant 
 and astonishing perspective. 
 
 I doubt if anj^where else in the world 
 the contrasts in color and form are more 
 \dolent than in the Grarden 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 afterglow. I have seen 
 pictures of the Grarden of the Grods that
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 37 
 
 made me nearly burst with laughter; I 
 mean color studies that were supremely 
 lidiculous 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 ex- 
 hausted inside of fifteen minutes; and 
 where we drove on and on, hour after 
 hour, from chmax to chmax, lost in 
 speechless amazement. 
 
 Grlan 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 pos- 
 sessor and admire his wealth of pictorial 
 solitude — without, however, sharing it 
 further. If it were mine, would I permit 
 this 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 ter- 
 restrial paradise, and you would hear no 
 more from us, or of us, nor we of you, or 
 from you, forever.
 
 38 Over the Bocky Iloimtains to Alaska. 
 
 On my first visit to Colorado Springs 
 I made a little pilgrimage. I heard that a 
 gentle lady, whom I had always mshed 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 ^dne- 
 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 mos- 
 quito 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 39 
 
 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 cot- 
 tages, the easiest of veranda chairs, a bay- 
 window full of books and sunshine, and a 
 strawberry bed alive with berries and 
 blossoms and butterfles 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 deUghtful indi\4duahty — 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 brilhant 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 
 f ollovrs of the probable future of Manitou : 
 "When Colorado becomes a populous 
 (40)
 
 Over the Rocky Moimtains to Alaska. 41 
 
 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 Colora- 
 dian 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, mil 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 Grrand Canon of the 
 Arkansas, the Black Canon of the Gun- 
 nison, Castle Canon and Marshall Pass 
 over the crest of the continent? 
 
 I suppose a narrow-guage 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 re-
 
 42 Over the Horki/ Mountains to A laslca. 
 
 mind orio of tbo dnyH wluui li(^ pinyjid 
 "snji,p4h(i-wliit)" jukI }iiif)p(!n(^(l to bo llio 
 Hn<'i[)t)(ir liirriHoir. Tlii.s in 0Hp(Kdnlly tlio 
 c'iKo if OIK) iK Hitiin^ on ih(i ronr pint fonn 
 of tlio 1,'iMt (%'ir. Wo nfioti a oiinoii by «lii,y- 
 b^tif', and inarvollod at tlio ^hi/CidHinfac-o 
 of tfio rod rock with iKiVor ho in noli a,H a 
 scratch ovor it. On tho ono band wo 
 nojiriy scnifXid tbo a})rn}»t p('rpcn(li<*nlar 
 wall that toworcid biindrodH of f»5ot abovo 
 us; on tho othor, a Hwii't, rnnddy torrcmt 
 Kpr.'iri^ at onr HtoMo-bo(l(b'-d nlooporH aw if 
 to KdJiich thorn away; wbilo it floocb'*! tbo 
 canon to tbo oppoHJto wall, thnt did not 
 HO(;m rnoro that a iow yards diHlant. 'J'b(i 
 Htroam wan Hwolhin, and wont liowlin^ 
 down tb<i riivino full of sfjnnd and fury — 
 wliicf) in tliis ca.Ho, bowovoj', Hi^nifiod a 
 good doal. 
 
 Onco wo Htof)pod and took an obscM-va- 
 tion, for tho track wasnndor wator; tlnm 
 wo wadod oa.uiiouMly to tho rnjiinland, 
 acroMH tbo Hunl<(?n H(5otion, an<] tbaid<(5(l 
 our .stars that wo woro not boycotted by 
 tbo olornonts at that irdiospitablo point. 
 Onco wo pauHo.d for a fow minutes to con- 
 torn pbito tlio tot?d wr-ock <A' a jmlncc car 
 tluj.t b;i,d rocontly struck a, projecting 
 bowldor — and spa,ttor-od. 
 
 Tho camps along tbo track nr-o just
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 43 
 
 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 civiliza- 
 tion 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 Grunnison. 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 fire- 
 brand 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 cloudhke and the cloud masses so solid 
 we could not for the life of us be certain 
 of the nature of either. There were canons
 
 44 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 cur brains out against 
 the mighty walls that loomed before us. 
 There was many a winding stream which 
 we took at a single bound, and occasion- 
 ally 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 be- 
 came steeper than usual. Only think of 
 it a moment — an incline of two hundred 
 and twenty feet to the mile in soane places, 
 and the track climbing over itself at fre- 
 quent 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
 
 Over the RocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 45 
 
 last we reached the summit, ten thousand 
 eight hundred and twenty feet above sea 
 level — a God-forsaken district, bristhng 
 with dead trees, and mth 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
 
 46 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 artic summer under 
 the midnight sun. 

