WITH SACK AND STOCK IN ALASKA

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

WITH SACK AND STOCK
IN ALASKA

BY
GEORGE BROKE, A.C., F.R.G.S.

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
1891

All rights reserved

Dedicated

TO THE MEMORY OF

A— M—

KILLED ON THE DÜSSISTOCK

AUGUST 16, 1890

PREFACE

The publishing of these simple notes is due to the wishes of one who is now no more. But for this they would probably have never seen the light, and I feel therefore that less apology is needed for their crudeness and ‘diariness’ than would otherwise have been the case.

G. B.

CONTENTS

WITH SACK AND STOCK IN ALASKA

CHAPTER I
LONDON TO SITKA

On the twenty-fifth of April, 1888, I was playing golf on our little links at home, and had driven off for the Stile Hole, situated on the lawn-tennis ground, when I observed the butler emerge from the house with an orange envelope in his hand, and come towards me across the lawn. Having with due deliberation played a neat approach shot over the railings on to the green, I climbed over after it, putted out the hole, and then went to meet him. The telegram proved to be from my friend Harold T., with whom at Saas in the previous summer I had discussed Seton-Karr’s book on Alaska, and we had both come to the conclusion that we should much like to go there. Finding that I should have the summer of ’88 at my disposal, I had written to him at the end of March to ask about his plans and now got this telegram in reply. It was sent from Victoria, B.C., and was an urgent appeal to join him and his brother at once, as they meant to make an attempt on Mount St. Elias that summer, and must start northward by the end of May. I retired to the smoking-room to consider the situation, and finally came to the conclusion that such a hurried departure might be managed.

I crossed over to Brussels, where I was then posted, packed up all my goods and chattels, left masses of P.P.C. cards, and returned again three days later. The afternoon of May 11 found me on board the Allan liner ‘Polynesian’ at Liverpool. I was fortunate in making some very charming acquaintances among the few saloon passengers on board, and though the good ship did not bely her sobriquet of ‘Roly-poly,’ we had a very pleasant crossing till the 17th, when we got into a horrible cold wet fog, the temperature on deck not rising above 34° for two days, while for about twelve hours we ran along the edge of, and occasionally through, thin field-ice, all broken into very small pieces. About noon on the 18th we sighted land to the north, covered with snow, and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence next day. We stopped off Rimouski to pick up our pilot at lunch-time on Whit-Sunday, a lovely day but very cold, and having left summer in England, we seemed to have returned suddenly into winter. Next morning we awoke to find ourselves at Quebec.

As we had brought nine hundred emigrants, and the ‘Oregon’ and ‘Carthaginian’ came in at the same time, there was a mob of over two thousand despairing passengers at the landing-stage station hunting wildly for their luggage. I abandoned the conflict and went round the town, calling at the Post Office, in hopes of hearing something from H., but there was nothing, which was not very wonderful, as, though I had telegraphed to say I was coming, I had not indicated my route in any way. So I returned and collected my things, and after a successful interview with the Customs officials got the greater part of them checked to Vancouver, and conveyed the remainder to the railway station, where I found my friends of the voyage. There was a train to Montreal at half-past one, but it was very crowded, and we fell victims to the blandishments of a parlour-car conductor, who represented to us that his car would be attached to the emigrant special which would leave at three o’clock and reach Montreal as soon, if not sooner, than the ordinary train, as it would run right through. We fell into the snare, deposited our properties in the car, and went off into the town again, returning punctually at three. Alas there was no sign of the emigrant train, and it did not leave till six, while its progress even then was of the most contemptible character, stopping for long periods at benighted little stations, so that we did not reach Montreal till three in the morning. Fortunately we had furnished ourselves with biscuits, potted meat, etc., including whisky, and so did not actually starve, but we were all very cross, the ladies especially; and though the train was going to continue its weird journey we declined to have anything more to do with it, and hurried up to the big hotel, where we were soon wrapped in dreamless slumbers, which lasted so long that we very nearly came under the operation of a stern rule which decreed that no breakfasts should be served after half-past ten.

After seeing as much of the city as we could during the day, we had an excellent dinner, drove down in plenty of time to catch the 8.30 Pacific train, and ensconced ourselves in the recesses of a most admirable sleeping-car, the name of which was, I fancy, the ‘Sydney.’ The C.P.R. berths are most comfortable, and so wide that in many cases two people are willing to share one, but the greater part of dressing and undressing has to be done inside the berth, as in all Pullmans, which is inconvenient till you get used to it. In this respect the gentlemen are better off than the ladies, as we were able to make use of the smoking-room which was next our lavatories, while I fancy the ladies’ accommodation was much more circumscribed.

The next day was very hot, and was spent in running past little lakes and through marshy forest, called ‘muskeg’ or peat land. Early in the morning we picked up an excellent dining-car in which we breakfasted, lunched, and dined most luxuriously, the intervals of the day being occupied with whist, tobacco, and light literature. On the following morning we found ourselves skirting the northern edge of Lake Superior, enjoying superb scenery as the line followed the curves of the rock-bound shore. That day we had the best dining-car of the whole trip, which unfortunately was taken off after lunch, and we had to content ourselves with high tea at Savanne; but a far greater disaster awaited us next morning, for, on inquiring for our breakfast at a fairly early hour, we heard that an ill-mannered goods train had run into it in the night as it was peaceably waiting for us, and had reduced it to a heap of disintegrated fragments. This was a pretty state of things, but I had been warned beforehand that such calamities were sometimes to be met with, and so our party were prepared. Setting up an Etna inside a biscuit-tin so as to guard against the possibility of disaster from the jolting of the carriage, we brewed our tea, and made a comfortable meal off biscuits, potted meat, sardines, and marmalade, while the rest of the passengers, who seemed to have neglected these precautions, glared upon us in hungry envy. However, we reached Winnipeg at noon, and they rushed in a tumultuous body to the refreshment-room. Here we overtook that ghastly train in which we had started from Quebec, and some waifs and strays were recovered which the ladies had left behind. At Portage-la-Prairie a dining-car was attached, and we were enabled to get our evening meal in peace. Next morning, Saturday, we secured our travelling restaurant at a place called Moosejaw about six o’clock—at least I was told so.

And here I wish to protest against the insane habit of early rising which seems to possess the passengers on the C.P.R. I am an early riser myself, in fact I pique myself on it, but in this car I was always the last, with the exception of one of my friends, a young Englishman ranching at Calgary. By seven o’clock the Babel of voices, and the noise made by our coloured attendant as he stowed away the beds, compelled one to get up, which was unkind if one had been talking and smoking till 1 or 2 A.M. One could, however, always get a nap in the smoking-room.

