With Sack and Stock in Alaska

At length we left this and steered east again, being much cheered by reaching a comparatively flat region, and soon afterwards clear ice. We had had a grand view of our mountain all day, but it was still too far off for us to make out any possible route. On the white ice we progressed much more rapidly, though it was anything but level, being weathered into hummocks three or four feet high. There were not many crevasses, and those only a few inches in width. By four o’clock we were not more than two miles from the Chaix Hills, which we could see were well wooded on their lower slopes, but we were steering for a break in them some seven or eight miles off, where we hoped might lie the glacier reported by Professor Libbey as coming direct from St. Elias. But the men were thoroughly exhausted, and it was evidently impossible to get there that night, so we held a council. H., wisely as it afterwards proved, was in favour of sleeping where we were on the glacier, and continuing our route next day; but the rest of us opposed this frigid course with such warmth, that he reluctantly gave way, and we accordingly turned north-west to gain the hills, and soon got into difficulties again among the stony mounds; while, when H. and I at last reached the edge of the glacier, we found ice-cliffs, varying in height from fifty to a hundred feet, utterly cutting us off from the land. However, I thought I saw a possible place half-a-mile or so further up, and going on with great difficulty, I discovered a spot where the cliffs gave way to a steep slope covered with débris, down which we wound our weary way, and then waded the inevitable river which always sent us wet to bed. On the other side we found a charming camping-place on a sort of raised beach, marking, presumably, the height of the river in some former flood, but now covered with flowers, among which I recognised a large blue lupin, mimulus, two kinds of spiræa, and three of willow-herb. Mosquitoes were also abundant. After supper we held a consultation and decided to keep Billy and Jimmy with us while the rest of the men were to return to the beach for another load, and in the meantime we would coast along the east side of the Chaix Hills.

CHAPTER IV
AN ATTACK AND A COUNTERMARCH

Thursday, the 19th.—We spent a comfortable night and indulged next morning in the luxury of a ‘long lie.’ About nine o’clock the men departed, going down stream along the edge of the hills. This was in opposition to our advice, as we felt sure the ice-cliffs would get worse as they approached Lake Castani; but Gums confidently asserted his capability of finding a route, and they thought anything would be better than repeating the toils of the previous day. They would, we reckoned, take two days to go down and three to return, so that, allowing them a day’s rest at the beach, we might hope to see them again on Tuesday. After their departure we reckoned up our stores; there was not much bacon, but plenty of soup, chocolate, etc., and flour enough for at least a fortnight. We then heated water in the big kettle and indulged in the luxury of a good wash, which was perhaps slightly needed, as our scanty ablutions for the last week had been perforce in glacier water, which at a temperature of 32° or so, has not much cleansing power.

After lunch (bread and chocolate) we took about twenty and the men about forty pounds each, and set out to make a cache further up the stream; H., in addition to his burden, attempted to carry the coal-oil stove, a most detestable fardel, but dropped it when he had gone about half a mile. For the first three miles our going was fairly easy, along the landward side of the stream, but we then came to a glacier lake, where we surprised a small flock of geese, at which H. and I fired our revolvers unavailingly. We at first attempted the land side of the lake, but were soon defeated, as the cliffs went sheer down into the water, and we had to return, wade the stream, and climb up on to the débris-covered glacier. Half an hour of this sufficed to bring us to the other side of the lake, and we descended again to the river-bed, up which we proceeded for another three miles, wading frequently from side to side so as to make the most of the little bits of beach. Here the hill-side was very steep and with the ice-cliffs of the glacier formed a miniature cañon just beyond which we deposited our burdens on a flat bed of gravel and returned rapidly to camp, wading the river twelve times between the cache and the lake. While we were making the cache, E. went on a little way and found that the river issued from an ice-arch under the glacier, from which we hoped that Libbey’s glacier might be near at hand. We discovered on our homeward route that it was possible to pass along the lake under the glacier, and so to save both time and exertion, though at the risk of a falling stone or two.

We decided that evening to move camp as far as the lake before attempting further exploration. Just after supper, Billy, who had wandered off a little way down stream, rushed back shouting, ‘Coonch, coonch!’ and explained by saying, ‘All same dog.’ We ran out with our pistols, but were only in time to see a large wolf vanish into the bushes.

Friday, the 20th.—We struck camp at 7.15, and I started first with the men. Before going far I came on the discarded stove, and managed to hoist it along; but for this I received no thanks, as the others wasted a quarter of an hour in vainly searching for it. Dropping our loads at the point where the stream issued from the lake, Billy, Jimmy, and I went back for a fresh lot, and buried a letter for Shorty, directing them to follow us up stream. As E. had a cold, it was thought he had better not do any wading, and he remained in camp to pitch the tent and arrange things generally, while H. and W. went on to explore beyond our cache. After lunch the Indians went back for the last load, while I tried to get round the lake on the land side, but I found the rock so dangerous that I abandoned the attempt. I am no geologist, but it appeared to be a sort of clayey sandstone, very hard below, but with a soft crust on top, which gave way beneath hands, feet, or ice-axe. I then went round the lake on the ice side, and tried to cross what seemed to be a peninsula between the river and the head of the lake; but the ferns and alder-scrub on this proved to be so dense that after going some way without being able to see anything, I gave that up also, and returned to camp at half-past three. H. and W. came in at five o’clock, having got as far as a second lake, whence they were able to see the glacier that descends from St. Elias. Though this was still at some distance, we felt encouraged, and after supper indulged in a little whist. W. and E. played against H. and me; W.’s whist was indeed extraordinary, and he apparently so confused his partner as eventually to make him revoke in the most palpable manner by trumping clubs and then leading them. We never played whist again, but confined ourselves to piquet.

Saturday, the 21st.—A cloudless morning greeted us, and at 7.30 we four started out with the firm determination of reaching the long-sought glacier. We went up the river to the ice-arch, where we climbed again on to the glacier to turn the second lake. When we had gone a little further, we halted to sketch and photograph our mountain, the upper part of which was showing well over the Chaix Hills. We then plodded on over the disgusting moraine, and at noon reached the point where Libbey’s Glacier runs into the Agassiz. We halted here for lunch, and then started to climb it. Though descending at a considerable angle, it was not much broken, and in fifty minutes more E., W., and I, slanting across it in an easterly direction, reached a green island which so much resembled the Gletscher Alp at Saas Fee that we christened it the Langenfluh. On the other side of this there was a grand ice-fall with great black seracs. H. had stayed behind to take some bearings, and at first we failed to see him anywhere, but soon discovered that he was taking a more direct course up the glacier towards St. Elias. We pushed on, and soon joined him on the plateau above. Here, though a little later the ice would doubtless be bare, we found some snow-patches in the hollows, and had to be a little cautious about crevasses.

