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J 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 mmmm Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. BT CHARLES WARRi£N STODDARD. ST. LOUIS, MO., 1899. Published by B. HERDER, 17 South Broadway. Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Oummersbach. -BECKTOLD — raiNTtNQ AND BOOK MFO. CO. ST. lAUIS MO. To KENNETH O'CONNOR, First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers, Gen'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba: In Memory of Our Home-Life in The Bunoalow. 99C^2q7 NOTE. The Author returns thanks to the Editor of the Ave Maria for the privilege of republishing these notes of travel and adventure. Chapter. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XL XII. XIII. XIV. XV. CONTENTS. Due West to Denver - - In Denver Town - - - - The Garden of the Gods - A Whirl across the Rockies Page. 7 18 29 40 OflE for Alaska 47 In the Inland Sea - - - 56 Alaskan Village Life - - - 66 Juneau ------- 74 By Solitary Shores - - - 86 In Search of the Totem-Pole 98 In the Sea of Ice - - - - 111 Alaska's Capital - - - - 124 Katalan's Rock - - - - 136 From the Far North - - - 148 Out of the Arctic - - - - 159 K I , M ■ it it GhaftebI. Due West to Denver. COMMENCEMENT week at Notrb ^ Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Mul- titudes of guests who had been camping for a night or two in the recitation rooms —our temporary dormitories — gave them- selves up to the boyish delights of school- life, and set numerous examples which the students were only too glad to follow. The boat race on the lake was a picture; the champion baseball match, a com- panion piece; but the highly decorated prize scholars, gUttering with gold and silver medals, and badges of satin and bulUon ; the bevies of beautiful girls who for once — once only in the year — were given the liberty of the lawns, the campus, and the winding forest ways, that make of Notre Dame an elysium in summer; the frequent and inspiring blasts of the University Band, and the general joy that filled every heart to overflowing, rendered the last day of the scholastic year romantic to a degree and memorable forever. (7) 8 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. ffi There was no sleep during the closing night — not one solitary wink ; all laws were dead-letters — alas that they should 80 soon arise again from the dead! — and when the wreath of stars that crowns the golden statue of Our Lady on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the plains of Indiana — then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you which we did. The moon was very full that night, and I didn't blame it! But the picnic realljr began at the foot of the great stairway in front of the dear old University next morning. Five hun- dred possible presidents were to be dis- tributed broadcast over the continent; five hundred sons and heirs to be returned with thanks to the yearning bosoms of their respective families. The floodgates of the trunk-rooms were thrown open, and a stream of Saratogas went thundering to the station at South Bend, two miles away. Hour after hour, and indeed for several days, huge trucks and express wagons plied to and fro, groaning under Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 9 the burden of well-checked luggage. It is astonishing to behoiu '-ow big a trunk a mere boy may claim tor his very own ; but it must be remembered that ^our schoolboy lives for /i veral yenrs within the brass-bound confines )f a Saratoga. It is his bureau, his wardrobe, his private library, his museum and toy shop, the receptacle of all that is neav and dear to him ; it is, in brief, his sanctum sanctorum^ the one inviolate spot in his whole scho- lastic career of which he, and he alone, holds the key. We came down with the tide in the rear of the trunk freshet. The way being more or less clear, navigation was declared open. The next moment saw a proces- sion of chariots, semi-circus wagons and barouches filled with homeward-bound schoolboys and their escorts, dashing at a brisk trot toward the railroad station. Banners were fiying, shouts rent the air j familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved benedictions from all points of the compass ; while the gladness and the sadness of the hour were perpetuated by the aid of instantaneous photography. The enterprising kodaker caught us on the fly, just as the special train was leav- ing South Bend for Chicago ; a train that 10 Over the Eocky Mountains to Alaska, was not to be dismembered or its exclu- siveness violated until it had been run in- to the station at Denver. After this last negative attack we were set free. Vacation had begun in good earnest. What followed, think yout Mutual congratulations, flirtations and fumigations without ceasing; for there was much lost time to be made up, and here was a golden opportunity. O you who have been a schoolboy and lived for months and months in a pent-up Utica, where the glimpse of a girl is as welcome and as rare b& a sunbeam in a ceUar, you can imagine how the two hours and forty- five minutes were improved — and Chicago eighty miles away. It is true we all turned for a moment to catch a last glimpse of the University dome, tower- ing over the treetops; and we felt very tenderly toward everyone there. But there were ** sweet girl graduates'' on board; and, as you know well enough, it required no laureate to sing their praises, though he has done so with all the gush and fervor of youth. It was summer. *'It is always summer where they are," some youngster was heard to murmur. But it was really the summer solstice, or very near it. The Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 11 pond-lilies were ripe; bushels of them were heaped upon the platforms at every station we came to ; and before the first stage of our journey was far advanced the girls were sighing over lapfuls of lilies, and the lads tottering under the weight of stupendous houtonni^res. As we drew near the Lake City, the excitement visibly increased. Here, there were partings, and such sweet sorrow as poets love to sing. It were vain \o tell how many promises were then and there made, and of course destined to be bro- ken ; how everybody was to go and spend a happy season with everybody or at least somebody else, and to write meanwhile without fail. There were good-byes again and again, and yet again ; and, with much mingled emotion, we settled ourselves in luxurious seats and began to look dreamily toward Denver. In the mazes of the wonderful city of Chicago we saw the warp of that endless steel web over which we flew Hke spiders possessed. The sunken switches took our eye and held it for a time. But a greater marvel was the man wth the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of iron, who sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played with train- 12 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. ' I II ( f uls of his f ellowmen — a mero question of life or death to be answered over and over again ; played with them as the conjurer tosses his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction ; the per- fect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little world, but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it every moment in the hour, and eveiy hour in the day, and every day in the year. It did not take us long to discover the advantages of our special-car system. There were nigh fifty of us housed in a brace of excursion cars. In one of these — the parlor — the only stationary seats were at the two ends, while the whole floor was covered with easy-chairs of every conceivable pattern. The dining car was in reality a cardroom between meals— and such meals, for we had stocked the larder ourselves. Everywhere the agents of the several lines made their appearance and greeted us cordially ; they were closeted for a few moments with the shepherd of our flock, Father Zahm, of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana; then they would take a bite with us — a « Over the Bochy Mountains to Alaska. 13 the dish of berries or an ice, — for they in- variably accompanied us down the road a few miles ; and at last would bid us fare- well with a flattering figure of speech, which is infinitely preferable to the tra- ditional '* Tickets, please; tickets! " At every town and village crowds came down to see us. We were evidently objects of interest. Even the nimble reporter was on hand, and looked with a not unkindly eye upon the lads who were celebrating the first hours of the vacation with an enthusiasm which had been generating for some weeks. There was such a making up of beds when, at dark, the parlor and dining cars were transformed into long, narrow dormito- ries, and the boys paired off, two and two, above and below, through the length of our flying university, and made a night of it, without fear of notes or detentions, and with no prefect stalking ghostUke in their midst. It would be hard to say which we found most diverting, the long, long landscape that divided as we passed through it and closed up in the rear, leaving only the shining iron seam down the middle ; the beautiful, undulating prairie land; the hot and dusty desolation of the plains; II It 14 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. the delicious temperature of the high- lands, as we approached the Rockies and had our first glimpse of Pike's Peak in its mantle of snow: the muddy rivers, along whose shores we glided swiftly hour after hour : the Mississippi by moon- light — we all sat up to see that--or the lifissouri at Kansas City, where we began to scatter our brood among their far Western homes. At La Junta we said good-bye to the boys bound for Mexico and the Southwest. It was like a second closing of the scholastic year; the good- byes were now ringing fast and furious. Jolly fellows began to grow grave and the serious ones more solemn ; for there had been no cloud or shadow for three rollicking days. To be sure there was a kind of infantile cyclone out on the plains, memorable for its superb atmospheric effects, and the rapidity with which we shut down the windows to keep from being inflated balloon-fashion. And there was a brisk hail-storm a^ the gate of the Rockies that peppered us smartly for a few moments. Then there were some boys who could not eat enough, and who turned from the dessert in tearful iismay; nnd one little kid who dived out of the top bunk in a ss Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 15 moment of rapture, and should have broken his neck — but he didn't! We were quite sybaritical as to hours, with breakfast and dinner courses, and mouth-organs and cigarettes and jam between meals. Frosted cake and oranges were left untouched upon the field after the gastronomical battles were fought so bravely three or four times a day. Per- haps the pineapples and bananas, and the open barrel of strawberries, within reach of all at any hour, may account for the phenomenon. Pueblo! Ah me, the heat of that infer- nal junction I Pueblo, with the stump of its one memorable tree, or a slice of that stump turned up on end — to make room for a new railway-station, that could just as well have been built a few feet farther OP , — and staring at you, with a full broad- side of patent-medicine placards trying to cover its nakedness. On closer inspection we read this legend: ''The tree that grew here was 380 years old ; circumference, 28 feet; height, 79 feet; was cut down June 25, 1883, at a cost of $250." So perished, at the hands of an amazingly stupid city council, the oldest landmark in Colorado. Under the shade of this cottonwood Kit Carson, Wild Bill, and many another T"" 16 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. famous Indian scout built early camp fires. Near it, in 1850, thirty-six whites were massacred by Indians ; upon one of its huge limbs fourteen men were hanged at convenient intervals ; and it is a pity that the city council did not follow this admirable lead and leave the one glory of Pueblo to save it irom damnation. It afforded the only grateful shelter in this furnace heat; it was the one beautiful object in a most unbeautiful place, and it has been razed to the grouna in memory of the block-heads whose bodies were not worthy to enrich the roots of it. Tradi- tion adds, pathetically enough, that the grave of the first white woman who died in that desert was made beneath the boughs of the * ^ Old Monarch . ' * May she rest in peace under the merciless hands of the baggage-master and his merry crew ! Lightly lie the trunks that are heaped over her nameless dust ! Well, there came a time when we forgot Pueblo, but we never will forgive the town council. Then we listened in vain at evening for the strumming of fandango music on multitudinous guitars, as was our custom so long as the muchachos were with us. Then we played no more progressive euchre games many miles in length, and ii Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 17 smoked no more together in the ecstasy of unrestraint; but watched and waited in vain — ^for those who were with us were no longer of us for some weeks to come, and the mouths of the singers were hushed. The next thing we knew a city seemed to spring suddenly out of the plains — a mirage of brick and mortar — an oasis in the wilderness, — and we realized, with a gasp, that we had struck the bull^s-eye of the Far West — in other words, Denver! IH ' t: h Chapteb II. In Denver Town. r^OLORADO ! What an open-air sound ^^ that word has! The music of the wind is in it, and a peculiarly free, rhythmical swing, suggestive of the swirl- ing lariat. Colorado is not, as some con- jecture, a corruption or revised edition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven cities of Cibola: it is from the verb colorar — colored red, or ruddy — a name frequently given to rivers, rocks, and ravines in the lower country. Nor do we care to go back as far as the sixteenth century for the beginning of an enterprise that is still veiy young and possibly a little fresh. In 1803 the United States purchased from France a vast territory for $15,000,000 ; it was then known as Louisiana, and that purchase included the district long re- ferred to as the Great American Desert. In 1806 Zebulon Pike camped where Pueblo now stands. He was a pedestrian. One day he started to climb a peak whose (18) Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 19 • sound of the y free, e swirl- ne con- ition of rho was Mexico ities of lorar — iquently s in the e to go tury for it is still 3sh. In ad from 0,000; it md that long re- Desert, d where iestrian. ik whose ■I I :3 shining summit had dazzled him from the first ; it seemed to soar into the very heavens, yet he within easy reach just over the neighboring hill. He started bright and early, with enthusiasm in his heart, determination in his eye, and a cold bite in his pocket. He went from hill to hill, from mountain to mountain ; always ascending, satisfied that each height was the last, and that he had but to itep from the next pinnacle to the throne of his am- bition. Alas! the peak was as far away as ever, even at the close of the second day; so famished, foot-frozen and well- nigh in extremity, he dragged his weary bones back to camp, defeated. That peak bears his name to this day, and probably he deserves the honor quite as mu<3h as any human molecule who godfathers a mountain. James Pursley, of Bardstown, Ky., was a greater explorer than Pike ; but Pursley gives Pike much credit which Pike blush- ingly declines. The two men were ex- ceptionally well-bred pioneers. In 1820 Colonel Long named a peak in memory of his explorations. The peak survives. Then came General Fremont, in 1843, and the discovery of gold near Denver fifteen years later; but I believe Green ^1 20 Over the Rochy Mountains to Alaska. Russell, a Georgian, found color earlier on Pike's Peak. Colorado was the outgrowth of the great financial crisis of 1857. That panic sent a wave westward, — a wave that over- flowed all the wild lands of the wilderness, and, in most cases, to the advantage of both wave and wilderness. Of course there was a gradual settUng up or settling down from that period. Many people who didn't exactly come to stay got stuck fast, or found it difficult to leave; and now they are glad of it. Denver was the result. Denver! It seems as if that should be the name of some out-of-door production ; of something brawny and breezy and bounding; something strong with the strength of youth ; o^'erflowing with vital- ity; ambitions, unconquerable, irrepress- ible — and such is Denver, the queen city of the plains. Denver is a marvel, and she knows it. She is by no means the marvel that San Francisco was at the same interesting age; but, then, Denver doesn't know it ; or, if she knows it, she doesn't care to mention it or to hear it mentioned. True it is that the Argonauts of the Pacific were blown in out of the blue sea iska. Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 21 aarlier >f the panic over- rness, age of course ettling people t stuck and vas the >uld be action ; zy and th the ih vital- epress- jen city '^el, and ms the at the Denver } it, she hear it ; of the 3lue sea — most of ihem. They had had a taste of the tropica on the way ; paroquets and Panama fevors were their portion; or, after along pull and a strong pull around the Horn, they were comparatively fresh and eager for the fray when they touched dry land once more. There was much close company between decks to cheer the lonely hours ; a very bracing air and a very broad, bright land to give them welcome when the voyage was ended — ^in brief, they had their advantages. The pioneers of Denver town were the captains or mates of prairie schooners, stranded in the midst of a sealike desert. It was a voyage of from six to eight weeks west of the Mississippi in tb 3 days. The only stations — and miserably primi- tive ones at that — lay along Ben Holli- day's overland stage route. They were far between. Indians waylaid the voy- agers; fires, famine and fatigue helped to strew the trail with the graves of men and the carcasses of animals. Hard lines were these; but not so hard as the lines of those who pushed farther into the wilderness, nor stayed their adventurous feet till they W3i*e planted on the rich soil of the Pacific slope. Pioneer lifo knows little variety. The rr=^ ■I 22 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. menu of the Colorado banquet July 4, 1859, will revive in the minds of many an old Califomian the fast-fading memories of the past; but I fear, twill be a long time before such a menu as the following will gladden the eyes of the average prospector in the Klondyke: MENU. soxn». A la Bean. PISH. Brook Trout, a la catch 'em first. MEATS. Antelope larded, pioneer style. BREAD. Biscuit, hand-made, full weight, a la yellow. VEGETABI,ES. Beans, mountain style, warranted boiled forty-eight hours, a la soda. DESSERT. Dried Apples, Russell g^lch style. Coffee, served in tin cups, to be washed clean for the occasion, overland style, a la no cream. In those days Horace Greeley, returning from his California tour, halted to cast his eye over the now West. The miners primed an old blunderbus with rich dust. m Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 23 and judiciously salted Gregory gulch. Of course Horace was invited to inspect it. Being somewhat horny-handed, he seized pick and shovel and went to work in ear- nest. The pan-out was astonishing. He flew back to Now York laden with the glittering proofs of wealth ; gave a whole page of the Trihime to his tale of the golden fleece ; and a rush to the new digg- ings followed as a matter of course. Denver and Auraria were rival settle- ments on the opposite shores of Cherry Creek; in 1860 they consolidated, and then boasted a population of 4000, in a vast territory containing but 60,000 souls. The boom was on, and it was not long be- fore a parson made his appearance. This was the Rev. George Washington Fisher of the Methodist Church, who accepted the offer of a saloon as a house of worship, using the bar for a pulpit. His text was : "Ho, everyone that thirsteth! come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without money and with- out price.'' On the walls were displayed these legends : "No trust," "Pay as you go," "Twenty-five cents a drink," etc. Col rado Territory was organized in 1861, and was loyal to the Union. m\ 1" I ]"■ 24 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. Denver was still booming, though she suffered nearly all the ills that precocious settlements are heir to. The business portion of the town was half destroyed in 1863; Cherry Creek flooded her in 1864, floating houses out of reach and drowning fifteen or twenty of the inhabitants. Then the Indians went on the war-path ; stages and wagon trains were attacked ; passengers and scattered settlers massa- cred, and the very town itself threatened. Alarm-bells warned the frightened in- habitants of impending danger; many fled to the United States Mint for refuge, and to cellars, cisterns, and dark alleys. This was during the wild reign of Spotted Horse along the shores of the Platte, be- fore he was captured by Major Downing at the battle of Sand Creek, and finally sent to Europe on exhibition as a genuine child of the forest. Those were stirring times, when every man had an eye to business, and could hardly afford to spare it long enough to wink. It is related of a certain minister who was officiating at a funeral that, while standing by the coffin offering the final prayer, he noticed one of the mourners kneeling upon the loose earth recently thrown from the grave. This man was ^^"T Over the Eocky Mountains to Alaska. 