That day we had a quite shocking dining-car, so bad that I hereby publish its name, which was ‘Sandringham,’ in the hope that the Cuisinal Director of the C.P.R, whoever he may be, will have taken care to reform that car before I next meet with it.

As our Calgary friend got off the train at 2 A.M., some of us sat up till that hour to see him off, but we turned out again at four o’clock to enjoy the grand scenery of the Rockies, into the heart of which we crept, up the Bow River, over the Kicking-Horse Pass, down to Donald, and then we crossed the Columbia, and began to climb up the valley of the Beaver into the Selkirk range. This is even finer than the Rockies, owing to the greater size of the snowfields and glaciers, and the view from Glacier House, where we stopped for lunch, the grades in the mountains being too steep to allow of a dining-car being attached, was magnificent in the extreme. At this point the great Illecillewaet glacier descends into the valley, backed by the superb spire of Mount Sir Donald, and the C.P.R. have most obligingly built a summer track outside the snow-sheds to enable the passengers to see it in comfort. It was on this day that we crossed the trestle bridge in the Beaver Valley, 295 feet above the stream below; two of us happened to be sitting at the time on the step of the car, and as the bridge, which has no parapet or floor of any kind, is curved, we were tipped forward till we could contemplate the water far beneath between our feet as they overhung the edge of the step. We held on rather tight during the minute or so spent in creeping over it. This sitting on the step of the platform was most enjoyable, as there had been rain in the night, and consequently there was no dust, but every now and then the one who was sitting farthest from the projecting roof of the carriage received an icy shower-bath, as the train dashed suddenly into a snow-shed through the roof of which the melting snow was dripping, and little feminine squeals might be heard, intermixed with deeper bass grumblings.

At Glacier House I received a letter from H., saying they could not start for another fortnight, and recommending me to stop off there for a day or two and go up the glacier; but, as all my climbing things were in my checked baggage, I preferred to go on. We were detained an hour or so by a disobliging boulder which had playfully rolled down on to the track and had to be removed with dynamite before we could proceed, and then we went down over some marvellous loops, which resembled the twistings of the St. Gothard near Wasen, crossed the Columbia again, and climbed up into the Gold Range. From Revelstoke to Sicamous we were accompanied by a dining-car, but our dinner would, perhaps, have been more satisfactory, though more devoid of interest, had they not selected the moment at which we were running fast down a steep incline to jam the brakes on. Away went every wine-glass, soup hopped out of the plates, potatoes out of the dishes, and we might as well have been in a rough sea with no fiddles on. At last peace, and as much of the dinner as could be collected, were restored. Late in the evening we enjoyed a most lovely view over the broad smooth expanse of Lake Shusroap, the train running along its reedy shore for some time.

During the night we careered down the Thompson, and found ourselves at daybreak accompanying the Fraser in its wild career to the sea. We were compelled to breakfast at North Bend, at the objectionable hour of seven, and my toilet was hurried in a very undue manner; but the views all that morning were ample compensation for having been dragged out of bed.

All this time I had no conception of where H. was, his letter having said nothing, but in London I had been given an address in the town of Vancouver, and so had determined to go there first. Being a Monday, no boat ran to Victoria from Vancouver, and so I had to part with my friends and nearly all the other passengers at Westminster Junction, whence they went on to New Westminster. I reached Vancouver at two o’clock, and after securing comfortable, not to say luxurious, quarters in the brand-new C.P.R. hotel, strolled down to find out about H., and discovered that he and his brother were located at the famous Driard Hotel in Victoria.

The afternoon was spent in wandering about the town, the evening in smoking at the house of an hospitable fellow-countryman, and the next day the little steamer ‘Yosemite’ conveyed me across the blue waters of the Gulf of Georgia, muddied in one place by the flood of the Fraser, to Victoria, a distance of about seventy miles. We had an exciting race with the old Cunarder ‘Abyssinia,’ now employed in the mail-service between Canada and Japan. She moved first from her moorings in Burrard Islet, but her head was lying the wrong way, and before she got round we were out of the harbour with a quarter of a mile’s start. Down the long straight piece that followed she gained slowly but steadily, and was almost level with us on our left when we just succeeded in getting into Plumper’s Pass first, and in the intricate windings of this tortuous channel, where the ship kept spinning round in little over her own length, we again got a long start which was gradually reduced till there was nothing of it left as we neared the south-east point of Vancouver Island; but here we cut inside a group of small islands, where apparently the larger vessel could not come, and this time we gained such an advantage that we were not again caught. We steamed round the corner into the very beautiful harbour of Victoria, and reached the wharf at half-past eight. Here I was met by H., apprised by telegraph of my approach, and really hardly recognised him without his moustache, which for some obscure reason he had chosen to shave off while staying at the Glacier House in the spring. Having entrusted my baggage to an express man, we did not go up at once to the Driard, as it was too late to procure dinner, or indeed anything else to eat there, but repaired to the Poodle Dog, where my hunger was at last appeased. We then proceeded to the hotel, where we found E., H.’s brother, and most unlike him, and talked over plans far into the night. A fourth man, W., an American member of the A.C., was coming to join us, but the taking of his degree was delaying him. Still he did his best for us by sending us long telegrams of advice every day.

The next few days passed rapidly, the mornings being spent in shopping, though that was a task which fell chiefly to H., who had been elected ‘boss’ of the party, or in frantic endeavours to ascertain how we were going to get from Sitka to Yakutat, a distance of nearly three hundred miles. We entered into negotiations with the owners of two steam-schooners, but as one asked fifty dollars a day and the other four thousand for the whole trip, we rejected these noble offers. The afternoons were spent by E. and me in sailing on the harbour in ‘plungers,’ stiff little Una-rigged cutters, which revealed the meaning of their name if there was any sea on, or in lawn-tennis in the gardens of various hospitable magnates of Victoria. At the house of one of these I encountered an old friend, a neighbour at home, whose ship was now on the station, and I had the pleasure of dining with him on board at Esquimault the next evening.