Fairly on the top at last, we halted before one of the most magnificent views I ever hope to see. The plateau stretched before us, at much the same level for eight or ten miles, right to the foot of the mountain, which here rose in one appalling precipice. Put the Dom as seen from Saas on the top of Monte Rosa as seen from Macugnaga, and you will have some idea of the grandeur of the spectacle that lay before us. To the right rose the double-headed Cook, seamed with a great couloir down its centre, then the rather shapeless mass of Vancouver, and beyond that numbers of unnamed peaks, some of which we thought we recognised as having been noticed at Yakutat. Far away to the east were Fairweather and Crillon, clearly defined on the horizon.

The upper part of our mountain was not so steep as the lower, but the whole face was streaming with avalanches, the dull boom of which was plainly audible from time to time, and on the mountain itself no possible route could be discovered. On the south arête rises a very prominent and beautiful peak (subsequently christened Haydon Peak), and beneath this were some rocks on which W. urged that an attempt might be made, but through the big telescope they looked most unpleasant, and he yielded to our united advice that we should return on our tracks, and, circumnavigating the Chaix Hills, which, from their broken nature, it was impossible to cross, see what we could do on the south-west side, where Seton-Karr had failed. After taking observations, which afterwards gave the height we had reached as 1,625 feet above the sea, we reluctantly left at about four o’clock, and tried to improve our return route by keeping down the bed of the stream, instead of on the ice, till nearly at the second lake; but I do not think we gained much, as we were then forced on to the glacier in its most unpleasant part. We stopped at the cache to bring back some stores, and finally reached camp at nine, very weary and footsore from the fearful moraine-walking, which had nearly destroyed one of my two pairs of boots already. Some tomato soup revived us somewhat, and we turned in at half past eleven.

Sunday, the 22nd.—The weather was again perfect, and we spent the morning in sketching and similar peaceful occupations, but H. was not going to allow us the luxury of a whole day’s rest, and after lunch we packed down again to Camp D, whence E. and I went on down stream, following the tracks made by our men on Thursday, which were plainly visible in the sandy soil. In forty minutes we reached Lake Castani, which presented an extraordinary scene; the water was very low, and enormous bergs lay stranded far up the hill, even to the very edge of the timber, some of them as much as a hundred feet above the level of the lake. We were here much puzzled by the sudden disappearance of the tracks at the water’s edge. The ice-cliffs were, as we had expected, utterly unscaleable, and we could only suppose that they had gone round, their footprints being invisible on the harder face of the hill.

We continued along the shore till we had crossed a small stream running in from the north, and kept on to the west for some distance, when we realised that the lake was in shape something between a broad arrow and a crescent moon, and that our best route in future would be to cut across from horn to horn. Accordingly, we turned inland through the trees, and in fifteen minutes reached a beautifully clear little rivulet, near which were many flat places well suited for a camp. Stepping out briskly, eighty minutes brought us back to camp at six o’clock, where we found the others preparing supper.

Monday, the 23rd.—We actually succeeded in getting off at 6.45, no light task, as it generally took a good two hours to make breakfast, including bread-baking, strike the tents, and arrange the packs. We coasted round the lake and dropped our loads, not on the stream where E. and I had been the day before, but by a small pond to the left, where we could see across Castani to the glaciers. The Indians then returned to D for more things, while H., E., and W. started with the hope of finding a way across the hills at our back. I had no belief in the possibility of this, and went on round the lake to try and find out, if possible, what had been the route of our other men. At the westernmost point of the peninsula projecting into the lake, I came on their traces for a few yards, when they again vanished at the water’s edge. Oddly enough, the true solution never once occurred to us. Going leisurely, I reached at 11.15 the north-west extremity of the lake, putting up half-a-dozen geese as I went whose wildness argued considerable knowledge of man. I then meditated a return to camp, but my plans were suddenly changed by coming on tracks in the herbage which I believed to be those of the men. I followed them, first over a space where the wind had overthrown all the trees in every direction, raising a natural abattis that presented most formidable obstacles, and then through some dense alder-scrub to the edge of the Guyot Glacier.

I supposed they must have gone back by this, and, as there was no objectionable river cutting me off, I thought I might as well go on to the glacier for a bit and ascertain its nature. A belt of moraine separated me from the white ice, and this moraine was different to that on the Agassiz. The glacier was much more even and the stones fewer, but in the hollows between the mounds lay pools of horrible red mud often knee-deep, which made the way anything but a primrose path, for the mud was often crusted enough to bear biggish stones, and so deluded the unwary traveller on to it. At length I got beyond this, making a slight sketch en route, and, going up parallel with the hills, found myself on white ice, but involved in a system of rather formidable crevasses, in one of which I nearly came to grief. It was at a point where two large crevasses ran together; I was between them, and as I reached the apex of the triangle, from which I intended to jump, the ice gave way beneath me, and I descended abruptly a distance of some seven or eight feet, but the block wedged beneath me, saving me from a violent squeeze, if not worse. Though somewhat jarred, I had not let go of my axe, and chipping a step or two, was soon out of my prison. A few minutes more brought me to level ice with very few stones on it, and as I was able to walk very fast on this, I had at two o’clock nearly reached the west end of the Chaix Hills, which here had subsided into green knolls, though a mile or so further back a large lake, which with its ramifications and the gorges from them evidently extended far inland, must have hopelessly cut off the others had they tried to cross the hills direct.

I was congratulating myself on my superior astuteness, when, to my utter amazement, I heard shots, and discovered the others pursuing ptarmigan on the hills with their revolvers. By the time I reached them they had exhausted their few cartridges, and I found W. anxiously watching over the old hen, who obligingly waited till I arrived, but unfortunately I also missed, and we had no ptarmigan for supper that night. The others had failed almost at once in their attempt to cross the hills and so had descended to the glacier, and it was their track I had followed through the bush. E. was very full of a small trout which they had discovered in one of the pools of a tiny rill on the hills, and it was certainly a complete marvel what that fish could do with himself in winter, when one would think everything would be frozen solid. E. went back next day, captured him and bottled him in alcohol.

On the hills we all scattered; I went across to the other side and had a grand view of St. Elias across the curve of the Tyndall Glacier, but coming back to the Guyot a good deal lower down than where I had left it, I found I had missed the others. Being rather tired, I was disinclined to go back, so kept on homewards, and an hour’s moraine, and then fifty minutes across the neck of the peninsula, on which were one or two pools full of yellow water-lilies, brought me into camp at six o’clock pretty well beat, but I got two loaves made and some apples cooked by the time they arrived an hour later. We then had to pitch our tent, and it was, as usual, hard to find a flat place, but we managed it at last, though the flies and mosquitoes here threatened to be worse than ever.

Tuesday, the 24th.—E. and W. went off about nine to cut a trail through the worst part of the bush by the Guyot Glacier, and the Indians to E for the last load of stores. H. and I stayed at home mending our boots and raiment, much plagued by the flies, of which there were many kinds, varying from a large house-fly to a microscopic grey beast, but all equally anxious to feed off us. About eleven I went towards the lake and succeeded in setting fire to a couple of dead trees, to serve as a signal to the men whom we were expecting from the beach. After this we lunched early off a few beans, and then H. set off with Billy and Jimmy to make a cache at the place where we left the bush for the Guyot Glacier. Directly afterwards E. and W. came back, and at the same moment we heard shouts across the lake. The men had returned. E. shouted to them to go round by the Guyot, and I rushed off and caught up H., who, after the cache had been made, set off to meet them, while the Indians and I returned slowly as it was very hot.