25 a prospector, like all the rest, and in an absent-minded way he had tearfully been sifting the soil through his fingers. Sud- denly he arose and began to stake out a claim adjoining the grave. This was, of course, observed by the clergyman, who hastened the ceremonials to a conclusion, and ended his prayer thus: ''Stake me oft a claim, Bill. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen." Horace Greeley's visit was fully appre- ciated, and his name given to a mountain hamlet, long after known familiarly as * ' Saint's Rest, ' ' because there was nothing stimulating to be found thereabout. Poor Meeker, for many years agricultural editor of the New York Tribune^ founded that settlement. He was backed by Greeley, and established the Greeley Tribune at Saint's Rest. In 1877 Meeker was made Indian agent, and he did his best to live up to the dream cf the Indian-maniacs ; but, after two years of self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause, he was brutally be- trayed and murdered by Chief Douglas, of the Utes, his guest at the time. Mrs. Meeker and her daughters, and a Mrs. Price and her child, were taken captive and subjected to the usual treatment which aU women and children may ex- i .1 il 2 I 26 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. pect at the hands of the noble red-man. They were rescued in due season; but what was rescue to them save a prolonga- tion of inconsolable bereavement? When General Grant visited Central, the Httle mountain town received him royally. A pavement of solid silver bricks was laid for him to walk upon from his carriage to the hotel door. One sees very httle of this barbaric splendor nowadays even in Denver, t' e most pretentious of far Western burgs. She is a metropolis of magnificent promises . Alighting at the airy station, you take a carriage for the hotel, and come at once to the centre of the city. Were you to continue your drive but a few blocks farther, you would come with equal abruptness to the edge of it. The surprise is delightful in either case, but the suddenness of the transition makes the stranger guest a little dizzy at first. There are handsome buildings in Denver — blocks that would do credit to any city under the sun ; but there was for years an upstart air, a palpable provin- cialism, a kind of ill-disguised **previous- ness," noticeable that made her seem like the brisk suburb of some other place, and that other place, alas ! invisible to mortal eye. Rectangular blocks make a checker- Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 27 board of the town map. The streets are appropriately named Antelope, Bear, Bison, Boulder, BufEalo, Coyote, Cedar, Cottonwood, Deer, Golden, Granite, Moose, etc. The names of most trees, most precious stones, the great States and Territories of the West, with a sprinkling of Spanish, likewise beguile you off into space, and leave the once nebulous burg beaming in the rear. Denver's theatre is remarkably hand- some. In hot weather the atmosphere is tempered by torrents of ice-water that crash through hidden aqueducts with a sound as of twenty sawmills. The man- agement dams the flood when the curtain rises and the players begin to speak ; the music lovers damn it from the moment the curtain falls. They are absorbed in volumes of silent profanity between the acts ; for the orchestra is literally drowned in the roar of the rushing element. There was nothing that interested me more than a copy of Alice Polk Hill's 'Tales of the Colorado Pioneers"; and to her I return thanks for all that I borrowed without leave from that diverting volume. Somehow Denver, after my early visit, leaves with me an impression as of a per- fectly new city that has just been un- r^^ i f 28 Ooer the Mocky Mountains to Alaska. packed ; as if the various parts of it had been set up in a great hurry, and the citizens were now impatiently awaiting the arrival of the rest of the properties. Some of the streets that appeared so well at first glance, seemed, upon inspection, more like theatrical flats than realities; and there was always a consciousness of everything being wide open and uncov- ered. Indeed, so strongly did I feel this that it was with difi&culty I could refrain from wearing my hat in the house. Nor could I persuade myself that it was quite safe to go out alone after dark, lest un- wittingly I should get lost, and lift up in vain the voice of one crying in the wilder- ness; for the blank and weird spaces about there are as wide as the horizon where the diptant mountains seem to have slid partly down the terrestrial incline, — spaces that offer the unwary neither hope nor hospice, — where there is positively shelter for neither man nor beast, from the red-brick heart of the ambitious young city to her snow-capped ultimate suburb. ?! M ^K Chapter III. The Garden of the Gods. T^HE trains run out of Denver like quick-silver, — this is the prettiest thing I can say of Denver, They trickxe down into high, green valleys, under the shadow of snow-capped cliffs. There the grass is of the liveliest tint — a kind of salad-green. The air is sweet and fine; everything looks clean, well kept, well swept — perhaps the wind is the keeper and the sweeper. All along the way there is a very striking contrast of color in rock, meadows, and sky; the whole is as appe- tizing to the sight as a newly varnished picture. We didn't down brakes until we reached Colorado Springs ; there we changed cars for Manitou. Already the castellated rocks were filling us with childish delight. Fungi decked the cliffs above us: colossal, petrified fungi, painted Indian fashion. At any rate, there is a kind of wild, out- of-door, subdued harmony in the rock- (29) ..-? VI ; S ■ i**,1, * II 'i *i 30 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska, tints upon the exterior slopes of the famed Garden of the Gods, quite in keeping with the spirit of the decorativ^e red-man. Within that garden color and form run riot, and Manitou is the restful outpost of this erratic wilderness. It is fitting that Manitou should be ap- proached in a rather primitive manner. I was glad when we were very p litely in- vited to get out of the train and walk a plank over a puddle that for a moment submerged the track ; glad when we were advised to foot it over a trestle-bridge that sagged in the swift current of a swollen stream; and gladder still when our locomotive began to puff and blow and slaken its pace as we climbed up into the mouth of a ravine fragrant with the warm scents of summer — albeit we could boast but a solitary brace of cars, and these small ones, and not overcrowded at that. Only think of it! "We were scarcely three hours by rail from Denver; and yet here, in Manitou, were the very elements so noticeably lacking there. Nature in her natural state — primitive forever ; the air seasoned with the pungent spices of odoriferous herbs ; the sweetest sunshine in abundance, and all the shade that makes sunshine most agreeable. I ! """TOP T Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, 31 Manitou is a picturesque hamlet that has scattered itself up and down a deep ravine, regardless of the limiting lines of the surveyor. The railway station at Manitou might pose for a porter's lodge in the prettiest park in England. Surely there is hope for America when she can so far curb her vulgar love of the merely practical as to do that sort of thing at the right time and in the right place. A fine stream brawls through the bed of this lovely vale. There are rustic cot- tages that cluster upon the brink of the stream, as if charmed by the music of its song; and I am sure that the cottagers dwelling tht^rein have no wish to hang their harps upon any willows whatever; or to mingle their tears, though these were indeed the waters of Babylon that flow softly night and day through the green groves of Manitou. The breeze stirs the pulse like a tonic ; birds, bees, and butterflies dance in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish — there is no dust there, — and eveiything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts ; there is nothing like it — except more of it. ■''■%- ll i i,m ^ ' :.'' *|! IL t fl I 32 Over ^e main lane of the village; its society column creates no scandal. A solitary bicycle that flashes like a shoot- ing star across the placid foreground is our nearest approach to an event worth mentioning. Loungers lounge at the springs as if they really enjoyed it. An amiable booth- boy displays his well-dressed and hand- somely mounted foxskins, his pressed flowers of Colorado, his queer mineralo- gical jewelry, and his uncouth geological specimens in the shape of hideous bric-a- brac, as if he took pleasure in thus enter- taining the public ; while everybody has the cosiest and most sociable time over the counter, and buys only by accident at last. There are rock gorges in Manitou, through which the Indian tribes were wont noiselessly to defile when on the war-path in the brave days of old; gorges where currents of hot air breathe in your face like the breath of some fierce animal. Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 33 There are brilliant and noisy cataracts and cascades that silver the rocks with spray ; and a huge winding cavern filled with mice and filth and the blackness of darkness, and out of which one emerges looking like a tramp and feeling like — well! There are springs bubbling and steeping and stagnating by the wayside ; springs containing corbonates of soda, lithia, lime, magnesia, andiron ; sulphates of potassa and soda, chloride of sodium and silica, in various solutions. Some of these are sweeter than honey in the honey- comb ; some of them smell to heaven — what more can the pampered palate of man desire? Let all those who thirst for chalybeate waters bear in mind that the Ute Iron Spring of Manitou is 800 feet higher than St. Catarina, the highest iron spring in Europe, and nearly 1000 feet higher than St. Moritz ; and that the bracing air at an elevation of 6400 feet has probably as much to do with the recovery of the in- valid as has the judicious quaffing of medicinal waters. Of pure iron springs, the famous Schwalbach contains rather more iron than the Ute Iron, and Spa rather less. On the whole, Manitou has the advantage of the most celebrated w t f fi ?,:) ; i n I],. (J ( 34 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, mediciual springs in Europe, and has a climate even in midwinter preferable to all of them. On the edge of the pretty hamlet at Manitou stands a cottage half hidden like a bird's nest among the trees. I saw only the peaks of gables under green boughs ; and I wondered when I was informed that the lovely spot had been long untenanted, and wondered still more when I learned that it was the property of good Grace Greenwood. Will she ever cease wander- ing, and return to weave a new chaplet of greenwood leaves gathered beneath the eaves of her mountain home! At the top of the village street stands Pike's Peak — at least it seems to stand there when viewed through the telescopic air. It is in reality a dozen miles distant ; but is easily approached by a winding trail, over which ladies in the saddle may reach the glorious snow-capped summit and return to Manitou between breakfast and supper — unless one should prefer to be rushed up and down over the aerial railway. From the signal station the view reminds one of a map of the world. It rather dazes than delights the eye to roam so far, and imagination itself grows weary at last and is glad to fold its wings. Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 35 Manitou's chief attraction lies over the first range of hills — the veritable Garden of the Gods. You may walk, ride or drive to it ; in any case the surprise begins the moment you reach the ridge's top above Manitou, and ceases not till the back is turned at the close of the excursion — nor then either, for the memory of that mar- vel haunts one like a feverish dream. Fancy a softly undulating land, delicately wooded and decked with many an orna- mental shrub ; a landscape that composes so well one can scarcely assure himself that the artist or the landscape gardener has not had a hand in the beautifying of it. In this lonely, silent land, with cloud shadows floating across it, at long inter- vals bird voices or the bleating of distant flocks charm the listening ear. Out of this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclo- pean rocks, appalling in the splendor of their proportions and the magnificence of their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heaven- ward from breadths of level sward, and glow like living flames ; peaks of various tinges overlook the tops of other peaks, that, in their turn, lord it among gigantic bowlders piled upon massive pedestals. It is Osso upon Pelion, in little; vastly *,r ' )i 36 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, 1 'II ■'■ % impressive because of the exceptional sur- roundings that magnify these magnificent monuments, unique in their design and almost unparalleled in their picturesque and daring outline. Some of the mono- liths tremble and sway, or seem to sway ; for they are balanced edgewise, as if the gods had amused themselves in some in- fantile game, and, growing weary of this little planet, had fled and left their toys in confusion. The top-beavy and the tottering ones are almost within reach; but there are slabs of rock that look like slices out of a mountain — I had almost said like slices out of a red-hot volcano ; they stand up against the blue sky and the widespreading background in briUiant and astonishmg perspective. I doubt if anywhere else in the world the contrasts in color and form are more violent thai: ')A the Q^arden of the Gods. They are not always agreeable to the eye, for there is much crude color here ; but there are points of sight where these columns, pinnacles, spires and obelisks, with base and capital, are so grouped that the massing is as fantastical as a cloud picture, and the whole can be compared only to a petrified afterglow. I have seen pictures of the Garden of the Gods that ■ i I Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 37 made me nearly burst with laughter; I mean color studies that were supremely ridiculous in my eyes, for I had not then seen the original; but none of these makes me laugh any longer. They serve, even the wildest and the worst of them, to remind me of a morning drive, in the best of company, through that grand garden where our combined vocabularies of delight and wonderment were ex- hausted inside of fifteen minutes; and where we drove on and on, hour after hour, from climax to cUmax, lost in speechless amazement. Glan Eyrie is the valley of Rasselas — I am sure it is. The Prince of Abyssinia left the gate open when he, poor fool! went forth in search of happiness and found it not. Now any one may drive through the domain of the present pos- sessor and admire his wealth of pictorial solitude — without, however, sharing it further. If it were mine, would I permit this much, I wonder? Only the elect should enter there ; and once the charmed circle was complete, we would wall up the narrow passage that leads to this ter- restrial paradise, and you would hear no more from us, or of us, nor we of you, or from you, forever. \ -^ I! 38 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. On my first visit to Colorado Springs I made a little pilgrimage. I heard that a gentle lady, whom I had always wished to see, was at her home on the edge of the city. No trouble in finding the place: pny one could direct me. It was a cosy cottage in the midst of a garden and shaded by thickly leaved trees . Some one was bowed down among the strawberry beds, busy there; yet the place seemed half deserted and very, very quiet. Big bamboo chairs and lounges Hned the vine- curtained porch. The shades in the low bay-window were half drawn, and a glint of sunshine lighted the warm interior. I saw heaps of precious books on the table in that deep window. There was a mos- quito door in the porch, and there I knocked for admittance. I knocked for a long time, but received no answer. I knocked again so that I might be heard even in the strawberry bed. A littJe kitten came up out of the garden and said something kittenish to me, and then I heard a muffled step within. The door opened — the inner door, — and beyond the wire-cloth screen, that remained closed against me, I saw a figure like a ghost, but a very buxom and wholesome ghost indeed. I asked for the hostess. Alas ! she was Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 39 far away and had been ill; it was not known when she would return. Her address wad offered me, and I thought to write her, — thought to tell her how I had sought out her home, hoping to find her after years of patieno waiting; and that while I talked of her through the wire- cloth screen tho kitten, which she must have petted once upon a time, climbed up the screen until it had reached the face of the amiable woman within, and then purred and purred as only a real kitten can. I never wrote that letter; for while we were chatting on the porch she of whom we chatted, she who has written a whole armful of the most womanly and lovable of books, Helen Hunt Jackson, lay dying in San Francisco and we knew it not. But it is something to have stood by her threshold, though she was never again to cross it in the flesh, and to have been greeted by her kitten. How she loved kittens! And now I can associate her memory with the peacefulest of cot- tages, the easiest of verarda chairs, a bay- window full of books and sunshine, and a strawberry bod alive with berries and blossoms and bntterfles and bees. And yonder on the heights her body was anon laid to rest among the haunts she loved so dearly. •I' K . Chapter IV. ill A WhirS ..cross the Rockies. A LONG- time ago — nearly a quarter of •'^ a century — California could boast a literary weekly capable of holding its own with any in the land. This was before San Francisco had begun to lose her unique and dehghtful individuality — now gone forever. Among the contributors to this once famous weekly were MarK Twain, Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin Miller, Dan de Quille, Orpheus C. Kerr, C. H. Webb, ''John Paul,'' Ada Clare, Ada Isaacs Menken, Ina Coolbrith, and hosts of othei's. Fitz Hugh Ludlow wrote for it a series of brilliant descriptive letters recounting his adventures during a recent overland journey; they were afterward incorporated in a volume—l n/ft? out of print — entitled ''The Heart ot ./uw Continent. '^ In one of these letters Ludlow wrote as follows of the probable future of Manitou : "When Colorado betomr/ a o^pulous (40) wmrnnn m Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 41 State, the springs of the Fontaine-qui- Bouille will constitute its Spa. In air and scenery no more glorious summer residence could be imagined. The Colora- dian of the future, astonishing the echoes of the rocky foothills by a railroad from Denver to the springs, and running down on Saturday to stop over Sunday with his family, will have little cause to envy us Easterners our Saratoga as he paces up and down the piazza of the Cpa hotel, mingling