There was great uncertainty even about the arrival of the ‘Ancon,’ the steamer which was to take us up to Sitka; she was expected to arrive early on the 4th of June, but did not turn up till the evening of the 5th, crammed with American tourists. With the utmost difficulty we obtained a fairly airy but exceedingly diminutive cabin, for at first we found ourselves condemned to a pocket edition of the Black Hole. H. tried to make us believe that the majesty of his presence had over-awed the purser, but we somehow fancied that bribery and corruption had something to do with it. In consequence of this mob of passengers there were three breakfasts, three lunches, etc., a most horrible arrangement, while at all of them the food was bad, and the waiting worse. Thus we grumbled, little thinking with what enthusiasm the same cookery would be received on our return.

As a sea voyage this trip up to Sitka is quite unique, though possibly travelling among the fiords of Norway might be compared to it in quality if not in quantity, for these steamers travel about eight hundred miles between Victoria and Sitka, only about thirty miles of which, the crossing of Queen Charlotte’s Sound, can in any sense be termed open sea, though the whole of it is on salt water. The whole coast up to Cape Spencer is fringed with a mass of islands separated by deep and very narrow channels, in some instances so narrow that, as in the case of Peril Straits and Seymour Narrows, even a steamer can only pass them at slack water. One American gentleman assured me that in the latter strait the tide had been known to run seventeen knots! All these islands are densely wooded with conifers, among which may every now and then be detected the white streak of a waterfall racing down the steep hill-side.

We stopped to coal at Nanaimo, and while this objectionable process was going on, H. and I spent the afternoon in drifting about the harbour in an Indian canoe, a dug-out about twelve feet long, managed in just the same way as the Canadian canoes we have in England, and in endeavouring to acquire some Chinook, the jargon invented more or less by the old traders, and used all over British Columbia and the southern part of Alaska. It contains chiefly Indian words, most of which are common to various different tribes, a few English, a few Russian, and a good many French words, such as Siwash (i.e. sauvage) for Indian, and sawmon for any kind of fish.

Then for six days it rained at intervals, while a grey pall of cloud stretched ceaselessly over our heads, and we spent most of our time playing whist or euchre in our cabin, which would just hold four people. Our fourth on these occasions was a most cheerful Scotchman, known to us as the King of Cassiar, to which kingdom he was now returning. He possessed a large stock of most excellent whisky when he came on board. During these sad and gloomy days we visited sundry salmon canneries, and about midnight on Sunday the 10th we arrived at Wrangel. We had now got so far north that there was quite light enough even at that hour to walk about the streets, and I accompanied our Scotch friend ashore, as he was to leave us here and go up the Stickheen river. While in the town I gleaned the information that canoes went up almost every summer from Hooniah to Yakutat along the unprotected part of the coast, and we proceeded to sketch out plans for conveying our expedition in the same way.

The next day was still wet and cold, and though we met sundry small icebergs floating down from the glaciers in Taku Inlet, we saw nothing of the mountains which gave them birth. Some excitement was caused by our stopping about eleven o’clock to pick up a fair-sized canoe with four of Mr. Duncan’s Metlakatla Indians in her, who had encountered rough weather and damaged their frail craft. We reached the mining city (!) of Juneau in the evening, and H. and I plunged about till late at night, seeking, with the assistance of Mr. Reed, a Juneau store-keeper, for some sloop or schooner which might convey us up to Yakutat. This we failed to find, but we engaged a certain Dick as interpreter, who was said to be the smartest Indian in Alaska, and rejoiced in the appellation of the Dude. For this aristocratic Siwash’s services we weakly consented to pay four dollars a day and his food, and he accompanied us on board, his luggage being about as voluminous as that of a Swiss guide.

On Tuesday the 12th we had at last a perfectly beautiful day, during which we steamed from Douglas Island, the seat of the biggest gold-mine in Alaska, up the Lynn Canal to Pyramid Harbour. The mountains on each side of the narrow inlet were covered with glaciers, all obviously shrinking, and none of any great size, till we came to the Davidson Glacier, close to Pyramid Harbour, which at a distance appears to come right into the sea, though it is really separated from it by a narrow belt of moraine. Retracing our course next day down the Lynn Canal, we then went down Chatham Strait to Killisnoo, where I saw the biggest salmon that I ever came across in Alaska, a brace of about fifty pounds each, and then, passing through most beautiful scenery in Peril Straits, finally reached Sitka at 11 P.M.

CHAPTER II
SITKA TO YAKUTAT

As we were detained at Sitka for a fortnight, making preparations for the expedition, and waiting for W. to come up on the next boat, I may as well give some description of one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. As the traveller lands on the pier, he has the Indian village of about five hundred inhabitants on his left, while just in front are the barracks of the United States marines, and the old Russian citadel, from the top of which he will obtain a lovely view, somewhat resembling that of the Bay of Naples, but with the additional charm of the snow mountains and small glaciers at the head of Silver Bay. Numbers of small green islands stretch across its mouth, while further away to the west lies Kruzoff Island, humping itself into the dormant volcano of Mount Edgcumbe and the double summit of the Camelsback. Due east, and almost overshadowing the town, rises the sharp peak of Verstovia, so called by the Russians from its being supposed to be exactly a verst (about three thousand feet) high, but the translation of the Indian name is Arrowhead. To the north-east lies the little pool of Swan Lake, above which the forest-clad hills sweep up again to the height of about two thousand feet, while across the bay to the south rise mountains of very respectable proportions.

As he goes on up the main street, our traveller sees on the left a broad grassy place beyond which are the remains of towers and stockades, now no longer required to keep out the hostile Siwash, while on the right are a row of stores, of which one or two are still the old log buildings erected by the first inhabitants. He then passes the simple but hospitable little Baranoff hotel on his left, and finds himself in front of the Greek Church, the main feature of Sitka. Brilliantly though rather tawdrily decorated inside, its service on Sunday was impressively conducted and was well attended by many of the older Indians, and by the few Russians left in Sitka.

The road continues along the shores of the bay to the Indian River, a broad rapid stream, foaming in places over ledges of rock; the ground in its neighbourhood has been reserved as a sort of public park, and, though wild and uncared for, presents pictures of great beauty. But though beautiful, the town is very diminutive, and its permanent white population does not, I should think, amount to more than one hundred souls. We had a letter of introduction to Mr. Vanderbilt, one of the Sitka merchants, and, after securing rooms at the aforesaid hotel, went to interview him with decidedly satisfactory results. His partner, Mr. De Groff, was at that time at Yakutat, where he had established a small store, and was supervising some gold mining that had been commenced in the black sand on the shore. His small schooner, the ‘Alpha,’ was expected back every day from sealing, and as soon as she returned she would be sent up to Yakutat with stores for his partner, and could take us as passengers. At that time we did not intend to take any white men, trusting that we should be able to get canoes and porters at Yakutat, Dick being the medium of communication.