As the rest of us were having supper, a little after six, we suddenly saw a figure come in sight round the eastern corner of Castani. It was the energetic Gums, followed at intervals by the rest of our men, who had failed to understand our cries and had gone on by the Agassiz Glacier to our old camp at D. Gums, who had sworn he would never go that way again, kept his word in the letter if not in the spirit by cutting steps down the cliffs some three hundred yards short of the slope opposite camp, down which the others came as they had done before. The mystery of their footprints was then explained. When they reached the lake its bed was quite dry, and they went right across it to the western side, where they were able to get on to the ice, and, the Guyot Glacier proving much easier than the Agassiz, they reached B without difficulty the first day. The next day they reached the shore, going down by the river recommended by Seton-Karr, which we had advised them to try. They took a day’s rest, returned in one day to B, and made their camp next night at the spot where the river issued from the ice. Leaving this at 4.30 A.M., they had nearly got to Castani by nine o’clock, when Gums, who was on ahead, reported that the lake was too high to cross, and they turned towards the old route on the Agassiz, finding very bad going.

While thus engaged they saw the smoke from the fire I had lit, and Gums then said he could get round by the Guyot, but as he had previously denied the existence of such a way the men declined to try it, and, after hailing us without understanding what we said in reply, went on to D and so round. They were all in good health, but George, the only one who had no boots, was very footsore. H. came in about half-an-hour later, somewhat annoyed by his wild-goose-chase, splashed with glacier-mud, and hoarse with shouting after the lost caravan; but he was too hungry to waste time in grumbling, and after supper we turned in early. At this camp, in consequence of E.’s snoring, which had become perfectly maddening, packed like sardines as we were, I turned round and slept with my head where my feet used to be. W. occasionally did a little snoring in a mild way, but was nothing to E., who not only snored his breath in, but blew it out again with a puff like a locomotive. Sleeping with his head under the blankets because of mosquitoes, increased the evil, and it was no good my poking or kicking him, for he always went to sleep again long before I did.

Wednesday, the 25th.—After the fatigues of the previous day the men slept late. Gums went to fetch some of the Indians’ blankets, &c., left at D. At nine o’clock E. and nearly all the men got under way, followed shortly by H. and W., while an hour later I brought on Mike, George, and Gums, who went very slowly and did not reach the edge of the glacier till twelve. Here I had a row with Gums, who had apparently got out of bed wrong leg foremost, and maintained that his load was too heavy, threatening, in order to lighten it, to throw away the frying-pans and kettles. As he had been ahead of us most of the time, so that I had had to call him back more than once, and was, besides, much the strongest of the three Indians with me, this was absurd, and I nearly lost my temper with him, a fatal thing when dealing with the natives; but, curbing my righteous indignation, I merely remarked, ‘Halo kettle, halo muck-a-muck,’ i.e., ‘No kettles, no supper,’ and, leaving him to digest that information and a ship’s biscuit to soften it down, I went on after the others, who were vanishing over the glacier. For this my conscience rather reproached me afterwards, for, without amounting to an ice-fall, there were some rather ugly crevasses a little way on, in which laden men might conceivably have come to grief, but they turned up all right. I had caught up most of those ahead, and had relieved W. of the camera which he was carrying, when we heard shouts from E. and Shorty at the edge of the glacier.

With the exception of H., who was on ahead up the glacier and took no part in the struggle that ensued, we hurried on and found that, as they got on to the hill-side, they had espied a small flock of geese on a pool between the glacier and the land. Shorty fired his pistol at them, on which, instead of flying away, they swam into a cave under the ice, and he ran down and blockaded them while E. shouted for us. We went down to the water, and with some difficulty reached the mouth of the cave on pieces of ice that were more or less afloat. To get there we had to pass under a slender ice-arch that seemed to be on the point of falling, but once on the ice-blocks we were quite safe. Accordingly Shorty, W., and I commenced firing, whilst the others guarded the exit as best they could, and a wild scene ensued. E. in his excitement slipped into the water, where he grabbed no less than three geese, but was only able to secure one, with which he retired to shore terribly numbed. Meanwhile a good many had got out of the cave, but, to our delight, they could not fly, the old ones being in moult at the time and the young ones being still flappers, so that, after much stone-throwing, firing, and occasional use of ice-axes, we found ourselves in possession of ten geese. Two, I believe, escaped under the ice, one badly wounded.

We then pushed on after H., bearing our spoils with us, and camped about four o’clock in a most lovely spot at the west end of the Chaix Hills. Just at our back was a little lake about two hundred yards long, in which we used to bathe, and in front of us rose our mountain, partly concealed by a group of fir-trees to our right, the last timber that we met with, though I saw three dead trunks on the other side of the Tyndall Glacier. We made a tremendous supper off stewed goose and apple-sauce, and afterwards decided to cross the glacier next morning to the site of Schwatka’s last camp, where, though there was no timber, we could see that there was plenty of scrub, probably alder, like that surrounding us. There was a most lovely sunset, but directly afterwards it got very cold, and we rapidly sought our blankets.

CHAPTER V
FURTHER ADVANCE AND MY RETREAT

Thursday, the 26th.—A beautiful sunrise ushered in a splendid day, and we turned out at four o’clock. At 5.30 Ed., with Matthew and Mike, started down to bring up the stores left in the cache by the Guyot Glacier, and half-an-hour later the rest of us descended the slopes to the Guyot, as a long lake cut us off from going directly on to the Tyndall Glacier. Once on the ice, we curved round to the north, making for the north-east extremity of the opposite hills. The glacier was fairly flat and not much broken, though there were a good many small crevasses in the white ice as we approached the hills. All these glaciers are shrinking so rapidly that crevasses, generally of considerable size, are always to be found anywhere near their edges, and as these are naturally nearly always parallel to their direction, they are some times a great nuisance.

We got on to the green hills at 9.30; Gums showed us Schwatka’s last camping place, and, after rummaging about a bit in the bushes, produced the Niagara crampons brought by Professor Libbey. The last hill, which rose about two hundred feet above the glacier, was almost isolated from the rest, and we pushed on over the low col between it and the main mass, putting up several coveys of ptarmigan as we went over the grass and through patches of alder-scrub. In a few minutes we came to the glacier again; between it and the land was another small lake on which were numerous geese, but we made no attempt at the time to molest them. Two fair-sized streams ran into this, and as Gums declared, wrongly as usual, that we should find no firewood further on, we halted directly after crossing the first of these.