his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air, unbreathed before, which is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range." His prophecy has become true in every particular. But what would he have thought had he threaded the tortuous path now marked by glistening railway tracks ? What would he have said of the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, thb Black Cf,non of the Gun- nison, Castle Canon aad Marshall Pass over the crest of ih« continent? I suppose a narrow-guage road can go anywhere. It trails along the slope of shelving hills like a wild vine; it slides through gopher-hole tunnels as a thread slides through the eye of a needle; it utilizes water-courses ; it turns ridiculously sharp corners in a style calculated to re- f i i l4-' 42 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. It ' 'd one of the days when he played ap-the-whip'^ and happened to be the suctpper himself. This is especially the case if one is sitting on the rear platform of the last car. We shot a canon by day- light, and marvelled at the glazed surface of the red rock with never so much as a scratch over it. On the one hand we nearly scraped the abrupt perpendicular wall that towered hundreds of feet above us ; on the other, a swift, muddy torrent sprang at our stone-bedded sleepers as if to snatch them away; while it flooded the canon to the opposite wall, that did not seem more that a few yards distant. The stream was swollen, and went howling down the ravine full of sound and fury-- which in this case, however, signified a good deal. Once we stopped and took an observa- tion, for the track was under water; then we waded cautiously to the mainland, across the sunken section, and thanked our stars that we were not boycotted by the elements at that inhospitable point. Once we paused for a few minutes to con- template the total wreck of a palace car that had recently struck a projecting bowlder — and spattered. The camps along the track are just Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 43 such as may be looked for in the waste places of the earth — temporary shelter for wayfarers whose homes are under their hats. The thin stream of civiliza- tion that trickles ofE into the wilderness, following the iron track, makes puddles now and again. Some of these dwindle away soon enough — or perhaps not quite soon enough ; some of them increase and become permanent and beautiful. Night found us in the Black Canon of the Gunnison. Could any time be more appropriate? Clouds rolled over us in dense masses, and at intervals the moon flashed upon us like a dark lantern . Could anything be more picturesque ? We knew that much of the darkness, the blackness of darkness, was adamantine rock ; some of it an inky flood — a veritable river of death — rolHng close beneath us, but quite invisible most of the time ; and the night itself a profound mystery, through which we burned an endless tunnel — ^hke a fire- brand hurled into space. Now and again the heavens opened, and then we saw the moon soaring among the monumental peaks ; but the heights were so cloudhkv^ and the cloud masses so soUd we could not for the life of us be certain of the nature of either. There were canon& * t >: 44 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. like huge quan.es, and canons like rocky mazes, where we seemed to have rushed headlong into a cul de sac^ and were in danger of dashing our brains out against the mighty walls that loomed before us. There was many a winding stream which we took at a single bound, and occasion- ally an oasis, green and flowery; but, oh, so few habitations and so few spots that one would really care to inhabit! Marshall Pass does very well for once ; i^ is an experience and a novelty — what else is there in life to make it livable save a new experience or the hope of one? Such a getting up hill as precedes the rest at the summit! We stopped for breath while the locomotive puffed and panted as if it would burst its brass-bound lungs ; then we began to climb again, and to wheeze, fret and fume ; and it seemed as if we actually went down on hands and knees and crept a bit when the grade be- came steeper than usual. Only think of it a moment — an incline of two hundred and twenty feet to the mile in some places, and the track climbing over itself at fre- quent intervals. Far below us we saw the terraces we had passed long before ; far above us lay the great land we were so slowly and so painfully approaching. At Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 45 last we reached the summit, ten thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above sea level — a God-forsaken district, bristUng with dead trees, and with hardly air enough to go around. We stopped in a long shed — built to keep ofE the sky, I suppose. Gallants prospected for flowers and grass-blades, and received the profuse thanks of the fair in exchange for them. Then we glided down into the snow lands that lay beyond — filled with a delicious sense of relief, for a fellow never feels so mean or so small a pigmy as when perched on an Alpine height. More canons followed, and no two alike ; then came plain after plain, with buttes outlined in the distance; more plains, with nothing but their own excessive plainness to boast of. We soon grew vastly weary ; for most plains are, after all, mere platitudes. And then Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, with its lake shimmering like a mirage in the great glow of the valley ; and a run due north through the well-tilled lands of the thrifty ''saints," getting our best wayside meals at stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer 46 Over the BocJcy Mountains to Alaska. dust that makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore to follow as is worth a week's travel merely to get one glimpse of; and at last Portland, the prettiest of Pacific cities, and heaps of friends to greet me there. Bright days were to follow, as you shall soon see ; for I was still bound northward, with no will to rest until I had plowed the floating fields of ice and dozed through the pale hours of an artic summer under the midnight sun. Ctt>ptee v. Off for Alaska. T F you are bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon, and retaining your state-room until you land again in Port- land, three weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at Port Town- send, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which makes its excur- sion trip monthly — at least it used to be- fore the Klondyke hoards deranged the time-table and the times. If this does not satisfy you, you may take passage at San Francisco for Port Townsend or Victoria, and connect at either port with the Alaska boat. Those who are still unsuited had better wait a bit, when, no doubt, other as entirely satisfactory arrangements will be made (47) V ( 48 Over the Rochj Mountains to AlasJca. for their especial convenience. I went by train to Tacoma. I wanted to sniff the forest scents of "Washington State, and to get a glimpse of the brav^e young settle- ments scattered through the North-west- ern wilderness. I wanted to skirt the shore of the great Sounds, whose praises have been ringing in my ears ever since I can remember — and that is a pretty long time now. I wanted to loaf for a while in Port Townsend, the old jumping-off place, the monogram in the extreme worthwest corner of the map of the United States of America — at least such it was until the Alaskan annex stretched the thing all out of shape, and planted our flag so far out in the Pacific that San Francisco lies a little east of the centre of the Union, and the Hawaiian islands come within our boundaries; for our Aleutian-island arm, you know, stretches a thousand miles to the west of Hawaii — it even chucks Asia under the chin. But now let me offer you a stray hand- ful of leaves from my note-book — mere suggestions of travel. At Portland took morning train for Tacoma, one hundred and forty-seven miles. Swarms of people at the station,. Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 49 and some ominous ' 'good-byes" ; the ma- jority talking of Alaska in a superior fashion, which implies that they are through passengers, and they don't care who knows it. Alaska boat left Portland two days ago ; we are to catch her at Port Townsend, and it looks as if we should crowd her. Train crosses the Columbia River on a monster ferry; a jolly and restful half hour in the cars and out of them. A very hot and dusty ride through Washington State, — part of it pretty enough and part of it by no means so. Cars full of screaming babies, sweltering tourists, and falling cinders that sting like dumb mosquitoes. Rather a mixed neighborhood on the rail. An effusively amiable evangehst bobs up almost imme- diately, — one of those fellows whom no amount of snubbing can keep under. Old ProbabiUties is also on board, discour [■ g at intervals to all who will give ^ur. Some quiet and interesting folk in a state of suspense, and one young fellow — a regular trump, — promise better things. We reach Tacoma at 6.30 p. m.; a queer, scattering town on Commence- ment Bay, at the head of Puget Sound. Very deep water just off shore. Two ■,*< i \l 50 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. boys in a sailboat are blown about at the mercy of the fitful wind; boat on beam- ends; boys on the uppermost gunwale; sail lying flat on the water. But nobody seems to care, not even the young casta- ways. Perhaps the inhabitants of Taco- ma are amphibious . Very beautiful sheet of wa'iier, this Puget Sound ; long, wind ing, monotonous shores; trees all aliki straight up and down, mostly pines ana cedars ; shores rather low, and outline too regular for much picturesque effect. Ta- coma commands the best view of the Sound and of Mt. Tacoma, with its fifteen thousand perpendicular feet looming rose- pink in the heavens, and all its fifteen glaciers seeming to glow with an inner tropic warmth. There are eighteen hun- dred miles of shore-line embroidering this marvellous Sound. We are continually rounding abrupt points, as in a river, — points so much alike that an untutored eye can not tell one from another. Old Probabilities industriously taking his reckonings and growing more and more enthusiastic at every turn — especially so when the after-glow burns the sea to a coal ; it reminds him of a volcanic erup- tion. There are some people who when they see anything new to them are in- l\ Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 51 stantly reminded of something else tliey have seen, and the new object becomes second rate on the spot. A little travel is a dangerous thing. Pay $3.25 for my fare from Tacoma to Port Townsend, and find a moment later that some are paying r dy 'pi for the same accommodations. Competition is the mother of these pleasant surprises, but it is worth thrice the original price — the enjoyment of this twilight cruise. More after-glow, much more, with the Olympian Mountains lying between us and the ocean. In the foreground is a golden flood with scarlet ripples breaking through it — a vision splendid and long continued. Air growing quite chilly; strong draughts at some of the turns in the stream. Surely, in this case, the evening and the morning are not the same day. At 9.30 p. m. we approach Seattle — a handsome town, with its terraces of lights twinkling in the gloaming. Passengers soon distribute themselves through the darkness. I am left alone on the after- deck to watch the big, shadowy ships that are moored near us, and the exquisite phosphorescent light in the water — a wave of ink with the luminous trail of a stmckmatch smouldering across it. Far .