We then decided to go on a little training expedition, and selected a sharp peak we had noticed from the steamer in approaching Sitka, and had set down as between seven and eight thousand feet high. To reach this we departed one afternoon in a fair-sized canoe with its owner and Dick, and rowed (for most of these large canoes are fitted with oars) in a northerly direction for about six miles, till we reached the mouth of a narrow bay known as Nusquashinsky or Nushanitzky. Here the wind, though light, was in our favour, and we sailed peaceably up it, reaching its head about seven o’clock, and camped by a broad stream, along which we had at first thought we could make our way towards our mountain, which the Indian informed us was called Sha-klokh, or Spear-peak, but the bush in the valley was so dense that we struck straight up next morning, till in about four hours we got above tree-level, and pitched camp at a height of about two thousand feet close to a big bed of snow. Next day we climbed our peak triumphantly in about three hours, and even put on the rope to cross a big snow-patch hanging on the face, but its height proved to be only 4,300 feet, so easily is one deceived at first in a new country. We built a big stone-man on the top, which we afterwards found was visible with a glass from the bay, and returned to the tents, where we spent most of the afternoon in slumber. At this camp we got one or two deer, and took a lot of venison back to Sitka, intending to dry it and take it north, but unfortunately it all went bad in that moist atmosphere.

Our next expedition was to Kruzoff and Mount Edgcumbe, and this time we had rather a sickener. As we had about fifteen miles of much more open sea we took a bigger canoe, and had to pull the beastly thing all the way, so landed in the first place which came handy, a very awkward landing with a lot of big rocks about. From the appearance of clouds of mosquitoes in the evening Dick prophesied bad weather, and he was right, for it poured the whole of the next day, most of which we spent in the tent. In the afternoon I went out to look for deer, but the bush was so dense that it was impossible to get through it silently, and though I just glimpsed a couple as they started away, I couldn’t even get a snap-shot, and returned bredouille in a very dripping condition. The following day the weather was not quite so adverse, though there was still plenty of rain, and getting our canoe afloat we rowed for an hour and a half along the beach, till we reached a spot where the men said the bush was not so thick. In this they were right, but the ground was broken into countless ravines which always seemed to be at right angles to our course, and getting up and down the slippery sides of these with a heavy knapsack on one’s back proved rather exhausting, so that the afternoon was well advanced by the time we began to climb the steeper slopes of Edgcumbe itself. At last we came on a small clear space in the middle of the thick scrub; and though no level spot could be found for the tent, we decided to pitch camp. A lot of cedar boughs were cut and arranged as evenly as possible for our bed, and after we had fried with bacon and disposed of a ptarmigan H. had picked off with his rifle as we came up, we made what the Indians called ‘a white man’s fire,’ and so got warm if not dry before crawling into our blankets for the night. On the previous evening we had made a nondescript meal off cockles and ‘gumboots,’ a large species of chiton found adhering to the rocks. The Indians are very fond of these and attribute soporific powers to them, but I certainly cannot recommend them, for they resemble nothing more than the indiarubber after which they are named, being absolutely tasteless and appallingly tough.

It rained all night, but the Edgington tent stood it well, very little coming through, and that, I fancy, only where carelessness had left some article touching the canvas. With a view to assisting the commissariat department, we separated in the morning, E. and H. going up to the top of Edgcumbe, and securing two more ptarmigan on the way. They found the bottom of the shallow crater covered with snow, and on the summit itself encountered the tracks of one of the enormous Alaska brown bears (Ursus Richardsonii). I took Dick towards the Camelsback, but we never saw a sign of deer or bear, and so about two o’clock I turned to come home, giving him the rifle that he might make a last effort to procure venison. I had no doubt about being able to find my way back, for I had taken my bearings carefully, and a fair-sized dead tree standing in the middle of our small clearing afforded a capital landmark. I went at a fair pace, and though all the ravines were very much alike, I presently felt pretty sure I was nearing camp, an opinion confirmed in a minute or two by hearing, as I thought, the crooning song of the Indian we had left behind. Still no dead tree appeared, and thinking I must have been mistaken, I pushed on for another quarter of an hour, by which time I felt sure I had gone far enough. I struggled up the mountain, I scrambled down, I shouted and yelled, I had an exciting chase after a couple of ptarmigan, one of which I managed to bag with my revolver, but nowhere could I see this mangy tree, and began to feel very unhappy, as it was gradually borne in on me that I was very decidedly lost. At last I saw far below me two tiny lakes which we had passed on the previous day, and decided to go down to them, as I felt pretty sure I could make camp from there. Hardly had I descended a hundred yards, when I came into the corner of a clearing, and heard E.’s voice. And then the mystery was explained; the other Indian, with praiseworthy but most mistaken industry, had cut down the dead tree for firewood. It had rained all day, and in the night a tremendous south-west gale came on which proved the last straw, and we settled to return to Sitka, where we were going to dismiss the Dude, with whom we had had a row. He had accidentally left his blankets on the beach by the canoe, and though we had lent him one of ours, he was very dissatisfied, and apparently coming to the conclusion that serving us was not likely to be all beer and skittles, announced that he was not coming to Yakutat. We made no attempt to get him to change his mind, for we had already come to the conclusion that he had much too good an opinion of himself, and was more than a little lazy, though he was an entertaining conversationalist, and gave us interesting scraps of information, either social, such as the number of slaves he had till quite recently possessed, or geographical, such as that twenty-one miles up the Copper River a glacier stretches across its whole width, a phenomenon which existed on the Stickheen till comparatively lately. He added that the river was two miles wide at this point, and that a portage of fifteen miles across the ice was made by the Indians with skin canoes, or bidarkies, but as he had never been there I am inclined to doubt his details. Although we were unanimous as to the expediency of dismissing him, we were not at all so united as to how he was to be replaced, and became, indeed, a little despondent as to whether we should get further than Yakutat, so that had we been able to communicate by telegraph with W., I am not at all sure that the expedition would not have then and there come to an end, and the members of it taken refuge in the Selkirks. Luckily we had to wait for him, and in the interval more cheerful counsels prevailed.