The men then returned, except Jimmy and Billy, who were to stay with us as before. Shorty and Harry were to remain at Camp G, and the rest to go down to the beach and return in about ten days, by which time we expected to have done our possible, though our hopes of getting to the top were very faint by this time. As they departed along the edge of the lake we saw them waving and pointing, but could not make out what it was all about. After resting a little, H. and W. went off to explore, while E. stewed a goose and I made bread and pitched the tent. Our camp was on the edge of a low cliff above the stream, and at the extreme verge of this a bear had been squatting in the long grass. The Indians utilised this spot as their camping-place. H. and W. did not return till half-past eight, decidedly despondent. They found a relic of Seton-Karr on the Tyndall Glacier in the shape of an empty tomato-can. We came to the conclusion that we should have to go a good deal nearer the foot of the mountain before establishing a base camp, and that we must get hold of Lyons and Shorty.

Friday, the 27th.—We spent a quiet morning looking over our stores, and made the painful discovery that a large portion of the oatmeal biscuits, which had not before been unpacked, had gone mouldy, so we spread them in the sun to dry. Directly after lunch W. went off to sleep at G and bring the men back next day, and H. and E. took the Indians with light loads to the proposed site for the new camp, the disadvantage of which was the apparent absence of fuel. I followed up the course of our camp stream, finding fresh and large bear-tracks, to a curious cirque. A promising couloir filled with hard snow presenting itself, I worked up to a height of perhaps two thousand feet, when there came a break in my gully. I tried to turn it, but the rock was of the same rotten clayey consistency that I had before encountered, and I had to give it up, so glissaded down my couloir and returned to camp, where I had got supper ready by the time the others came back.

Saturday, the 28th.—The nights were now very cold, but the weather continued glorious. The Indians got off at 7.30, and we followed them in a few minutes. About a hundred yards beyond our camp the second stream had cut a deep, precipitous gully, but we had found a good place to cross this, just opposite to where a small stream came in on the other side, and we then followed up this stream, flushing sundry ptarmigan. There was very little scrub here, our route lying over what were apparently grassy uplands. In reality there was little or no grass, the vegetation consisting of willow-herbs, veratrum, ranunculus, mallow, violas, and many others, some of which were strange to us but doubtless common enough in America. I noticed a scarlet flower which I had seen in abundance on the Pacific slope of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which is, I believe, known to botanists as Castilleja miniata. It is something like a rattle, but the calyx is scarlet and the real flower green, or at least it looks as if it was. Just as we were getting on to the glacier, which has here a slight outflow from which the stream that we were following up emerges, we saw a brown bear about half-a-mile ahead on a green knoll which was nearly surrounded by ice. E. said, ‘How easily we could cut that fellow off if we only had our rifles,’ and we sighed in chorus. A little later we found that, had we been able to attempt such a manœuvre, it would only have ended in gnashing of teeth, for our furry friend on seeing us had gone straight down on to the glacier, and we now saw him a mile away, going straight for St. Elias, and steeplechasing gaily over the intervening crevasses. We had rather a bad bit of ice here, and in future the men always went over the hill where his bearship had been, which was fearfully steep but saved a good piece.

We then crossed two glaciers coming in from the west, which were curiously different in appearance. The first, subsequently christened the Daisy Glacier, was about a mile wide and six miles long, beautifully smooth and white, with hardly a crevasse in it except at its junction with the Tyndall, at which point it was lower than the glacier into which it flowed. The other, which we called the Coal Glacier, was rather smaller, say five miles long by twelve hundred yards wide, was a good deal broken, and was covered with débris, among which we found lots of coal which burnt fairly well in our camp fire. The mountains adjacent were sandstone with great seams of coal plainly visible. The amount of débris on the surface of the Coal Glacier protected it so much more from waste than the Daisy Glacier, that its level was about the same as that of the Tyndall. On the north side of this we put down our packs, and the men returned to H for more, with instructions to bring up a load of fuel as well. This proved to be unnecessary, as there was still enough alder round Camp I to supply us with fire-wood. H., E., and I then went on up the Tyndall Glacier. We had gone about a mile, and the others were some little way ahead, when in jumping a crevasse the elastic of my snow-spectacles gave way and one of the glasses got broken. As they were my only pair and I am hopelessly short-sighted, so that ordinary ones are no use, here was a fearful catastrophe! I shouted to the others that I was going back, and returned shortly to camp. From previous experience in Switzerland I knew I could use no makeshift without fearfully delaying the others. The risk of ophthalmia too, from which I had once suffered, was not lightly to be risked in these desert places, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I must abandon all idea of climbing. It was a fearful nuisance after coming so far, but was partly attributable to my carelessness in not bringing two proper pairs, instead of these and a ramshackle old pair which I found at Sitka to have come to grief on the journey. This was due to the haste with which I had had to leave England. My first idea was to return to the beach so as not to be wasting the food we had brought up with so much labour, but no one could be spared to go down with me, and the others were opposed to my going alone, so I consented to wait for them.

I then pitched the tent, to do which I had to excavate part of the hill and remove a good many boulders. About six o’clock the shrill whistles of the marmots, which were very plentiful here, heralded some one’s approach, and a few minutes later W. arrived, followed by the four men. H. and E. came in ten minutes later, having had rather a bad time among the big crevasses of the Tyndall Glacier, many of which were more than partly covered with snow. Shorty said they were waving at the lake as they went down to point out that the geese were leaving the water and climbing on to the moraine, so that we might have cut them off, but we had not understood.

Sunday, the 29th.—A cool grey day with high clouds, the first break in the brilliant weather which began on the 21st. The other three, with Lyons and Shorty, left at 7 A.M. to make a high camp on the other side of the Tyndall Glacier. They took the big white tent and the Edgington ground-sheet, with provisions for about four days, their intention being to try to reach at least the upper rim of the so-called ‘crater’ on the south arête. Soon afterwards I took Billy and Jimmy leisurely down to Camp H for more stores, and, as Shorty had said, my going round the lake sent the geese up the moraine. Billy and Jimmy lay in ambush and succeeded in slaying four with ice-axes. I got back first to Camp H, lit a fire, and had to make a damper, as there was no baking-powder in the sack of flour there. By making it quite thin it turned out very palatable, and, after lunching off this and some of the dried salmon, which was a trifle high by this time, we set off home again, Billy carrying the hams, fish, beans, and one goose, Jimmy a box of stores and medicines and another goose, while I took the other two. We plucked, singed, and cleaned them all, and then buried three in the snow on the glacier. We had the fourth for supper, with an entrée of foie gras (not very gras) and bacon, and as I felt lazy I commanded Billy to make the bread. The result was so excellent that he remained chief baker while I was alone, and I fancy he washed his hands quite as often as I did.

At this camp there were hardly any flies or mosquitoes, the former of which plagues had been terrible down at H. After supper the men went after marmots, but of course without getting any, and I saw them clambering up and down the most break-neck-looking places behind the camp. They showed no distaste for ice, but they were never on snow, and we never had occasion to use the rope with them.