 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Off for Alaska. 
 
 TF 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 Port- 
 land, 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 Town- 
 send, and here await the arrival of the 
 Alaska steamer, which makes its excur- 
 sion trip monthly — at least it used to be- 
 fore 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 
 (47)
 
 48 Over the BocJci/ Jlountams to Alaska. 
 
 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 settle- 
 ments scattered through the North-west- 
 ern 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 worthwest 
 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 hand- 
 ful 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,
 
 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 49 
 
 and some ominous ''good-byes"; the ma- 
 jority talking of Alaska in a superior 
 fashion, which impHes 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 imme- 
 diately, — 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 Commence- 
 ment Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. 
 Very deep water just off shore. Two
 
 50 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 casta- 
 ways. Perhaps the inhabitants of Taco- 
 ma are amphibious. Very beautiful sheet 
 of water, this Puget Sound ; long, wind- 
 ing, monotonous shores; trees all alike, 
 straight up and down, mostly pines and 
 cedars ; shores rather low, and outline too 
 regular for much picturesque effect. Ta- 
 coma 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 hun- 
 dred 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 
 Probabihties 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 erup- 
 tion. There are some people who when 
 they see anything new to them are in-
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 51 
 
 stantly reminded of something else they 
 have seen, and the new object becomes 
 second rate on the spot. A httle travel is 
 a dangerous thing. 
 
 Pay $3.25 for my fare from Tacoma to 
 Port Townsend, and find a moment later 
 that some are pajing 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. 
 Burely, 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 hghts 
 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 
 struckmatch smouldering across it. Far
 
 52 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 into the night there was the thundering 
 of freight rolhng up and down the decks, 
 and the ring of imdsible 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 Town- 
 send 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 murmer 
 of the waves under the veranda. 
 
 I rummage the town in search of ad- 
 venture; climb one hundred and fifty 
 steep steps, and find the highlands at the 
 top, green, pastoral and reposeful. Pleas- 
 ant homes are scattered about; a few
 
 Over the Eochj Moimtams to AlasJca. 53 
 
 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 unpretend- 
 ing prettiness in the bright and breezy 
 heights em^roned by black forest and 
 blue sea. 
 
 A revenue cutter — this is a port of cus- 
 toms, 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 cUff , and hear the 
 order, ''Make ready!" Then comes a 
 flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and 
 a crash that shatters an echo into frag- 
 ments all along the shore ; while beautiful 
 smoke rings roll up against the sky hke 
 victorious wreaths. 
 
 I call on the Hon. J. Gr. Swan, Hawaiian 
 Consul, author of "The Northwest Coast; 
 or, Three Years' Residence in Washington 
 Territory." Find him delightful, and 
 dehghtfully situated in a perfect museum 
 of Indian reUcs -, himself full of the live- 
 liest recollections of Indian hfe, and quite 
 an authority on Indian tongues and tra- 
 ditions; find also an old schoolmate, after 
 long years of separation, and am most 
 courteously entertained. What a drive
 
 54 Over the Eochy Mountains to AlasJca. 
 
 we had over the hills and along the beach, 
 where the crows haunt the water's edge 
 hke sea-birds! It hps 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 Avith 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 con- 
 ^.entment, abstraction and repose. He 
 never once turned to look at us, though
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 55 
 
 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. 
 
 — ^i
 
 Chapter VI, 
 
 In the Inland Sea. 
 
 TXTE 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, baloon-shaped, mutable, 
 living and breathing things, — these pant- 
 ed as they drifted by. At every respira- 
 tion they expanded like the sudden blos- 
 soming of a flower ; then they closed quite 
 as suddenly, and became mere buds. 
 (56)
 
 Over the Body Mountains to Alaska. 57 
 
 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 unmis- 
 takable 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 hons of the 
 place. We, who had been anxiously 
 awaiting this hour for a couple of long 
 summer davs, took the ship by storm, 
 and drove the most amiable and obUging 
 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
 
 58 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 after- 
 noon ; 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
 
 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 59 
 
 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 underway. 
 
 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 ob- 
 scures 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 Grulf of Greorgia, the Straits of Fuca, 
 and Queen Charlotte Sound are the words
 
 60 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 pene- 
 trates 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 na\T.- 
 gation, 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 un- 
 regenerated aborigines. The swell tour- 
 ists 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 whole- 
 some 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.
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 61 
 
 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 metalhc 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 after- 
 noon, or the solution of the vexed ques- 
 tion, ''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 our- 
 selves 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-pas- 
 sages, though deep enough for a three- 
 decker to swim in, are so narrow that one
 
 62 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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, stretch- 
 ing 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
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 63 
 
 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^Qiit 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 reahze 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 dig- 
 nity and precision, nightly bathing the 
 lonely North in sensuous splendor. 
 