( ' \i m -ft m 52 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. into the night there was the thundering of freight rolling up and down the decks, and the ring of invisible truck-wheels. Slept by and by, and was awakened by the prolonged shriek of a steam whistle and a stream of sunUght that poured in at my state-room window. We were backing and slowing ofiE Poi-t Ludlow. Big sawmill close at hand. Four barks lie at the dock in front of it ; a few houses stand on the hill above ; pine woods crowd to the water's edge, making the place look solemn. Surely it is a solemn land and a solemn sea about here. After breakfast, ar out 8.30 o'clock, Port Town- send hove in sight, and here we await the arrival of the Alaska boat. "What an odd little town it is — the smallest possible city set upon a hill; the business quarter huddled at the foot of the hill, as if it had slid down there and lodged on the very edge '>f the sea! The hotels stalk out over the water on stilts. One sleeps well in the sweet salt air, lulled by the mnrmer of the waves under the veranda. I rummage the town in search of ad- venture; climb one hundred and fifty steep steps, and Sad the highlands at the toPi green, pastoral and reposeful. Pleas- ant homes are scattered about; a few Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 53 rmma^^'m^ animals feed leisurely in the grassy streets. Op 9 diminutive Episcopal chapel comes near to being pretty, yet stops just short of it. But there is a kind of unpretend- ing prettiness in the bright and breezy heights environed by black forest and blue sea. A revenue cutter — this is a port of cus- toms, please remember — lies in the offing. She looks as if she were suspended in air, so pure are the elements in the northland. I lean from a parapet, on my way down the seaward face of the cliff, and hear the order, ''Make ready!" Then comes a flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and a crash that shatters an echo into frag- ments all along the shore ; while beautiful smoke rings roll up against the sky like victorious wreaths. I call on the Hon. J. G^. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of The Northwest Coast; or. Three Years' Eeside^ ,oe in Washington Territory." Find him delightfal, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian relics; himself full of the live- liest recollections of Indian hfe, and quite an authority on Indian tongues and tra- ditions ; find also an old schoolmate, after long years of separation, and am most courteously entertained. What a drive i^ wm III 54 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaslca. we had over the hills and along the beach, where the crows haunt the water's edge like sea-birds! It has been repeatedly aflfirmed that these crows have been seen to seize a clam, raise it high in the air, let it drop upon a rock, and then pounce upon the fragments and feast furiously. But I have never seen one who has had ocular proof of this. There was a very happy hour spent at Colonel Douglas' quarters, over at the camp ; and then such a long, long drive through the deep wildwood, with its dense undergrowth, said to be the haunt of bear, panthei, wild cat, deer, and other large game. Bearbenies grew in profusion everywhere. The road, kept in f -^lendid repair by the army men, dipped into a meadow full of savage mosquitoes; but escaping through two gates, we struck again into the forest, where the road was almost overgrown with dew-damp brush, that besprinkled us profusely as we passed. We paused upon the slope above Port Discovery Bay ; saw an old fellow on the porch of a wee cottage looking steadfastly into the future — across the Bay ; with pipe in mouth, he was the picture of con- tentment, abstraction and repose. He never once turned to look at us, though , , i Over the Bocky Mountains to AlasJca. 55 few pass that way; but kept his eyes fixed TApon a vision of surpassing beauty, where the vivid coloring was startling to the eye and the morning air Hke an elmr. Nothing but the great summer hotel of the future — ^it will surely come some day and stand right there — can rob the spot of its blissful serenity. f^ f 'i -:H I i^'i I- r Chapter VI. In the Inland Sea. 'TO'E were waiting the arrival of the Alaska boat, — wandering aimlessly about tli<5 Httle town, looking ofiE upon the quiet ee^, now veiled in a dense smoke blown down from the vast forest fires that were sweeping the interior. The sun, shorn of his beams, was a disk of copper j the sun-track in the sea, a trail of blood. The clang of every ship's bell, the scream of every whistle, gave us new hope; but we were still wdting, waiting, waiting. Port Townsend dtands knee-deep in the edge of a sea-garden. I sat a long time on the dock, watching for some sign of the belated boat. Great ropes of kelp, tubes of dark brown sea-grass, floated past me on the slow tide. Wonderful anemones, pink, baloon-shaped, uutable, living and breathing things, — these pant- ed as they drifted by. At every respira- tion they expanded like the sudden blos- soming of a flower ; then they closed quite as suddenly, and became mere buds. (56) Over the Body Mountains to Alaska. 57 "When the round core of these sea-flowers was exposed to the air — the palpitating heart was just beneath the surface most of the time, — they withered in a bioath ; but revived again the moment the water glazed them over, and fairly revelled in aqueous efflorescence. ^ ' Bang ! ' ^ It was the crash of an unmis- takable gun, that shook the town to its foundations and brought the inhabitants to their feet in an instant. Out of the smoke loomed a shadowy ship, and, lo! it was the Alaska boat . A goodly number of passengers were already on board ; as many more were now to join her; and then her prow was to be turned to the north star and held there for some time to come. In a moment the whole port was in a state of excitement. New arrivals hurried on shore to see the Hons of the place. We, who had been anxiously awaiting this hour for a couple of long summer days, took the ship by storm, and drove the most amiable and obliging of pursers nearly frantic with our pressing solicitations. Everybody was laying in private stores, this being our last chance to supply all deficiencies. Light literature we found scattered about at the druggist's and the I ^1 ' i^W'^l '\'A M4 4 ■ n m.i. 58 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. grocer's and the curiosity shops; also ink, pens, note-books, tobacco, scented soap and playing-cards were discovered in equally unexpected localities. We all wanted volumes on the Northwest — a" many of them as we could get ; but almost the only one obtainable was Skidmore's * 'Alaska, the Sitkan Archipelago," which is as good as any, if not the best. A few had copies of the ''Pacific Coast Pilot. Alaska. Part I. Dixon's Entrance to Yakutat Bay," — invaluable as a practical guide, and filled with positive data. Dall and Whimper we could not find, nor Bancroft at that time. Who will give us a handy volume reprint of delightful old Vancouver? We were busy as bees all that after- noon ; yet the night and the starlight saw us satisfactorily hived, and it was not long before the buzzing ceased, as ship and shore slept the sleep of the just. By and by we heard pumping, hosing, deck- washing, the paddling of bare feet to and fro, and all the familiar sounds of an early morning at sea. The ship, however, was motionless: we were lying stock-still. Doubtless everybody was wondering at this, as I was, when there came a crash, followed by a small avalanche of broken 1 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 59 timber, while the ship quaked in her watery bed. I thought of dynamite and the Dies Irae; but almost immediately the cabin-boy, who appeared with the matutinal coffee, said it was only the Olympian, the fashionable Sound steamer, that had run into us, as was her custom. She is always running into something, and she succeeded in carrying away a portion of our stern gear on this occasion. Nevertheless, we were delayed only a few hours ; for the Olympian was polite enough not to strike us below the water-Hne, and so by high noon we were fairly under way. From my log-book I take the following : This is slow and easy sailing — a kind of jog-trot over the smoothest possible sea, with the paddles audibly working every foot of the way. We run down among the San Juan Islands, where the passages are so narrow and so intricate they make a kind of watery monogram among the fir-lined shores. A dense smoke still ob- scures the sun, — a rich haze that softens the distance and lends a picturesqueness that is perhaps not wholly natural to the locality, though the San Juan Islands are unquestionably beautiful. The Gulf of Georgia, the Straits of Fuca, and Queen Charlotte Sound are the words \% f- 60 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. upon the lips of everybody. Shades of my schoolboy days! How much sweeter they taste here than in the old geography class ! Before us stretches a wilderness of islands, mostly uninhabited, which pene- trates even into the sunless winter and the shadowless summer of Behring Sea. As for ourselves. Old Probabilities has got down to business. He has opened an impromptu peripatetic school of navi- gation, and triumphantly sticks a pin into every point that talhes with his yard- square chart. The evangelist has his field-glass to his eye in search of the un- regenerated aborigines. The swell tour- ists are much swollen with travel; they loosen the belts of their Norfolks, and at intervals affect a languid interest in this mundane sphere. There are delightful people on board — many of them — and not a few others. There are bevies of girls — all young, all pretty; and all, or nearly all, bubbling over with hearty and whole- some laughter. What richness! A good, clean deck running the whole length of the ship ; a cosy and cheerful social hall, with a first- class upright piano of delicious tone, and at least a half dozen creditable performers to awaken the soul of it; a good table, Over the JRocky Mountains to Alaska. 