Monday, the 30th.—In the morning there were light clouds, but the sun was more or less visible, and from its position I judged that we got up at about eight o’clock. (Finn and H. were the only two whose watches were still going, and they didn’t agree particularly well.) I spent the morning in camp, washing myself and my clothes, cleaning my revolver, etc. In the afternoon I set out up the rocks behind camp; they were very rotten, and I got into considerable difficulties, especially at one point, where, my foothold having disappeared, I dangled for some time by my fingers in imminent expectation of returning to camp in a rather undignified, not to say disorderly, manner. At last I got a knee up to the ledge, and soon stood on the ridge, in which was a large seam of coal, six or eight feet wide. Along this crest, then over snow-beds, and then up more rock, always more or less rotten, I reached a height of between four and five thousand feet, from which I had a magnificent view of the wide sweeps of the Tyndall Glacier below me, but to the north and west I was cut off by the spurs of the peak I was on. It was very thick in the south, and rain was evidently driving up, so I determined to descend promptly, and, by making a detour to the right, found a much easier way down, and got in just as the rain began. It was only slight, and kindly left off during supper, but then went on all night.

Tuesday, the 31st.—In the morning the camp was enveloped in thin clouds. As the sun was quite invisible, we had no ideas of time; but just after breakfast, while we were still sitting round the fire, the rain having left off and the clouds dispersed a good deal, the men suddenly said ‘(K)hoots’ (the guttural being the same as in the Arabic Khamsin—something like the German ich), and looking up at once, I saw two bears leisurely crossing the stones on the Coal Glacier, about three hundred yards off, going diagonally across towards the point below us. Hurriedly telling the Indians to keep quiet, I sneaked down to the tent, got H.’s big telescope (how I longed for a rifle!) and had a splendid view of them.

The first was the much-talked-of ‘blue’ bear at last. The body was slate-colour, much lighter on the back, with a very well-marked white crescent on the shoulders, while the head was nearly, if not quite, black. He was decidedly smaller than the other, which was an undersized cinnamon. The blue one was also much neater-looking and smarter in his gait, the pair resembling a park-hack followed by a cart-horse. The brown one had, I think, seen the tent, for he kept stopping and staring in our direction, but the blue kept quietly on, and when he reached the point at about two hundred yards from the camp, he lay down in the long grass. The other came on after him, but, instead of lying down, wandered about in a restless manner. After about five minutes, the blue one got up, and, followed by the brown, came leisurely towards us along the slope. I heard the men whispering nervously together behind my back, and when the bears were about a hundred yards off they couldn’t stand it any longer, but gave vent to a most fiendish yell, which made me nearly drop the telescope, while the bears, puffing and snorting, rushed wildly up the hill and disappeared over the ridge. I went down to inspect their tracks at a place where they had crossed a small patch of snow at the edge of the glacier, and found them to be totally different. The blue had gone with his heel down the whole time, like the black bear, while the brown’s tracks only showed the print of the fore-part of the foot. From this and from the general appearance of the animal, I have but little doubt that these blue ones are a variety of the black bear. No doubt, as in the case of the black bear in other parts of America, they will breed with the brown ones, and hence puzzling variations are met with, such as a skin I afterwards saw at Yakutat, which had been obtained near Dry Bay, and was of a uniform yellowish grey.

Halleck is the only author on Alaska in whose works I have found any mention of this bear. He says (‘Our New Alaska,’ p. 166): ‘Up on the ridges back of Mount St. Elias, which constitute a favourite (sic) hunting-ground for goats, is found a bear similar to the roach-back or silver-tip of the Rockies, but of a beautiful bluish undercolour, with the tips of the long hairs silvery white. The traders call it the St. Elias silver bear.’ In another place (p. 160) he says: ‘Besides there is a small albino bear found on the coast, which is known as the coast bear. Being white and a good deal about the ice in winter, some have supposed it to be a variety of polar bear, but the zoologists dispute it.’ My own impression is that these bears are the same, the white variety not being an albino, but the blue bear with his winter coat on. I could only hear of two of these white bears having been killed—one at Chilcaht, the other on the Taku Glacier, near Juneau, and this latter was described as having been almost white. The blue skins are also very rare, as much as seventy-five dollars being given for a good one. They seem to rather prefer the company of their brown brethren, as Shorty a few days later saw three bears on the glacier, of which one was brown and two blue; and Anthony, the Sitka watchmaker, whom we first met at Yakutat, whither he had come prospecting up the coast, met four near Dry Bay, some brown and some blue, but I forget the exact proportion.

After lunch I set to work to prepare a sumptuous supper, as I expected the others back that evening. I made a pudding by boiling rice and dried peaches together, and even added some sugar, which had become a rare and precious commodity, so that I did not use it while the others were away. I then left the pot in the snow to cool, put a goose to stew on a slow fire, and wandered up a little way beyond camp to make a sketch of the glacier. About five o’clock the weather improved, the clouds gradually disappearing and the sun being pleasantly warm. The others did not return, and the pudding was so good that about half of it was eaten at supper, but I put the rest by for next day. After supper I went out on to the Tyndall Glacier and had a grand view of the mountain, though there were still some clouds about. I could see no sign of the others, but took a lot of bearings.

Wednesday, August the 1st.—It was so cold in the night that I woke up several times and got up pretty early. (Having the tent all to myself and without the ground-sheet no doubt contributed to this.) Making bread for breakfast exhausted the flour, so I started the men off to get some more from Camp H, and went down with them as far as the Daisy Glacier. On the way I had to pitch into Master Jimmy pretty severely; the crevasses at the junction of the Coal and Tyndall Glaciers gave us some little trouble from having kept too near to the latter, and one of these was spanned by an exceedingly frail snow-bridge. Merely glancing at it, I went some thirty yards lower down, and, looking back as I crossed, saw, to my horror, that, though Billy was following me all right, Jimmy, who had been a little behind, was crossing the rotten bridge, which he traversed in safety, but two or three strokes from my ice-axe sent it tinkling into the depths, and why it did not give way with him is a great mystery. Jimmy looked rather awestruck, and I pointed out to him with some vigour the necessity of following absolutely in my tracks.

The weather was again perfect, and on arriving at the Daisy Glacier I let them go on, while I turned on to the glacier, up which I went for nearly three miles, when my eyes began to ache a good deal, and, as some schrunds appeared which threatened to prove awkward for a solitary climber, I returned. In the lower part of the Daisy there are hardly any crevasses, and in consequence there are some very fine moulins, while the surface was there in many parts very swampy, if such an expression can be used, a thin crust of snow overlying the wet glacier. As I had expected, it had a small outflow on its south side, about half a mile from its junction with the Tyndall; and the stream from this, augmented by another from the latter glacier, runs into the little lake by Camp H, and so gets back to the glacier.

I made a slight sketch of Mount St. Elias from the terminal moraine, and got back to camp about one o’clock (estimated), visiting on the way the big blocks on the Coal Glacier, the biggest of which probably contained about six thousand cubic feet. I found that the others had been over for stores and the kerosene stove, and H. had left a note saying that I could go down and wait for them at G, and that they would be back in four days. Among other things they had carried off the small kettle with the remains of the rice-pudding, and so got their share after all. They left the skins of four young marmots to be stretched and dried. These afterwards vanished when we were camped at Yakutat, presumably the prey of some Indian dog. The men came back about two o’clock, and after lunch we also went hunting marmots, which they called tsahkh; but though we got pretty near one or two, and dug up a great deal of the hill-side, the only results were the expenditure of a few revolver-cartridges and the not uncommon one of smashing the stock of an ice-axe.