Meanwhile we packed down again to the canoe; the wind was very high and there was a lot of sea, but the men thought that as the wind was fair we might venture, and after lunch off a confiding grouse which had fallen a victim to E.’s rifle, we started, and found that, whether we liked it or not, we had got to go on, as returning to the island in the teeth of the gale was quite impossible. The rollers were enormous, but with a little scrap of sail we flew along finely, and in about two hours were back in Sitka harbour.

The next few days were spent chiefly in endless confabulations with various white men and Indians who were willing to accompany us as porters, which resulted in the engagement of two white men, Lyons and McConnahay, and four Sitka Indians, the former to receive three, the latter two dollars a day and their food. E. and I occupied ourselves one morning in the ascent of Verstovia. We left at four o’clock along the Indian River by a fair trail for about an hour, and then, crossing the stream by a fallen tree, struck up to the right through the most abominable bush, full of devil’s clubs, an exceedingly evil plant with large green leaves and scarlet berries, covered as to the stem and the backs of the leaves with minute prickles which penetrate the human skin with unpleasant facility, and, if left in, cause festering sores. It was steamingly hot in the low ground, but we struggled up somehow, or rather I did the struggling, for E. appeared provokingly cool while I was dripping and breathless, and eventually reached the top of the sharp rocky cone which forms the highest peak, at half-past seven, getting just scrambling enough in the last hundred feet to find our rifles rather a nuisance. As we had been told we should take at least six hours, we were rather pleased with ourselves, and after spending an hour on the top and setting up a flagstaff left there some years before by a party of marines, we descended leisurely by the west face, instead of the north-west ridge up which we had come, and got back to Sitka just after eleven.

At last the ‘Alpha’ returned from sealing with 119 skins on board and was beached for repairs. She was followed next day by the ‘Elder,’ which brought W., and after two or three days’ packing and arranging, we actually started on Tuesday, July 3, at 10.30 A.M. About half of the slender population of Sitka came down to see us off, and to wish us every success. While the little five-and-twenty-ton schooner was beating out between the islands against the fresh north-west breeze we discovered that we were being pursued, and soon afterwards a boat came up, bringing an American flag, provided by the kindness of Mr. Hayden, the Acting Governor, and we accordingly hoisted the Stars and Stripes at the masthead. Mrs. Hayden had previously presented us with a small silk flag to be left on the summit of Mount St. Elias, if we ever got there. Dinner was soon announced and we proceeded below, but recoiled from the fearful heat and smell, caused by the want of ventilation in the cabin in which was the cooking-stove. E., who was proof against anything, remained below, but H., W., and I retired to the deck, where we ate our meals during the greater part of our voyage. Shortly afterwards we three yielded to the gruesome attacks of seasickness, as the little vessel was now pitching freely; W., who had often cruised off the east coast of the United States in small yachts, soon recovered, but H. and I remained more or less prostrate the whole time we were on board.

The wind was dead ahead, west by north (magnetic), and our craft made so much leeway that our onward progress was insignificant. Next morning, under a grey sky, we were only fifteen miles from Sitka; Edgcumbe was still in sight the morning after that; and it was not till Friday the 6th that we sighted Mounts Fairweather and Crillon, some sixty miles off, and right ahead. Next day we were only about twenty miles from them, and went tacking steadily up the coast, the glories of which were veiled in almost constant rain and cloud, without making much progress.

On Sunday we at last got past Lituya Bay, near which we saw a humming-bird. In the evening, the wind, which we now regarded as a personal enemy, since, blowing from the north-west, it ought at least to have brought fine weather, began to die away, and at about two in the morning a vigorous south-easter sprang up, so that we flew along finely in the right direction at last; but, to our intense disgust, Captain Jimmy, whose only fault was over-caution, perhaps a natural one on these very dangerous coasts, hove to, fearing lest we might be driven ashore in the thick weather that prevailed. In the evening the wind collapsed and we got a glimpse of land, as to the identity of which there arose a considerable argument, but on the whole those who had been there before held the opinion that we were about thirty miles from Ocean Cape, which view proved correct, as next morning, which was more or less fine, we were only ten miles off. Mount St. Elias and the range as far east as Mount Vancouver were visible, but swathed in clouds. Their height did not impress us much at first sight, but we were greatly struck with the enormous mass of the Malaspina Glacier, the white upper part of which presented such a curiously regular appearance that at first we believed it to be a layer of cloud, till undeceived by the telescope. There was hardly any wind, but we crept round Cape Phipps at last, and came in sight of Yakutat. Once round the corner, the light breeze from the west sent us along faster, and we were soon abreast of the ‘ranche’ on Kantag Island. Great was the excitement among our men: ‘There’s De Groff,’—‘and Callsen,’—‘and Dalton.’

We had hoisted our flag, but the halliards got entangled and the Stars and Stripes were an unsightly ball, omen perhaps of what was to befall us, for as we rounded the point at the end of the island, we kept a little too far out, the tide, ebbing swiftly through the narrow channel, caught our bows, and we ran hard and fast on to a rocky shoal instead of sailing into the harbour known as Port Mulgrave. We were evidently a fixture till the tide rose again, and so went ashore in the hope of finding strawberries, in which we were disappointed, as, though there were any number of plants, the Indian women and children had been beforehand with us, and we only collected a meagre half-dozen. We made the acquaintance of Mr. De Groff, Vanderbilt’s partner, and so part-owner of the ‘Alpha,’ a short, rather good-looking man, with blue eyes and fair hair and beard. Our Siwashes soon found friends and relations in the village, and we agreed to pay them board wages at the rate of $1.25 per day for the lot, while McConnahay (‘Shorty’) and Lyons were to feed with us on the ‘Alpha.’ Another little schooner, the ‘Three Brothers,’ of Kayak Island, was in the harbour when we arrived, but took her departure next day.

There being some alarm as to whether the water would not come in and damage our stores when the schooner floated, we at first resolved to sit up, but eventually we gave it up and turned in. About midnight she was got off and beached in front of the ranche without our knowing anything about it, and without taking in any water.

From this point onwards I give the events just as they are noted in my diary.

CHAPTER III
OPENING APPROACHES

Wednesday, the 11th.—H. spent a large part of the day in interviewing the chief, ‘Billy Masterman,’ on the subject of canoes and men. We also engaged two white men who, with several others, had come prospecting up the coast from Juneau in a whale-boat, but had done no good and were anxious to return in the ‘Alpha.’ ‘Ed.’—I never knew his other name—was tall and dark; Finn, commonly called the Doctor, was a smaller, red-haired man. Both seemed rather slight for packing, but had the reputation of being good cooks. As they were repairing the schooner, we pitched the green tent on the beach, and H., W., and I slept in it, E., who had a slight cold, preferring to remain on board.