 It is getting late. Most of us are in- 
 dulging 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 — be- 
 cause, 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!
 
 64: Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska, 
 
 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 tmlight would be longer 
 and less delightful. Far into the night I 
 linger over a final cigarette. An inex- 
 pressible 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 shad- 
 ows 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
 
 Over the Eockjj Mountains to Alaska. 65 
 
 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. 
 
 TyiTH 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. Nowthiswas 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 ad\4sable 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 
 (66)
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 67 
 
 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 troj^ical 
 sea; but there are points of similarity, 
 notwithstanding the geographical discrep- 
 ancy — 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
 
 68 Over the Eocky Mountains to AlasJca. 
 
 likely to be met with in this latitude; and, 
 then, if one really feels the need of 
 change, why, here i^ a fishing station. 
 The forest is triramed 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 equip- 
 ments of a first-class fish-canning estab- 
 lishment. A few Indian lodges are scat- 
 tered along the shore. The Indians, a 
 hearty and apparently an industrious and 
 wiUing 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 belhes are rosy in the sun. 
 The blood-red interiors of drj'ing fish — 
 rackfuls of them turned wrong side out — 
 are the only bit of color in all Alaska. 
 Everybody and everything is sombre and 
 subdued.
 
 Over thelMocky Mountcdns to AlasJia. 69 
 
 Yet not all fishing stations are cheer- 
 less. The salmon fishery and trading 
 store located at Loring are picturesque. 
 The land-lock nook is as lovely as a S"\Yiss 
 lake; and, oh, the myriad echoes that 
 waken in chorus among these misty moun- 
 tains! The waters of the Alaskan archi- 
 pelago are prolific. Vast shoals of sal- 
 mon, 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
 
 70 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 lati- 
 tude. 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 dis- 
 trict 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 71 
 
 lake, they came upon a boat which re- 
 quired incessant bailing to prevent its 
 speedy foundering. One kept the craft 
 afloat while the others fished until even- 
 ing. 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 trath 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 promis- 
 ing, 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
 
 72 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 con- 
 taining 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 loftly 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 fig- 
 ure — a man, and a white man at that — 
 with both hands in his pockets, and an 
 attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The
 
 Over the Rachy Mountains to Alaska. 73 
 
 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 mov- 
 ing 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. 
 
 CITKA, 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 Klon- 
 dike. 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 
 (74)
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 75 
 
 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 umvinking 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 minghng in the crystalline at- 
 mosphere, form a glorious picture, which, 
 oddly enough, one does not view with 
 amazement and dehght, 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 moun- 
 tain walls are so high it seemed hke 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
 
 76 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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, admi- 
 rably 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 overtopp- 
 ing all, as they lose themselves in the fair- 
 est 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 
 acti\dty 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 FUptown. Later it
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 77 
 
 was called Rockwell and Harrisbui'g ; 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
 
 78 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 was headed off on my way to the N. W. T. 
 Co.'s warehouse, anc). 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 scrubb- 
 ing, 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 unin\dtingly open to the street.
 
 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 79 
 
 At the doorway, as we passed it, was 
 posted a hand-lettered placard announc- 
 ing 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; Thhnket 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
 
 80 Over the Bocki/ Jloiodahs to Alaslia. 
 
 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, totum poles in 
 miniature. There were garments made of 
 fish-skins and bird-skins, smelhng of oil 
 and semi-transparent, as if saturated with 
 it; and half -musical instruments, or im- 
 plements, 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,
 
 Over the Rocky Mounta'ms to Alaska. 81 
 
 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, im- 
 pregnating 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
 
 82 Over the Eocky Moimtains to Alaska. 
 
 won a song from a Persian poet ; admi- 
 rably 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 chffs that 
 tower above the metropohs were capped 
 with cloud; slender, rain-born rivulets 
 plunged from these airy heights into 
 space and were blown away like smoke. 
 Sometimes we caught glimj)ses 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 swarm- 
 ing 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,
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 83 
 
 we might have hngered on indefinitely, 
 with the hght 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 pea- 
 nuts 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 circum- 
 stances 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
 
 84 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 min- 
 ers 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 day- 
 light out of the four and twenty — the 
 work at Douglas Island would go on tri- 
 umphantly ; 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.
 
 Over the RocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 85 
 
 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. 
 
 -7^
 
 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 
 smdihe Paterson, two characteristic repre- 
 sentatives of the United States Navy — 
 as it was before the war — the former a 
 promoted tug-boat, equipped at an ex- 
 pense 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 coahng, even 
 (86)
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 87 
 
 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 
 httle 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 abun- 
 dant 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 re- 
 garded 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.
 