CHAPTER VI
BACK TO THE SHORE

Thursday, the 2nd.—In the odds and ends sack I had found an extra flannel shirt, and, fortified by this, was not much troubled by the cold, though I was not too warm in spite of the thick vest, two flannel shirts, leather waistcoat, Norfolk jacket, and macintosh, that I put on before creeping into my blanket-bag. I had announced to the Indians that we were going back, and their delight got them up first for a wonder, though indeed as we returned they were generally the first to move, in their eagerness to escape from the detested country. At this camp they had been chanting the most doleful ditties, and when I inquired what it was all about, they said, ‘Siwash sick tum-tum, want go home.’ Among Indians the tummy is generally regarded as the seat of the feelings.

To get everything into one load the packs had to be very heavy. Billy had about a hundred pounds and Jimmy very little less, while in addition to my own properties I had kettles, frying-pan, and tent-poles. We left a small cache for the others, and our last goose, but we hoped to get some more at H, and were off by about seven o’clock. On the Daisy Glacier we found fresh bear-tracks, much larger than those of the two who had paid us a visit, but we saw nothing of the beast himself. Putting up lots of ptarmigan in the hollow of the little stream by which we descended to cross the ravine, we went on past H to the site of Schwatka’s last camp, flushing more ptarmigan by the stream there. Altogether I fired five pistol-shots at them, and got a young one with my last. It was well-grown and about the size of a French partridge. We pitched camp at the edge of the glacier, and after lunch the men went back to fetch the things cached at H, and to try for geese, but they only got one small one, all the rest being able to fly. Meanwhile I took my ptarmigan on to the glacier, to avoid the flies, and tried to skin it. This was not very easy, as the bullet had smashed both shoulders, but I managed it in a sort of a way, and then went for a bit across the glacier towards the Chaix Hills to get some idea of the lie of the crevasses. We had an excellent supper, and the men displayed marvellous appetites, eating the whole of their goose, the legs of my bird, and two goes of rice-pudding, but I think they were then tolerably crowded. After this I started to climb the last little hill, which looks like an island from the opposite side of the glacier, but coming on more ptarmigan, fired my last five cartridges and got an old bird. I ought certainly to have had two more, but the pistol was so foul that accuracy was impossible, while only three of the chambers would work. Coming back, I drove two or three young ones on to the moraine, and, shouting for Billy and Jimmy, we pursued wildly for about half-an-hour, the men barefooted and I with only moccasins on, so that it would have been amusing to observe our skips and hops when we lighted on a sharper stone than usual. At last the one we had selected was too beat to fly any more, and Billy finally succeeded in knocking him over with a better aimed rock than usual, most of their shots being awfully wild. Just as we were going to turn in we heard a curious cry, something between the bleat of a sheep and the mew of a cat. The men said, though rather doubtfully, that it was a bear, and shouted vigorously to frighten it away, but we heard it again afterwards, and I fancy it may have been a lynx.

Friday, the 3rd.—I again woke several times in the night from the cold, and could hear the ptarmigan calling quite close to the tent. We did not get up till rather late, and got off about nine o’clock, leaving sundry properties which I intended Mike and Matthew, who had been luxuriating at the beach, to have the pleasure of fetching. Thinking, from my survey of the previous day, that we could improve on the way we had come, I struck right in nearly to the centre of the glacier, and for a long way we had very good going with hardly any crevasses; but as we approached the two conical mounds which made such a land-mark on the Tyndall Glacier, we got some very bad moraine indeed, and in one place I nearly succeeded in breaking my leg by pulling a loosely-perched boulder on to myself. It came to an end at last, and we got up to G about noon, where we found no sign of the other men. After pitching the tent and examining the cache, which, like all our others, had been left untouched by four-footed prowlers, we lunched, and I then had a delicious bathe in the little tarn. The men slept most of the afternoon while I skinned the ptarmigan, a futile task, as it was found impossible to preserve the skins by the time I got home. At supper-time the view was unusually fine; a thin layer of cloud hid the many crevasses of the Guyot Glacier, as a veil conceals the wrinkles of a faded beauty, while above this the peaks to the west showed with unusual grandeur, especially the long snow-clad mass which we had christened Snowshoe Mountain. Later on the clouds thinned off a great deal, and St. Elias, which had been banded with mist all day, came out quite clear. The flowers on the hills, especially the violets, were mostly over, but I found a fine rose-coloured lupin among the blue ones at the edge of the lake.

Saturday, the 4th.—The day dawned brilliantly fine and hot. After a bathe I mended my clothes, and then, putting my luncheon in my pocket, wandered over the hills, taking a good many bearings with the sextant. As I came leisurely back along the edge of the glacier lake, which was very bad walking, I flushed sundry ptarmigan, one of which, an old one, perched in the top of a dead fir-tree. Just as I reached the end of the lake I heard shouts, and, hurrying to the glacier, found H. and W. E. was behind with the men, and, as Shorty had a bad ankle and the packs were very heavy, we sent the Indians to help them. While they related their adventures I got supper ready for them.

After leaving Camp I, they crossed the Tyndall Glacier for about half-an-hour, and then put on the rope. The crevasses were very bad, and covered with rotten snow, so that it was with difficulty that they made their way to the foot of Mount St. Elias, and established a camp on the last grassy slope that was visible. The scenery was very grand, resembling the view up the Mer de Glace from the Montanvert, but on a far larger scale. The double ice-fall of the Tyndall Glacier was well seen, divided by a small island of rock; further to the right were two very steep and narrow glaciers, resembling frozen waterfalls. This camp had been reached at half-past ten (three and a half hours’ going), and at twelve they sallied forth to explore, and mounted round the camp hill, keeping it on the right. Two hours up a rather steep ascent brought them to the top of a snow col connecting the camp hill with one of the arêtes leading to the rim of the crater which was then their object. The arête was of loose shale, everything giving way directly it was touched, but, apart from that, the climbing was not difficult, and after reaching a height of about six thousand feet they turned back at 4.30 P.M., undecided as to the morrow. Having left the stove and kerosene behind, they expected to have to live on cold food, but found moss and shrubbery enough to make a small fire.

Next morning they left at 8 A.M., with the intention of continuing the same arête, but in half-an-hour they changed to the next one on the left, and in two hours reached a height slightly greater than that of the day before. The walking was terrible, over loose shale and steep dirt giving no real foothold. They followed the edge of the arête for the rest of the day, sending down quantities of stones. Then came a little snow, part of which was solid ice, and H. had to cut a hundred and fifty steps, which took the best part of an hour and a half. At four o’clock they reached the summit of the arête, but, though on the brink of the crater, could see nothing, owing to mist. The height, 7,725 feet, was at all events better than Seton-Karr’s, and they built a cairn and left the flag, hardly hoping to get any higher. After a hasty lunch they descended, reaching camp at 10 P.M. They could see that the Tyndall Glacier makes two long and beautiful sweeps round the foot of St. Elias, full of tremendous crevasses, and though, if time were no object, it might be possible to ascend it, it could never be a practicable route to the summit.