Thursday, the 12th.—We managed to engage two large canoes, one of which was to wait at Icy Bay for us. Its owner agreed to this on the condition that he was to stay with it, and with him a youth who was said to be his son, but who subsequently proved to be his brother. Crews were also secured, and we were to have started at three, but there was some wind and they declined to go. W. and I went off and bathed, and then wandered a little way along the beach after a small variety of plover, of which we had seen a good many the day before, but now they all seemed to have vanished. As we returned, however, we came on a small flock; ‘Dick,’ De Groff’s setter pup, spoilt the shot by chasing them, but I got four, and he made some amends by fetching them out of the sea. This outer shore of Kantag Island is a regular shingle beach exposed to the surf; H. and I went along it the day before for about a mile to De Groff’s and Callsen’s gold claim, where they were washing the black sand, or, as some call it, the ruby sand from the quantity of garnets in it, in an amalgamator, but they were doing little more than would pay their expenses.

In the evening the Indians suddenly announced their readiness to start, and at nine o’clock we got off in the two big canoes, and a smaller one which we had purchased for five dollars from one of the miners returning to Sitka on the ‘Alpha.’ We were arranged thus:—In the large canoe we were to keep at Icy Bay were E. and W., with Ed., Lyons, Billy, Jimmy, and three Yakutats; in the other, H. and I, with Shorty, Matthew, Mike, and five Yakutats; and in the small one Finn and two Yakutats. De Groff photographed us from the beach, and we started, the Indians yelling wildly, and the two big canoes racing till we were past the point, when they settled down to a more sedate stroke. Off Cape Phipps, however, the weather looked so threatening in the south-east that we returned ignominiously at half-past ten. We put up our tent on the sand in front of the ranche; everything else was left in the canoes ready for a start, with the sails, etc., stretched over them to protect them from the rain, which came down in torrents. In the middle of the night the tent collapsed at W.’s end, and he had to emerge in the wet and fasten it again, in much peril from the Siwash dogs which we heard growling indignantly as he disturbed their slumbers in the search for something solid to which to attach the rope, while we chuckled inside and congratulated ourselves that we did not sleep next the door. In the morning we found the sand beneath us swarming with maggots bred from the refuse which the Indians used to cast on the beach; the warmth of our bodies had presumably brought them to the surface.

Friday, the 13th.—Next day the weather looked better, and after hiring two more Yakutats, who were put in the small canoe while Finn was transferred to ours, we got off again at 11 A.M. We rowed round the point, and some little way up the bay, when we set sail. There was a strong north-east wind, and the small canoe was soon a good way behind. About half-past three we were off Point Manby; things looked rather bad, with dense black clouds to the south-east, so we waited for the others to come up, and held a council of war. Shorty, who was always on the safe side strongly urged our going ashore, pointing out that there was no landing between Point Manby and Icy Bay, a distance of over thirty miles, and that, should it come on to blow from the south-east, it would probably be impossible to land through the surf by the time we reached the latter place; we should be unable to turn back against the wind, and our only chance would be to run right on before it, in which case we should be carried on to Kayak unless we swamped by the way. Unwilling as we were to land at Point Manby, which, if the weather became bad, would involve a detention of unknown length, and would in any case cause much confusion among our stores by our having to land, and then re-embark them, H. and I were inclined to agree with him, but E. and W. so strongly opposed it, pointing out with justice that the similar appearance of the evening before had only resulted in heavy rain, that we gave way and decided to go on, thereby, as I believe, running the biggest risk encountered on the whole expedition. Fortunately the others were right, the wind died down, causing the men to take to their oars, and was succeeded by a deluge of rain, after which the north-east wind came again and our canoe took the small one in tow.

All this time we were running along the face of the Agassiz, or rather the Malaspina, Glacier, for it is all one field of ice, which here seems quite motionless, its front covered with gravel and boulders, among which appear a few sparse bushes. At last we reached a point which we recognised as Cape Sitkagi from the delta of flat land which commenced just beyond, and Gums, one of the Yakutats who had been with the former expedition, indicated that we were near our destination. Going on some five or six miles further we then prepared to land. From our men’s accounts of surf-landings and from Seton-Karr’s book, we were prepared for a fearful struggle with the waves. Shorty transferred himself to the little canoe, and they went ashore without apparent difficulty; but then she was light and small. Then came our turn, and H. and I went up into the bows with instructions to jump the moment she touched, and, should she get broadside on and capsize, to be careful to jump to sea, so as not to be pounded between the canoe and the beach. After these cheerful directions we were a shade nervous as we contemplated the shore, which we were now rapidly approaching, while the others stood ready to receive us, but as we got closer we came to the conclusion that the breakers were very small, and before we touched our contempt for the Pacific surf in its then condition was complete. We were now quite close; the Indians paused for a favourable moment, and then dashed in their paddles with wild yells. We rode in on the crest of a wave and were swept up the beach as it broke. Instantly the others grasped the canoe, and there ensued a scene of the wildest confusion. Every man seized the first thing he could lay hold of, rushed up the beach with it, tossed it down, and ran back for more, till the canoe was empty, when we hauled her up a little way and prepared to receive the others, who were not quite so fortunate, for, as they touched land, another breaker came in over their stern but did no damage. The beach was now strewn with our properties, which were gradually collected and conveyed beyond the reach of the highest tide, where we pitched camp and the canoes were dragged up. It was now nine o’clock, but quite light, and some of the Indians went off after seals which had been seen in the mouth of a small river just to the east of us. A good deal of firing was heard, and according to their own account they shot three, but unfortunately these were all lost in the sea.