 88 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska, 
 
 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 aston- 
 ishing 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
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 89 
 
 hard it is to avoid ringing in these Uttle 
 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 to- 
 gether. 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 loveli- 
 est of twilights. 
 
 The Pinta was about to withdraw to 
 her anchorage as we boarded the Ancon ; 
 and then, too late, I discovered among the
 
 90 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska, 
 
 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 you; 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 mnd 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 fore- 
 ground ; 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.
 
 Over the BocJcy fountains to Alaska. 91 
 
 From solitude to solitude is the order 
 in Alaska. The solitude of the forest aud 
 the sea, of the mountain and ra"sdne, — 
 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 con- 
 tinent. 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 ex- 
 panse was covered with brash, and we 
 were obliged to pick our way with con-
 
 92 Oier tJie Bocky fountains to Alaska. 
 
 siderable 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 re- 
 sources are decidedly limited. Often we 
 thought of the miserable millions away 
 down East simmering in the sultry sum- 
 mer heat, while the tliermometer 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, ballast- 
 ing 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
 
 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 93 
 
 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 shppery 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 ghttering 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 portions 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, sparkhng 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 sat- 
 urated mth transfused moonbeams, that 
 gave forth a mellow radiance, which
 
 94 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 flashed at times like brilliants, and burst 
 into flame and plaid like lightning along 
 the almost invisible nms and ridges. The 
 unspeakable, the incomprehensible light 
 throbbed through and through ; and was 
 sometimes bluish green and sometimes 
 greenish blue ; but of tenest 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 sur- 
 rounded by islands great and small, and 
 any one of these might silently materiahze 
 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 un-
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 95 
 
 expected 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 still- 
 ness 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 sur- 
 face 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
 
 96 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 about without more ado, and went around 
 the block in a hurry. Meanwhile we had 
 schooled our ears to detect the most deh- 
 cate shades of sound ; to measure or weigh 
 each individual echo with an accuracy that 
 gave us the utmost self-satisfaction . Per- 
 haps Captain Carroll or Captain Greorge, 
 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 jetting 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 desola- 
 tion. The ice was increasing, and the 
 water took that ghastly hue, even a
 
 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 97 
 
 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 ter- 
 ritory — our Alaska, — where, beyond that 
 mountain range, the almost interminable 
 winter is scarcely habitable, and the sum- 
 mers so brief it takes about six of them 
 to make a swallow. 

 
 Chapter X. 
 In Search of the Totem-Pole. 
 
 TTOUR 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 in- 
 lets. 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 dimunitive box-houses, like exagger- 
 ated dove-cotes, with a goodly number 
 (98)
 
 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 99 
 
 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 car^dngs 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 handf uls 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 recep- 
 tacles. 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-
 
 100 Over the BocTcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 
 veiy 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 eveiy hour 
 was of interest to us. This was our first 
 chance to thoroughly explore an Indian 
 village; and, oh! the dogs, cousins-ger- 
 man to the coyotes, that shook off their 
 flees 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 con- 
 structed of hemlock bark or of rough 
 slabs, gaudily festooned with spht salmon 
 drying in the sun. The lodges are square, 
 with roofs slightly inclined; they are win- 
 dowless 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.
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 101 
 
 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, medi- 
 cine-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. Unfort- 
 unately, some simple voyager gave the 
 rude silversmiths a bangle of the conven- 
 tional 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 manu- 
 facture. 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
 
 102 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, 
 
 the first figure; for the Indian is not 
 likely to drop a farthing, and there are 
 others who will gladly outbid the hesitat- 
 ing 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 pad- 
 dling a day or two over to the next settle- 
 ment, 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 medi- 
 cine-men in propitiation of the e^'il spirit 
 at the bedside of the djdng. 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 seem- 
 ingly set at a guess. Its discovery was a 
 piece of pure luck, but I would not ex- 
 change 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,
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 103 
 
 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 in- 
 vals a bright wood-fire that burned in the 
 centre of the lodge. The curhng 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 
 evangehst had forestalled us. He was 
 asking the price of salmon in San Fran- 
 cisco ; but upon our appearance he added, 
 solemnly enough: ''Well, we all must 
 die — Indians and all." An interpreter 
 had reluctantly been pressed into sei*vice ; 
 but as the missionary work was not pro- 
 gressing, the evangelist dropped the inter- 
 preter, rolled up his spiritual sleeves and 
 pitched in as follows : 
 