The next day they made a day of rest, which was diversified by Shorty and Lyons slaying in the morning with stones eight out of a covey of ptarmigan, while in the evening they succeeded in smoking out and killing four baby marmots.

On Wednesday they all came over to the Coal Glacier Camp in an hour and a half, found me absent, and carried off the stove and sundry stores, including the rice-pudding. In the evening they went up to a bit of moraine east of, and just beneath, the snow col connecting the camp hill with their first arête, and slept there, leaving at 4.40 next morning, and keeping steadily up the arête till their arrival at the top. There was no difficulty, it was only a sort of treadmill over the loose shale and slate. They kept to the edge of the arête the whole way, and at the point where it articulates with the mountain they went first up loose débris, and then over a little snow, whence they diverged to climb a nice bit of sandstone, and reached the rim of the crater at 7.10.

After ten minutes’ halt they continued along the brink to the summit of the arête climbed on the 30th of July, which was reached at 7.40. They then steered north-west over the snow towards the upper lip of the crater, having to double back considerably to avoid some schrunds. Once above these, they ascended a little snow and then a tedious slope of loose shale, while on their right was a steep snow-slope, in too dangerous a condition for climbing. Near the top of this they met with some more fine rocks of grey sandstone which gave them their second ten minutes of real climbing, and they then rested for lunch from 10.10 to 10.55. The aneroid gave a height of 9,500 feet, and to reach 10,000 they had to go a considerable distance. Just above the sandstone rocks came the top of the snow-slope alongside of which they had been climbing. It proved here to be ice, and they had to cut up it, slanting to the right so as to reach the top, where a sort of cornice was at its best. The last part was dangerous, the ice being loose and granular, while the last few feet were so steep that it was necessary to kneel in the steps. Above this they found a snow-field stretching in waves round the brink of the crater. The snow was very trying, being often above their knees, while large crevasses separated the elevations from the depressions, and wherever the grade was steep the snow changed to ice. They kept on this till they were about due north of the crater, when they had their second lunch at a height of 11,375 feet, as shown on working out the boiling-point observations, and then went on to the foot of the highest rocks that formed part of the eastern edge of the crater. These were steep and mostly covered with snow, in which were large crevasses. The snow mounted in sweeps and terraces to the top of the rocks, which they estimated as about a thousand feet above them. They would have much liked to have ascended these, but the day was advanced, the wind rising, and the sun spoiling their steps, so that they thought it more prudent to return.

At this point they were above the col joining Haydon Peak to Mount St. Elias, but could not see the col itself. They could see, however, that the final peak, which they then estimated as being some six thousand feet above them, would be difficult and perhaps impossible from this col. On the further side it would first be necessary to climb east to avoid an overhanging glacier; then to ascend over rocks, snow, and some green ice which might perhaps be avoided by some steep rocks to the left, but all the climbing up this first thousand feet would be very severe. Afterwards it would be easier, up a snow-slope till above what appears as a mound from below (1,500 to 2,000 feet above the col), then north over a comparatively level snow-field; then up steep snow and rocks to the edge of the true south arête which runs up for about four thousand feet to the summit, chiefly consisting of snow and not steep. The upper half is steeper, but there is no rock, and there would be no difficulty there or on the south-east face, unless, as is very probable, what seems to be snow is in reality ice. Lower down they could see distinctly that this was so, and therefore abandoned all idea of sleeping on the col.

The south-west face is a mass of hanging glaciers. The brow on which they were is seen from below as a wall of snow fringing the top of the crater; on the other side this snow falls away rapidly to the glacier which winds down from the north-east to the head of the Tyndall Glacier. From there no route to the col could be made, as the ice is far too broken, and should any one force the Tyndall ice-fall his best course would be to cross the glacier to a low rock arête, which would take him to some snow-fields whence he might turn west and gain the huge north-west arête of the mountain. By this he could reach the west shoulder and the way would be simple. The weather being perfect, their view was magnificent. To the north-west the ranges were low, but the glaciers went winding out of sight. Mount Wrangel could not be seen, but Fairweather was distinctly visible. On their descent they found the snow and steps much worse. They left Mrs. Haydon’s flag in a meat-tin under a pile of stones at the foot of the sandstone rocks where they made their first lunch, as above this there was no place of security, and got back to camp about nine o’clock.

Next day they crossed over to Camp I, and on the Saturday descended to G, going, at Shorty’s suggestion, all along the Tyndall Glacier, but came to the conclusion that it was not an improvement. As the other men had not turned up, Billy and Jimmy were informed, to their great disgust, that they would have to go next morning and fetch the cache left at J.

Sunday, the 5th.—W. woke us all up in the night by shouting in his sleep, ‘Lyons, Lyons, a serac is falling on the tent!’ for which he was unmercifully chaffed. The Indians arose at some unearthly hour and went off to J, getting back at eight o’clock. At 6.30 A.M. W. went off to try and turn the west end of the opposite range, which we had christened the Ptarmigan Hills. He could persuade no one to go with him as we all believed, first, that the hills could not be turned, owing to the crevassed state of the Guyot Glacier, and secondly, that if he did turn them he would only see another point beyond. We bathed and sketched, and at about noon Ed. and Finn turned up, followed half-an-hour later by Matthew and Gums, who had laudably endeavoured to find a better way through the crevasses on the Guyot Glacier, but had failed signally. Gums had come up in Mike’s place, as the latter’s feet were very sore.

They had had rainy weather on the beach nearly the whole time. A lot of the Yakutats had been there sea-otter hunting with considerable success, and Jack Dalton had camped for one night. He brought the news that the body of a white man had been found at Point Manby, thrown up with a fishing dory. The poor fellow must have got among the breakers at night, and he had thrown out a drag to keep the boat head on to them, but must have swamped as he reached the shore. From the tracks they saw that he was able to crawl up the beach on his hands and knees into the bush, and whether he died there from exhaustion or was killed by a bear no one could say, but it is to be hoped he was dead before the bear got him. No one recognised the boat or knew anything which might lead to discovering his name. They buried what was left of him there, and put the dory over his grave.