Saturday, the 14th.—The morning was spent in sorting and arranging the stores. With the object of remaining as long as possible in the vicinity of the mountain, we four agreed to carry our own properties, so that the men might be free to carry more food, and soon came to the conclusion that we must leave our rifles at the beach. W. and E. tried to take one between them, but left it at the first cache. We saw a green humming-bird flashing along the shore, and another had been observed at Yakutat. In the afternoon we all sallied forth to explore the neighbourhood; H. and Ed. went along the beach, which was covered with bear-tracks, for some four miles to the first outlet of the river, re-christened by Lieutenant Schwatka with the euphonious name of Jones, and Ed. returned considerably impressed with the walking powers of our gallant captain. E. and Shorty penetrated with great difficulty for some distance along the banks of the river, which ran into the sea close to camp. I took the shot-gun and started with W. and Lyons along the beach, but I soon separated from them, and went on the shore-side of the lagoons, where I hoped to find duck. In this I was disappointed, but I shot a large sandpiper and a couple of ring-necked plover. On the sandhills of the beach were the largest wild strawberries I ever saw, some fully as big as a shilling, while the supply was utterly inexhaustible. It came on to pour in torrents, and we all returned soaked through, and quite undecided as to our future route. All that night the rain descended in a deluge, and, driven by a fierce east wind, even succeeded in penetrating our excellent green tent which had stood so well on Mount Edgcumbe.

Sunday, the 15th.—In the morning the men showed no sign of life, so after a cold breakfast H. and W. sallied forth to see whether it would be possible to ‘pack’ up the river by our camp, while E. and I curled up again in our blankets. About 2 P.M. the rain began to leave off, and the men emerged and made a fire. For lunch we fried some seal-meat, the Indians having been successful in shooting one the day before. H. and W. returned dripping at three o’clock, in time to share our repast, and reported that the bush was too dense to pack through, so we decided to start early next morning and follow the same route as the Schwatka party. In the evening E. announced the presence of two plover by the river close to camp, so I executed a stalk through the sand which brought me within easy shot, but trying to get both at once, I missed with the first barrel and only secured one. I then plucked and cleaned my four birds, and we fried them with bacon for supper.

Monday, the 16th.—Fine at last and some sunshine! We had a grand view of St. Elias through the clouds, which gradually cleared off, and we were able at our leisure to survey the monarch, who looked most formidable, but we hoped he would improve on acquaintance.

Though we were up at five, there was so much to be done that it was not till eight that the procession began its march along the sandhills. As it was the first day, the men were not used to their burdens of from sixty to eighty pounds, and could only go about two miles an hour, in addition to which they stopped to rest every three or four hundred yards. As some of the Indians seemed to be overburdened, I went back to H., who had not yet started, and we hired for the day three of the other Yakutats. At the site of Schwatka’s shore camp we picked up a short .44 cartridge and a piece of sheet-lead. While resting there I suddenly perceived a bear cantering along the other side of the lagoon about five hundred yards off. Shorty, who was carrying his rifle, which was also left at the first cache, was anxious to go in pursuit, but H. declined to allow this, as being a waste of valuable time. Progressing very slowly, and halting continually to attack the strawberries, we at length reached the first river at half-past eleven. Seton-Karr recommends the ascent of this, but it looked very unpromising and we kept on. Most of the men stripped more or less to cross this stream, which was well over our knees and horribly cold, but as we knew there would be lots more wading, none of us four took the trouble of taking off boots or stockings. In an hour more, across a flat grassy plain with scattered fir-trees we reached a creek of the main river and halted for lunch, after which the fun began.

The streams were not deep, being seldom above our knees, but their beds, and generally the spaces in between, were of that terrible glacier mud, as glutinous as quicksands, and through this we toiled, every now and then skirting the edge of the forest, where a scanty vegetation of sedge and marestails gave a little sounder going, and resting whenever a fallen log or two offered something substantial to sit on. Presently it began to rain heavily; Gums pointed out a spot where he declared Schwatka halted the first day, but this disagreed with Seton-Karr’s account, and as it was yet early we pushed on in hope of at least finding a dry camping-place. In this, although the moraine of the Agassiz Glacier was now looming near at hand, we were doomed to be disappointed; and after two unusually deep and rapid crossings, in one of which Lyons lost his footing and emerged in a pitiable plight, though with nothing gone except his temper, we sought the shelter of the woods, thoroughly numbed by this ceaseless wading in ice-water. Such a thing as a flat place was not to be found above the level of the mud, but by careful search we discovered a spot where the logs and stones were more or less disguised by the dense layer of moss, and pitched the tents. With the aid of a couple of roaring fires and some excellent pea-soup we restored some warmth to our shivering limbs, but, as it was still pouring, dryness was not to be hoped for, and decidedly weary with the first day’s march, we sought our blankets. E. and I then discovered the deceitfulness of the moss; H. and W. were fairly well off, but at our end of the tent an enormous boulder projected. With the aid of knapsacks I enlarged the mountain, so that I was able to doze more or less on its summit, while E. curled himself in a ball in the valley at my feet. The mosquitoes attacked us in myriads, but E. and W. were soon asleep; H. and I were not so fortunate, and I never became enough accustomed to the absence of darkness to sleep well. In the middle of the night, just as I was dropping off, I was suddenly aroused by something tickling my neck, and putting up my hand grasped an enormous beetle. Flinging it from me, I promptly massacred it, and discovered H. eyeing my movements with mild astonishment. I explained, and we composed ourselves to rest again, if not to sleep.

Tuesday, the 17th.—Next morning we got off at half-past seven and continued up the river, but with less wading as we were now next the Agassiz moraine. At one point, which must have been very near the site of Schwatka’s first camp, we halted for about an hour while W. and H. made an attempt to get up the face of the moraine. In this they succeeded, but only to find the scrub on the glacier itself so dense that it would have been impossible for the packers to penetrate it, and we pushed on up the bed of the river. Gums soon announced that there would be no more wading, to the delight of the men, who put on their boots; but their joy was turned to wrath when, on rounding the next corner, we had to plunge in again. Of course these streams are always changing their bed, and we found very great variations in their rise and fall apart from their natural increase by day and decrease by night. This was probably to be accounted for by the periodical closing and bursting of the many glacier lakes. At last the river began to contract, and its bed was now only about a mile wide. On the other side was the bare ice of the Guyot Glacier, while we were now driven by the depth of one of the main streams on to the moraine of the Agassiz Glacier, where we halted from half-past eleven till two, while we had lunch, made a cache, and dismissed our three extra Yakutats, one of whom was the boy who was to stay at Icy Bay as company for the canoe-owner.