 "Say, you Injun! you love God? You 
 love Grreat Spirit?" No answer came 
 from the thin, drawn lips, tightly com- 
 pressed and visible just over the blankets 
 edge in the corner of the lodge. "Say, 
 John ! you ready to die ! You make your 
 peace with Grod ! You go to heaven — to 
 the happy hunting-ground ? ' ' The chief,
 
 104 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 who had silenced the interpreter with a 
 single look, was apparently beyond the 
 hearing of human speech ; so the evange- 
 list, 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 Grod, and the 
 latter once more sought to touch that 
 heart of stone: ^'I say, you Injun! you 
 prepared to meet Grreat 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 evangehst: ^'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 Casaan, once com- 
 manded by a famous old smuggler named 
 Barono^ich. 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, Barono'sdch, not only 
 braved the elements, but defied Russian 
 officials, who kept an eye upon him night 
 and day. On one occasion, ha^ang been
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 105 
 
 boarded by the vigilant inspectors, and his 
 piratical schooner thoroughly searched 
 from stem to stearn, he kindly invited the 
 gentlemen to dine mth him, and_ enter- 
 tained 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 molder- 
 ing 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 con- 
 sidered, the least interesting, the most un- 
 gainly and the most unpicturesque of 
 people. If there is work for them to do 
 they do it, heedless of the presence of in- 
 quisitive, pale-faced spectators. Indeed 
 they seem to look down upon the white- 
 man, and perhaps they have good reasons
 
 106 Over the Ilochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 for so doing. If tliere is no Tvork 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. Ho miglit 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 oj>posite 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 naiTowly escapes be- 
 ing pretty, but it manages to escape.
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 107 
 
 Most of the lodges are built of logs, have 
 small, square windows, with glass in 
 them, aud curtains; and have also a kind 
 of primitive chimney. We climbed among 
 these lodges and found them quite de- 
 serted. 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 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 : 
 AH are welcome to come 
 To mj- hearth aud my home. 
 So caU 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.
 
 108 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 impos- 
 sible to forget them for some time after- 
 ward. At 12.45 p. m. we were off, but 
 we left one of the merriest and most popu- 
 lar of our voyagers behind us. He re- 
 mained 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 wa\'ing his arms wildly 
 while we were in sight. And the lassies? 
 They swarmed like bees upon the wheel- 
 house, wringing their hands and their 
 handkerchiefs, and weeping rivers of im- 
 aginary tears over our first bereavement ! 
 But really, now, what a life to lead, and
 
 Over the Hooky Mountains to Alaska. 109 
 
 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 over- 
 shadowed 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 hke motes in the darkness, 
 tipped with a phosphorescent rim. In- 
 dian 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 soft- 
 est voices in the world, voices of infantile 
 sweetness — hailed us. ^'AlaJi mika cJiaJi- 
 ko!^^ babbled the flowers of the forest. My 
 sohtary companion responded glibly, for 
 he was no stranger in these parts. The 
 maids grew garrulous. There was much
 
 110 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 occu- 
 pants of the canoe, as they shot through 
 a stream of light under an open port, cry- 
 ing ^^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 sum- 
 mer at this watering-place, and who were 
 known to fame as ''Kitty the Gropher," 
 and "Feather-Legged Sal." 

 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 In the Sea of Ice. 
 
 TX7"E appreciated the sun's warmth so 
 long as we were cruising among the 
 ice-wrack. Some of the passengers, hav- 
 ing been forewarned, were provided with 
 heavy overcoats, oilskin hats, water- 
 proofs, woolen socks, and stogies with 
 great nails driven into the soles. They 
 were iron-bound, copper-fastened tour- 
 ists, 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 disappoint- 
 ments ; but this is not to be feared. The 
 chances are in favor of a round of sun- 
 shiny 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 ; 
 (111)
 
 112 Over the Roclcij Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 chmb 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 cote- 
 ries which naturally spring into existence 
 on shipboard hailed one another across 
 decks, from the captain's cabin — a favor- 
 ite 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
 
 Over tlie Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 113 
 
 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 aw^e. 
 
 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, fath- 
 oms deep, with foam, and then the whole 
 suddenly frozen and fixed for evermore — 
 that is your glacier. Sometimes the sur- 
 face is stained with the cUhris of the moun- 
 tain ; sometimes the bluish-green tinge of 
 the ancient ice crops out. Grenerally 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
 
 114 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 beauty to one of the rivers of Paradise 
 that flow hard by the throne of Grod. 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 moun- 
 tain 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.
 
 Over the Rocky Ilounta'ms to Alaska. 115 
 
 We are very near this glacier. We see 
 all the wrinkles and fissures and the deep 
 discolorations. We see how the mon- 
 strous 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
 
 116 Over the Hocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 in- 
 delibly 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 irre- 
 sistible tide of ice. Verily, the mills of 
 the gods grind slowly, but what a grist 
 they grind! 
 