Our men had had a fair time among the flesh-pots on the shore, as, though the Indians had got no more seals, they had shot several swans and geese. The men came up in two days, making a camp as before at the place where the river issues from the ice, but succeeded in getting down in one day of sixteen hours. The water was very high, and they had to make a raft before they could cross one creek. After lunch Lyons and I went after ptarmigan with our pistols; Shorty also started with the rifle which had been brought up from the first cache, but his leg was too bad and he had to go back. He looked for me to give me the rifle, but I had vanished down a ravine. There were not very many ptarmigan, while the ground was so broken that it was almost impossible to mark them. I only fired two shots; Lyons was luckier, firing ten or twelve, and getting one bird, which he nearly lost, for he fixed it in his belt by its head, and looking down after a time found head et præterea nil. Retracing his steps carefully he managed to find the corpse. We heard W. also popping away vigorously on the other side of the glacier, but he returned bredouille without having got round the end of the hills. After supper Finn went out with the rifle and got two ptarmigan. He hit a goose, but it escaped into the lake. We decided to make an early start for the shore, so as to avail ourselves of the continued fine weather and get back to Yakutat as soon as possible.

Monday, the 6th.—Moved by the hope of speedily leaving the regions they so thoroughly loathed, the Indians were astir early, and by four o’clock the whole party was up. Finn fried the two ptarmigan for breakfast, but as it was discovered that the Indians had been greasing their boots with the fat in the frying-pan, no one seemed inclined to partake of the dish. We got off by 5.30, and went down to the Guyot Glacier, along which we proceeded at a great pace as the packs were pretty light. We got through the crevasses without much difficulty, and, though we had some rather muddy bits near Lake Castani, we cleared the Chaix Hills at nine o’clock, abandoning to their fate a few stores which had been left in the cache made at the point where our trail from F struck the glacier, Ed., Matthew, and Mike having found more than they could bring up on July 26. Keeping about half-a-mile to the west of the depression between the glaciers, we reached the head of the river at eleven. The water boils out finely from under the ice, but, though it was higher than when the men had last come up, the gravel-flat on which they had then slept being now covered, the volume was not as great as I had expected, being perhaps equal to that of the Visp where it joins the Rhone.

We rested a bit on the beach, and then came on in very scattered order to the cache, the two miles taking about two hours, as the alder-bush on the face of the moraine was very bad, and the stream was too high for us to get along on the flats by wading every now and then, as the men had generally been able to do. H., who stopped to photograph, went all wrong, away from the river towards Camp C, and as he came back fell foul of a wasp’s nest, and got stung in two or three places. Jimmy, who was one of the first at the cache, earned our high approval by coming back of his own accord to help Shorty in with his load. We were all collected by half-past two, and rested all the afternoon. Supper was at 4.30, and we at last got hold of the dried vegetables, which the men had always forgotten to bring up, and made some splendid soup. Just above the cache E. found a white willow-herb, and I collected some seed of the red kind to try in England.

While we were resting in the afternoon Matthew told us that the Indians called the river Yahkhtze-tah-heen (Muddy Harbour River), and Mount St. Elias Yahkhtze-tah-shah (Muddy Harbour Mountain). George, the second chief of Yakutat, afterwards told us that there used to be two villages, one on the sea and the other at the foot of St. Elias, but that the glaciers came down and destroyed them, according to him, in a single night. As the Alaska glaciers are all rapidly receding, this must have been a very long time ago, for a hundred years back, when the country was first visited, there was far more ice than there is now, Vancouver having been unable to enter Glacier Bay for the ice, while Icy Bay, even on modern charts, is represented as being of a V-shape from the glaciers running out on either side, whereas it now hardly deserves the name of a bay at all.

Meaning to make an early start, we turned in at six o’clock, but were driven wild by the millions of mosquitoes that invaded our tent. By this time we were thoroughly inoculated against the effects of their bites, but their continuous trumpeting destroyed all chance of sleep; after a time we arose and drove out and slew as many as we could, after which we endeavoured to close up every possible aperture. Our success was but partial, but we managed to get a little sleep.

Tuesday, the 7th.—We got up at 4 A.M., and were off by 5.45; an hour’s steady going brought us down to Camp B, and we went on by the old route to the point where Gums declared Schwatka had had a camp. Here we turned to the left instead of keeping down the main river. At first we had a good lot of wading, but presently reached some flats, over which we made more satisfactory progress. At this point some wild-geese were discovered far ahead, and Shorty set forth to stalk them; as, however, he was unwilling to crawl over the wet mud, his six-foot-four frightened them away while he was still three or four hundred yards off. On these flats were a great many small frogs, of which most of the Indians were much afraid, holding some kind of superstition about them; but Matthew and Jimmy were apparently sceptics, and the latter, with a sly look at us, put a frog on the back of Billy, who, though his great friend, was perfectly furious, and for a minute I thought we were going to have a first-class row.

At last we approached the deep creek where the men had once had to make a raft. Now the crossing appeared feasible, but it was hard to be sure, as all the neighbouring land on our side was under water. In the midst of this was a stranded log, where we rested and took off our coats, fastening them on to our packs, which we carried on our heads. H. planted the camera in the water, and prepared to photograph the passage. Gums, of course, led; and at the second attempt discovered a place where the water was hardly over his armpits. This was all right for the taller ones of us, but E. went in well up to his chin, as did Finn, who, losing his footing, vanished with his pack. Great was the dismay till it was discovered that he was only carrying the bacon. Jimmy also disappeared altogether, and had eventually to be convoyed across by Gums and Matthew. Last of all came W. and H., the latter bearing the camera. He chanced on a deepish place, and nearly went under, but struggled on, quoting: ‘And nobly Father Tiber bare up his faltering chin’—which chin, decked with a ruddy beard, had dipped beneath the icy wave before he emerged on the other side.

Three-quarters of an hour through the trees, and then a little wading, brought us to the mouth of the first river at eleven o’clock, and we halted for a little lunch and a great many strawberries, which were not yet over in shady places or long grass. We then pushed on along the beach to camp, the packs being brought down the lagoon in the small canoe, and arrived at 1.15, hoping to start at once for Yakutat; but the other Indians had gone hunting, and we had to await their return, which was not till five o’clock. After some supper we got off at 6.20; it was perfectly calm, and we didn’t ship a drop of water, or get wet above our knees. There was a five-gallon can of kerosene which we said could be left on the beach; Mike, however, wished to take it in the small canoe, but Gums, after a lively argument, settled the question by driving an ice-axe into it. It was a fair squeeze for twelve in the big canoe; I curled up just forward of the bow oar, the other three were in the stern, and hardly so well off. We rowed and paddled to Cape Sitkagi (10 P.M.), when a fresh breeze from the west sprang up, and, towing the small canoe, we sailed to Point Manby, which we passed at 4 A.M.

Wednesday, the 8th.—The breeze then began to die away, and vanished at five, so we had to row again, and got to Yakutat at ten o’clock. De Groff greeted us, and gave us four breakfast, which included the unwonted luxuries of butter and honey; the men, who were a little sulky after their night’s exertions, cooked theirs on his stove. Then H. paid off Ed., Finn, and the Yakutats, and arranged to leave our Indians in the village as before, after which we went over to the Swedish Mission on the mainland opposite, and encamped in the yard. Ed. came too, and Finn followed in the evening. We bathed in the sea, which was decidedly cold; but the lake at the back was too muddy, and also too near George’s ranche to be pleasant. De Groff expected the ‘Alpha’ to arrive about the 10th.