We were now reduced to our proper quota of fourteen, and our retainers deserve a somewhat more elaborate description than they have hitherto had. Of our four whites, our right-hand man was Arthur McConnahay, nicknamed Shorty, apparently on the lucus a non lucendo principle, being some six feet four inches in height. Very handsome, with fair hair and blue eyes, he was the ideal Anglo-Saxon in appearance, and, being extremely good-natured, he was a great favourite with our Indians, with whom he would readily share his last bit of tobacco; but he was an inveterate grumbler, and often roused H.’s wrath by his ceaseless growls against the hardships of the way. Though the son of an Indiana farmer, he had been on the Pacific coast for some years, and, being captured in one of the sealers seized in the Behring’s Sea, had been stranded at Sitka without means to get away. In May he had been up to Yakutat and back in a canoe, searching for a lost sloop, the ‘Leola,’ and the knowledge he thus obtained of the coast proved subsequently most useful to me. He had, however, once been shipwrecked near Valparaiso, when he had a narrow escape of his life, being washed up insensible, and always had a great distrust of bad weather at sea.

Harry Lyons, his great friend, though not so tall, was a man of immense strength, with light hair and grey eyes. He hailed from Iowa, and had been for some time a fisherman on the Columbia river, where he seemed to have had some rather exciting experiences, and to have made things exciting for other people too; for, when one of the steamers was running through his salmon-nets, he put a bullet into the bridge within a foot of the captain. He once got in one haul seven hundred and fourteen salmon, each over twenty pounds, and also captured the biggest salmon ever taken in the river, weighing over seventy-four pounds. Having lost boat and nets in a storm he had gone in for sealing, and when we engaged him had just come in on the ‘Alpha.’ A good packer, and a first-rate man in a boat, he was terribly lazy in camp, not wilfully, but it didn’t seem to occur to him to do things.

Ed. and Finn were both Eastern men, the former coming from Maine, and the latter from Erie. Neither was conspicuous for ardour in packing, and it would have been pretty safe to bet on their loads being lighter than other people’s. But in camp they were very useful, especially as bakers. Ed. generally undertook this task, and it was not till we were back in Yakutat, and the baking-powder began to run short, that we discovered Finn’s talent for ‘sour-dough’ bread. He was a man of considerable education and of a scientific turn of mind, with some knowledge of chemistry and botany. With Ed. and three or four others, he had come prospecting up the coast from Juneau, stopping every few miles. They had been up in Disenchantment Bay, a long fiord running inland from the head of Yakutat Bay, and were going on to Nuchuk, but a few miles west of Point Manby they were imprisoned on the beach by a storm from the south-east. Trying to get off too soon, they were swamped, and barely escaped with their lives. Luckily for them their boat was not injured, and when they got off a day or two later, they returned to Yakutat, as they had lost most of their stores, and there we found them.

Of our Indians, Matthew, our so-called interpreter, was not popular with us. He had been a mission boy, and accordingly thought a good deal of himself, and was inclined to be insolent.

Mike, a short burly fellow, with a most ruffianly cast of countenance, was in reality very good-natured, and, like all the Indians, a magnificent packer; but he was very slow and somewhat dense.

Billy, who had been specially recommended to us by Milmore, steward to Captain Newell of the ‘Pinta,’ was my favourite among them. Taller than usual, and not at all deformed in the legs, he had almost a European cast of countenance.

Jimmy was just the contrary, being very small and ugly, with much-distorted lower limbs. Both he and Billy were extremely strong, and on the occasion of my return from Camp I to Camp J their loads came very near a hundred pounds.

Of the two Yakutats who accompanied us, ‘Gums’ was quite a character. He had been so christened by Schwatka, from his peculiar smile, which revealed not only his teeth, but the whole of the interior of his mouth. He was the incarnation of undisciplined devilry. Full of pluck, he would rather wade a glacier stream twice over than go a hundred yards round, as we often found to our cost when he was professing to guide us up the river. If we declined to follow the route he selected, or if he thought his burden too great, he would get very sulky, not to say wrathful; but, like a child, he was easily appeased.

Of the other one, George (not to be confounded with the second chief of Yakutat), I recall but little, except that on our return he set the fashion of wearing knickerbockers in the village by rolling his trousers up to his knees, after the manner of the Swiss guides. The extreme brilliancy of his striped stockings impressed this fact on my memory.

After leaving the cache we went on up stream for about a mile, sometimes on little strips of beach, but oftener driven by the river on to the face of the moraine, which was covered with dense alder scrub, offering terrible difficulty to the laden packers, as the boughs, pressed down by the winter’s snow, mostly sloped down-hill, while the foothold on the slope itself was of a most precarious character. Eventually we left the river and steered to the east, hoping to get through to bare ice, but the bush seemed to grow thicker and the ubiquitous devil’s clubs more numerous at every step. At last, as we were resting, thoroughly sick of creeping and crawling through the tangle, W. valiantly climbed a somewhat stouter alder than usual, and from that eminence, which threatened momentarily to collapse with him, announced, to our intense delight, that he could see bare rocks only a few hundred yards ahead.

Summoning up our last energies, we soon pushed through, and as it was now half-past four, E. and I, who were ahead, began to search at once for a convenient spot for camp. Although on a glacier, water was the great desideratum, for the ice was here completely covered with rocks and gravel, but I was fortunate enough to discover a tiny stream by its sound in a convenient hollow, and set to work, with E.’s assistance, to level a place for the tent, while H. and W. pushed on a little way to get some idea of our route for the next day. It had been discovered that our bacon was fading away too rapidly, so we confined ourselves to soup and bread for supper, after which the sun came out and held out hopes of improvement in the weather. My watch now caused me some annoyance by stopping twice, and though it went spasmodically for about a week, it then gave out altogether.

Wednesday, the 18th.—Our luxurious couch of alder-boughs did not manage to keep the cold out, so that we did not sleep very well, and obeyed with alacrity H.’s réveille at five o’clock. It was a glorious morning and we were off by seven, in a northerly direction at first, but the going was so bad that we went back westwards to the depression where the two glaciers joined. This Agassiz Glacier, on which it was our miserable fate to meander so much, to the great detriment of our boots and our tempers, was covered with the worst kind of moraine I have ever encountered, not excepting the streets of the city of San Francisco. At first sight it appeared to consist of mounds of stones, but appearances were, as usual, deceitful; for these mounds were in reality of ice, produced by the effect of weathering, and covered with a skin of rocks and dirt, which was thick on the north, but thin and often altogether absent on the south side. Plenty of mud lay in the hollows between, varied by an occasional ‘moulin,’ and we were rarely able to travel twenty yards in a straight line. In the depression it was at first a little better, but soon after our lunch of bread and smoked salmon it got much worse, so that frequently E. and I, who were in front, had to cut a few steps, and in one of these places Gums came a most splendid cropper.