 Let me record an episode that occa- 
 sioned no little excitement among the 
 passengers and crew of the Ancon. While 
 we were picking our way among the float- 
 ing 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
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 117 
 
 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 \jing at no great distance. E\idently 
 he beheved 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
 
 118 Over the RocTcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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,
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 119 
 
 and plunged into the berth of a shy dam- 
 sel, 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 brav- 
 est 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 
 httle adventure, and many an hour we 
 spent in recounting to one another the 
 varied emotions awakened by the episode. 
 Heading for Griacier Bay, we found a 
 flood of bitter cold water so filled with 
 floating ice that it was quite impassible to 
 avoid frequent colhsions 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 litter- 
 ing 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 crackhng of the 
 ice-pack in the gorges, we thought with 
 increasing solemnity of the majesty of the 
 spectacle Ave were about to witness. 
 Thus we pushed forward bravely toward
 
 120 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred, but most of it far nearer five hun- 
 dred feet above sea level, rising directly 
 out of it, overhanging it, and chilling the 
 air perceptibly. Picking our path to with- 
 in a safe distance of the glacier, we cast 
 anchor and were free to go our ways for a 
 whole glorious day. According to Pro- 
 fessor John Muir — for whom the glacier 
 is deservedly named, — the ice-wall meas- 
 ures 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
 
 Over tlie Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 121 
 
 dissolving away more rapidly than it trav- 
 els ; so that although it is always advanc- 
 ing, 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 pol- 
 ished surface behind it. It gathers rock 
 dust and the wreck of every hving thing, 
 and mixes them up with snow and ice. 
 These congeal again, or are compressed 
 into soft, filthy monumental masses, wait- 
 ing 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 re- 
 verberations, 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 visi- 
 ble at Niagara. At intervals huge frag- 
 ments of the ice cliffs fall, carrying with
 
 122 Over the Roclcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 them torrents of snow and slush. Heaven 
 only knows know many hundred thousand 
 tons of this d^hris plunged into the sea 
 under our very eyes. Nor was it all debris : 
 there was masses of solid ice so lustrous 
 they looked like gigantic emeralds or sap- 
 phires, 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 impres- 
 sion of vast weight and when they struck 
 the sea, the foam flew two-thirds of the 
 way up the cliff — a fountain three hun- 
 dred feet in height and of monstrous vol- 
 ume. 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
 
 Over the Rochj Moimtanis to Alaska. 123 
 
 followed each submersion resembled a 
 tidal wave as it rolled down upon us and 
 threatened to engulf us. But the Ancon 
 rode Uke 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 enjo^^able 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 ada- 
 mant shall not prevail against them. 
 
 —^3
 
 Chapter XII. 
 Alaska's Capital. 
 
 CITKA 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 depend- 
 ence of that Musco^dte municipality. I 
 was half willing to believe that an under- 
 ground 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 noth- 
 ing 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 look- 
 out 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 
 (124)
 
 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 125 
 
 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 over- 
 coats 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 tumble- 
 down houses scattered along a bleak and 
 rocky shore. "We steamed slowly past it, 
 made a big turn in deep water, got a toler- 
 able 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
 
 126 Over the Rocky Moimtains to Alaska. 
 
 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 gayety 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 ma- 
 terialized 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 dig- 
 nity belied the riotous spirit that had 
 made them the hfe of the ship on the 
 way up.
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 127 
 
 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 re- 
 turning to stay in the land of his nativity. 
 He was quiet enough on shipboard — in- 
 deed, 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 estabUsh-
 
 128 Orer the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 ments ! 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 fan- 
 tastical carvings such as the aborigines 
 delight in, and in which they almost ex- 
 cel. 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 stnicture, 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 
 troupes of Indians give a semblance of 
 life to this quarter. An 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
 
 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 129 
 
 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 trans- 
 ferred 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. Prob- 
 ably the mission will be abandoned. Cer- 
 tainly 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
 
 130 Over the Rocky Mountains to AlasJca. 
 
 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 mu- 
 sic, like a litany of bumblebees. Dense 
 clouds of incense issued from gilded 
 recesses that were screened from Yiew. 
 