61 good weather, good luck, and positively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on board this ship; the telegraph, with metalUc tick, can not once startle us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off;, wars and rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the possibility of a rain-shower this after- noon, or the solution of the vexed ques- tion, ''Will the aurora dazzle us before dawn ? ' ' We do not propose to wait upon the aurora: for days and days and days we are going to climb up the globe due North, getting nearer and nearer to it all the while. Now, inasmuch as everything is new to us, we can easily content our- selves for hours by lounging in the easy- chairs, and looking off upon the placid sea, and at the perennial verdure that springs out of it and mantles a lovely but lonely land. Only think of it for a moment ! Here on the northwest coast there are islands sown so thickly that many of the sea-pas- sages, though deep enough for a three- decker to swim in, are so narrow that one r 62 Over the Bochj Mountains to Alaska, might easily skim his hat across them. There are thousands of these islands — yea, tens of thousands, — I don't know just how many, and perhaps no man does. They are of all shapes and sizes, and the majority of them are handsomely wooded. The sombre green of the woods, stretch- ing between the sombre blue-green of the water and the opaline sheen of the sky, forms a picture — a momentary picture, — the chief features of which change almost as suddenly and quite as completely as the transformations in a kaleidoscope. We are forever turning corners ; and no sooner are we around one corner than three others elbow us just ahead. Now, toward which of the three are we bound, and will our good ship run to larboard or to starboard? This is a turn one might bet on all day long — and lose nearly every time. A bewildering cruise ! Vastly finer than river sailing is this Alaskan expedition. Here is a whole tangle of rivers full of strange tides, mysterious currents, and sweet surprises. Moreover, we can get lost if we want to — no one can get lost in a river. We can rush in where pilots fear to tread, strike sunken rocks, toss among dismal eddies, or plunge into I Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 63 whirlpools. We can rake overhanging boughs with our yard-arms if we want to — but we don't want to. In 1875 the United States steamer Saranac went down in Seymour Narrows, and her fate was sudden death . The United States steamer Suwanee met with a like misfortune on entering Queen Charlotte Sound. It is rather jolly to think of these things, and to realize that we were in more or less danger ; though the shores are as silent as the grave, the sea sleeps hke a mill-pond, and the sun sinks to rest with great dig- nity and precision, nightly bathing the lonely North in sensuous splendor. It is getting late. Most of us are in- dulging in a constitutional. We rush up and down the long flush decks like mad ; we take fiendish delight in upsetting the pious dignity of the evangelist ; we flutter the smokers in the smoking-room — be- cause, forsooth, we are chasing the girls from one end of the ship to the other; and consequently the denizens of the masculine cabin can give their undivided attention to neither cards nor tobacco. What fun it all is — when one is not obliged to do it for a living, and when it is the only healthy exercise one is able to take !' 64 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, By and by the girls fly to their little nests. As we still stroll in the ever-so- late twilight, at 10 p. m., we hear them piping sleepily, one to another, their heads under their wings no doubt. They are early birds — but that is all right. They are the life of the ship ; but for their mirth and music the twilight would be longer and less deUghtful. Far into the night I linger over a final cigarette. An inex- pressible calm steals over me, — a feeling as of deliverance, for the time being at least, from all the cares of this world. We are steaming toward a mass of shad- ows that, like iron gates, seem shut against us. A group of fellow- voyagers gathers on the forward deck, resolved to sit up and ascertain whether we really manage to squeeze through some crevice, or back out at last and go around the block. I grow drowsy and think fondly of my little bunk. What a night ! Everything has grown vague and mysterious. Not a voice is heard — only the throb of the engine down below and the articulated pulsation of the paddles, every stroke of which brings forth a hollow sound from the sea, as clear and as well defined as a blow upon a drumhead; but these are softened by mpi Over the Mocky 31ountmns to Alaska. 65 the swish of waters foaming under the wheel. Echoes multiply; myriads of them, faint and far, play peek-a-boo with the solemn pilot, who silently paces the deck when all the ship is wrapped in a deep sleep. »^, M -.I -M Chapter VTI. Alaskan Villagre Life. TyiTH the morning coffee came a rumor of an Indian village on the neighboring shore . We were already past it, a half hour or more, but canoes were visible Nowthiswas an episode. Jack, +?;.e cabin-boy, slid back the blind; and as I sat up in my bunk, bolstered among the pillows^ I saw the green shore, moist with dew and sparkling in the moTuing light, sweej) slowly by — an endless panorama. There is no dust here, not a particle. There is rain at inters'als, and a heavy dew-fall, and sometimes a sea fog that makes It hig'^ly advisable to suspend all operatic, .s until it has lifted. After coffee I found the deck gaily peopled. The steamer was i-unning at half speed ; and shortly sh'=^ took a big turn in a beautiful lagoon and went back on her course far enough to come in sight of the Indian village, but wc did not stop there. It seisms that one passage we were about to thread was reacht d at a wrong stage of (66) fi Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 67 the tide ; and, instead of \7aiting there for better water, we loafed about for a couple of hours, enjoying it immensely, every soul of us. Vancouver Island lay upon our left. It was half veiled in mist, or smoke; and its brilliant constellation of sky-piercing peaks, green to the summit, with glints of sunshine gilding the chasms here and there, and rich shadows draping them superbly, reminded me of Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands — the one where Herman Melville found his famed Typee. It seems extravagant to assoc'ate any feature in the Alaska . archipelago with the most romantic island in the tropical sea; but there are points of similarity, notwithstanding the geographical discrep- ancy — daring outlines, magnificent cloud and atmospheric effects, and a fragrance, a pungent balsamic odor evor noticeable. This impalpable, invisible b ilm permeates everything; it is wafted out over the sea to us, even as the breath of the Spice Islands is borne over the waves to tt.e joy of the passing mariner. Surely there can be no finer tonic for a fagged fellow with feeble lungs than this glorious Alaskan air. There is no danger of surfeit here; the over-sweet is not w ■•♦(■ 68 Over the Eocky Mountains to Ai Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 71 lake, they came upon a boat which re- quired incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept the craft afloat while the others fished until even- ing. They caught nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the seats ; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say again, on good authority, there are no game fish in Alaska. There are salmon enough in these waters to supply the world — but the world can be supplied without coming to these waters at all. The truth is, I fear, that the market has been glutted and the business overdone. One evening we anchored off a sad and silent shore. A few Indian lodges were outlined against the woods beyond. A few Indians stolidly awaited the arrival of a small boat containing one of our fellow-passengers. Then for some hours this boat was busily plying to and fro, bringing out to us all that was portable of a once flourishing, or at least promis- ing, fishery and canneiy, now defunct. Meanwhile the mosquitoes boarded our ship on a far more profitable speculation. It was pitiful to see our friend gathering together the d^hris of a wrecked fortune — for he had been wealthy and was now on ■f 72 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. W the down grade of life — hoping almost against hope to be able to turn an honest penny somehow, somewhere, before he dies. At times we saw solitary canoes con- taining a whole familj of Indians fishing in the watery waste. What solemn lives they must lead! But a more solemn and more solitary scene occurred a little later. All the afternoon we had been sailing under splendid icy peaks. We came in out of the hot sun, and were glad of the cool, snow-chilled air that visited us lightly at intervals. It was the hour of 9.30 p. m. The sun was dropping behind a loftly mountain range, and in its fine glow we steamed into a lovely cove under a towering height. A deserted, or almost deserted, fishing village stood upon a green bottom land — a mere handful of lodges, with a young growth of trees beyond, and an older growth between these and the glacier that was glistening above them all. A cannery looking nearly new stood at the top of a tall dock on stilts. On the extreme end of the dock was a fig- ure — a man, and a white man at that — with both hands in his pockets, and an attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The ■ Over the Backy Mountains to Alaska. 