 It was all very strange, very foreign, 
 very unintelUgible to us. It was also 
 very monotonous ; and when some of the 
 unbelievers grew restless and stole quietly 
 about on voyages of exploration and dis- 
 covery, 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 paint- 
 ings of Byzantine origin, and in broken 
 English endeavored to enterpret 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.
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 131 
 
 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-obhterated panel paint- 
 ings. They were thrown carelessly in a 
 deep window-seat, and had been over- 
 looked 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 in- 
 cense coated them, so that the faint colors 
 that were laid upon them were sunk 
 almost out of sight. The very wood it- 
 self was weather-stained, and a chip out 
 of it left no trace of life or freshness be- 
 neath. Centuries old they seemed, these 
 small panels, sacred IJwns. In far-away 
 Russia they may have been venerated be- 
 fore this continent had verified the dream 
 of Columbus. As we wereTbreaking nearly
 
 132 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 dis- 
 playing 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
 
 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 133 
 
 groups of strollers, St Michael's at Sitka, 
 in spite of its clingy 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 in- 
 definite 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
 
 134 Ooer the Bocki/ Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 con- 
 jecture 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 pro- 
 spectors who had dug under the roots of 
 a giant tree. Eleven feet beneath the 
 surface, directly under the tree and sur- 
 rounded by gigantic roots, this pestle, 
 and some others of a similar character, 
 together with mortars and various uten- 
 sils, 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.
 
 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 135 
 
 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 hghts were 
 twinkling in distant windows ; a few In- 
 dians 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 
 
 TZ'ATALAN'S EOCK towers above the 
 sea at the top corner of Sitka. Be- 
 low 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 com- 
 mand the town, and ample enough to 
 afford all the space necessary for fortifica- 
 tions and the accommodation of troops 
 and stores. A natural Gribraltar, it was 
 (136)
 
 Over the Rocky Moimtains to Alaska. 137 
 
 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 resi- 
 dence 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 sub- 
 urban 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.
 
 138 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 Rus- 
 sians, governed by a prince or a baron 
 whose petty court was made up of the 
 representatives of the rank and fashions 
 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 Grovernor 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 them- 
 selves in the interminable twilights of the 
 Alaskan summer. In the reign of the
 
 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 139 
 
 Princess Maksontoff the ladies were first 
 shown to the sideboard. When they had 
 regaled themselves with potent punch 
 and ca^^are, 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 presi- 
 dential levee is not more democratic than 
 were the f^tes of the Princess Maksontoff . 
 To the music of the Admiral's band com- 
 bined 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
 
 140 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 time when the ships of John Jacob Astor 
 were touching in that \icinity, 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 "svill- 
 ing, 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 enter- 
 prise 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 beau- 
 tify the Sitkan Sea; strolls among the 
 sylvan retreats in which the primeval 
 forest, at the very edge of the town, 
 abounds; fishing and hunting expedi- 
 tions, 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
 
 Over the Mochy Mountains to Alaska. 141 
 
 determined that it should not pass into 
 the hands of certain of the powers for 
 whom she had httle 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 ther 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
 
 142 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 the staff, and it was long before a boat- 
 swain's chair couid be rigged to the 
 halyards, and some one hauled up to dis- 
 entangle 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 
 famiUes of pure Russian blood remain. 
 Perhaps the fault-finding which followed 
 this remarkable acquisition of territory 
 on the part of the United States govern- 
 ment — -both the acquisition and the fault- 
 finding were on the part of our govern- 
 ment — had best be left unmentioned. 
 Now that the glorious waters of that mag-
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 143 
 
 nificent 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 ornamenta- 
 tion 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 bar- 
 gain 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
 
 144 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 ex- 
 tinct. 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
 
 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 145 
 
 the fact in lampblack, and a monster 
 hand pointed with index finger to its 
 temporary bar, Bnrnt-cork cUhris 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 for- 
 gotten 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 thea- 
 tre. It was in one of the original Rus- 
 sian 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 im- 
 practicable 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
 
 146 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 endanger- 
 ing 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 memor5\ 
 There are dull old Eussian hieroglyphs 
 there likewise. Love is alike in all lan- 
 guages, 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 sum- 
 mer afternoon and sip his Russian brandy 
 until he was as senseless as the stone be- 
 neath 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
 
 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. 147 
 
 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 glori- 
 ous 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 

 
 Chaptee XIV. 
 
 From the Far North. 
 
 CITKA 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 accus- 
 tomed to the lonely, far-away feeling that 
 at times is a little paiuful 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 moun- 
 tain. 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 
 (148)
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 149 
 
 Naples as possible ; though some writers 
 have compared them, and of course, as is 
 usual in cases of comparison, to the dis- 
 advantage 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, FortWrangell, 
 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
 
 150 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 hlas^ 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 
 Irhile 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-Boy ton 
 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 de- 
 serted 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 csnoes.
 
 Over the Bocky Mounta'ms to AlasJca. 151 
 
 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 in- 
 land. 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. 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 decent 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
 
 152 Over the Bocky fountains to Alaska. 
 
 lodge and several comfortable-looking 
 beds, with chintz curtains and an Oriental 
 superabundance of pillows. A few photo- 
 graphs in cheap frames adorned the walls ; 
 a few flaming chromos — Crucifixions and 
 the like — hung there, along with fathoms 
 of fishnet, clusters of fishhooks, 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 man- 
 ner 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 re- 
 fusing it with scorn— for it was still rain- 
 ing. So we parted coldly, and I once 
 more walked the giddy bridge with fear 
 and trembling ; for I am not a sunambu- 
 list, who alone might perform there with 
 impunity.
 
 Over tlie Rochy Mountains to Alaska. 153 
 
 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, inas- 
 much 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 gap- 
 ing crescent ; the eyeless sockets seemed 
 to sparkle and bhnk 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 
 an half-Indian cherub peering from be- 
 hind the mask. Well, that mask is mine 
 now ; and whenever I look at it I think of 
 the faUing 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 mth
 
 154 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 Captain George, the pilot. A gentleman 
 of vast experience and great reser\^e, 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 quar- 
 ter-rail, and the few figures that still 
 haunted the deck were Hke 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 filmly than 
 a cloud floated like a banner among the 
 stars. It might almost have been a cob- 
 web 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 wav- 
 ing in a gentle breeze ; and now it hung
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 155 
 
 motionless — a deep fringe of lace gathered 
 in ample folds. Anon it opened suddenlj- 
 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 horialis, 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 Nanai- 
 mo. 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 monoton- 
 ous out-of-the-world and out-of-the-waj^ 
 life. Yet Tongass is unique, and certainly 
 has the most interesting collection of
 
 156 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 totem poles that one is likely to see on 
 the voyage. At Tongass there is a little 
 curbing 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 un- 
 bounded praise during the remainder of 
 the voyage. 
 
 This pretty Bret Harte heroine, with 
 all of the charms and ^drtues and none of 
 the vices of his camp-followers, led us 
 through the jagged rocks of the dilapi- 
 dated quarters, down among the spray-
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 157 
 
 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 In- 
 dian 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 fisher- 
 men, 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, brilUantly colored, and grotesque 
 in the extreme. Some of the lodges were 
 roomy but sad-looking, and with a per- 
 petual 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 redman. 
 Over one door was this inscription: "In 
 
 memory of , who died by his own 
 
 hand." The lodge door was fastened
 
 158 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 delib- 
 erate 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. 
 
 Ty HEN Captain Cook — who, with Cap- 
 tain Kidd, nearly monopohzes 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 f ruitf ulness 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 pos- 
 sibilities, and greatest of all in its measure- 
 less wealth of gold. 
 
 In the good old days of the Muscovite 
 reign — 1811, — Grovernor Baranoff sent 
 Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settle- 
 ment in California where grain and vege- 
 tables might be raised for the Sitka mar- 
 ket. The ruins of Fort Ross are all that 
 remain to tell the tale of that interprise. 
 (159)
 
 160 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 sub- 
 siding into a comatose state, and remain- 
 ing 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 obli\ion 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
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 161 
 
 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 lu- 
 minary, 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 
 dof 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
 
 162 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 mil 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, 
 mth narrow escapes from the watery 
 grave — let us hope so, for the sake of 
 variety. There will be fishing parties
 
 Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 163 
 
 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 pru- 
 dent; 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 Glrand 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 in- 
 jury. There will be no hay fever or 
 prickly-heat; neither will there be sun- 
 strokes 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
 
 164 Over Die Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 home with a new experience, which is the 
 best thing one can come home with, and 
 the rarest nowadays ; and with a pocket- 
 ful of Alaskan garnets, which are about 
 the worst he can come home with, being 
 as they are utterly valueless, and unhand- 
 some even when they are beautifully 
 symmetrical. 
 
 Oh, the memory of the voyage, which 
 is perhaps the most precious of all! — this 
 we bring home \Yith 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 unaccus- 
 tomed 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 squat- 
 ted in wide circles listening to some old- 
 man-eloquent in the very ecstacy of ex- 
 pectoration; the memory of a non-com- 
 mitting, uncommunicative race, whose 
 religion is a feeble polj^theism — a kind of 
 demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not 
 injure one, one's whole time is given to
 
 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 165 
 
 the propitiation of the evil. This is called 
 Shamanism, and is said to have been the 
 religion of the Tartar race before the in- 
 troduction 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 alto- 
 gether charming, of a festival without a 
 flaw. 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 be- 
 gin 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
 
 166 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 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 t-he 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
 
 Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 167 
 
 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 ^rs bound; but Cap- 
 tain 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 Vic- 
 toria. 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
 
 168 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska. 
 
 them ; ran in and out of shops just for the 
 fun of it and because our hberty 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 unex- 
 pectedly 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. 

 
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