73 figure stood stock-still. We wondered if it lived, if it breathed, or if it was an effigy set up there in scorn of American enterprise. We slowed up and drew near to the dock. It was a curious picture: a half dozen log-built lodges; a few tall piles driven into the land for steamer or trading schooner to make fast to ; a group of Indians by a feeble camp fire, — Indians who never once changed their postures more than to wearily lift their heads and regard us with absolute indifference. When we were near enough to haU the motionless figure on the dock, we did not hail him . Everj^body was wildly curious : Everybody was perfectly dumb. The whole earth was silent at last ; the wheels had stopped ; the boat was scarcely mov- ing through the water. The place, the scene, the hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep silence ; the paddles plunged into the sea again ; we made a graceful sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away. Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the dock; we merely touched our hats at the last moment; he lifted his, stalked solemnly to the top of the dock and disappeared. There is a bit of Alaskan life for you ! ' 4' \\ it \ Chapter VIII. Juneau. QITKA, the capital of Alaska sleeps, save when she is awakened for a day or two by the arrival of a steamer-load of tourists. Fort Wrangell, the premature offspring of a gold rumor, died, but rose again from the dead when the lust of gold turned the h man tide toward the Klon- dike. Juneau, the metropolis, was the only settlement that showed any signs of vigor before the Klondike day ; and she lived a not over-lively village life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow straits. There were sea- birds skimming the water as we threaded the labyrinthine channels that surround Juneau. We were evidently not very far from the coast-line; for the gulls were only occasional visitors on the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared aloft among the (74) pnmp Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 75 pines that crowned the mountain heights ; they glossed their wings in the spray of the sky-tipped waterfalls, and looked down upon us from serene summits with the unwinking eye of scorn . It is awfully fine sailing all about Juneau. Superb heights, snow-capped in many cases, forest-clad in all, and with cloud belts and sunshine mingling in the crystalline at- mosphere, form a glorious picture, which, oddly enough, one does not view with amazement and delight, but in the very midst of which, and a very part of which, he is; and the proud consciousness of this marks one of the happiest moments of his life. Steaming into a lagoon where its moun- tain walls are so high it seemed like a watery way in some prodigious Venice; steaming in, steaUng in like a wraith, we were shortly saluted by the miners on Douglas Island, who are, perhaps, the most persistent and least harmful of the dynamiters. It was not long before we began to get used to the batteries that are touched off every few minutes, night and day; but how strange to find in that wild solitude a 120-stamp mill, electric lights, and all the modern nuisances! Never was there a greater contrast than the one 76 Over the Bocky 3Ioimta'ms to Alaska. If: I \h ! presented at Douglas Island . The lagoon , with its deep, dark waters, still as a dead river, yet mirroring the sea-bird's wing; a strip of beach; just above it rows of cabins and tents tl'^t at once suggest the mining camps of v arly California days ; then the rather handsome quarters of the directors ; and then the huge mill, admi- rably constructed and set so snugly among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big game ; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopp- ing all, as they lose themselves in the fair- est of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that prevails at G-astineaux Channel. Soon, weary of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of experience for a young one. It was first known as Pilsbury ; then some humorist dubbed it Fliptown. Later it Over the Rochj Mountains to Alaska. 11 was called Eockwelland Harrisburg; and finally Juneau, the name it still bears with more or less dignity. The customary Indian village hangs upon the borders of the town; in fact, the two wings of the settlement are aboriginal ; but the copper- skin seems not particularly interested in the progress of civilization, further than the occasional chance it affords him of turning an honest penny in the disposal of his wares. No sooner was the gang-plank out than we all made a rush for the trading stores in search of curios. The faculty of acquisitiveness grows with what it feeds on ; and before the Alaskan tour is over, it almost amounts to a mania among the excursionists. You should have seen us — men, women and children — hurrying along the beach toward the heart of Juneau, where we saw flags flying from the staves that stood by the trading- stores. It was no easy task to distance a competitor in those great thoroughfares. Juneau has an annual rainfall of nine feet ; the streets are guttered : indeed the streets are gutters in some cases. I know of at least one little bridge that carries the pedestrian from one sidewalk to another, over the muddy road below. I ..: . 1,^ Hill ' t Iff it^ ill !!! 78 Oyer ve. Hence there was time for the United States to consider the question of a purchase and to haggle a Uttle over the price. For years the bargain hung in the balance. When it was finally settled, it was settled so suddenly that the witnesses had to be wakened and called out of ther beds. They assembled secretly, in the middle of the night, as if they were conspirators; and before sunrise the whole matter was fixed forever. On the 18th of October, 1867, three United States ships of war anchored off Katalan^s Rock. These were the Ossipee, the Jamestown and the Eesaca. In the afternoon, at half -past three o'clock, the terrace before the castle was surrounded by United States troops, Russian soldiers, oflScials, citizens and Indians. The town was alive with Russian bunting, and the ships aflutter with Stars and Stripes and streamers . There was something ominous in the air and in the sunshine. Bang! went the guns from the Ossipee, and the Russian flag slowly descended from the lofty staff on the castle; but the wind caught it and twisted it round and round ■I -I I ki. 142 Over the Eocky Mountains to Alaska, the staff, and it was long before a boat- swain's chair could be rigged to the halyards, and some one hauled up to dis- entangle the rebellious banner. Meanwhile the rain began to fall, and the Princess Maksontoff was in tears. It was a dismal hour for the proud court of the doughty governor. The Russian water battery was firing a salute from the dock ao the Stars and Stripes were climbing to the skies — the great continent of icy peaks and pine was passing from the hands of one nation to the other. In the silence that ensued, Captain Pestehouroff stepped forward and said: "By authority of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United States the Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of the United States govern- ment — ^both the acquisition and the fault- finding were on the part of our govern- ment — had best be left unmentioned. Now that the glorious waters of that mag- Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 143 nificent archipelago have become the resort of summer tourists, every man, woman and child can see for his, her and its self; and this is the only way in which to convince an American of anything. Thirty yerrs ago Sitka was what I have attempted to describe above. To-day how different ! Passing its barracks at the foot of Katalan's Eock, one sees a handful of marines looking decidedly bored if off duty. The steps that lead up to the steep incline of the rock to the castle terrace are fast falling to decay. Weeds and rank grass trail over them and cover the whole top of the rock. The castle has been dismantled. The walls will stand until they are blown up or torn down, but all traces of the original ornamenta- tion of the interior have disappeared. The carved balustrades, the curious locks, knobs, hinges, chandeliers, and fragments of the wainscoting, have been borne away by enterprising curio hunters. There was positively nothing left for me to take. One may still see the chamber occupied by Secretary Seward, who closed the bar- gain with the Russian Government at $7,200,000, cash down. Lady Franklin occupied that chamber when she was scouring these waters in the fearless and 144 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. indefatigable, but fruitless, search for the relics of che lost Sir John. One handsome apartment has been partially restored and suitably furnished for the use of the United States District Attorney. Two rooms on the groundfloor are occupied by the signal officers ; but the rest of the building is in a shameful condition, and only its traditions remain to make it an object of interest to every stranger guest. It is said that twice in the year, at the dead hour of the night, the ghost of a bride wanders sorro'V^^ully from room to room. She was the daughter of one of the old governors — a stern parent, who forced her into a marriage without love. On the bridal eve, while all the guests were assembled, and the bride, in wedding garments, was the centre of attraction, she suddenly disappeared. After a long search her body was found in one of the apartments of the castle, but life was ex- tinct. At Eastertide the shade of this sad body makes the round of the deserted halls, and in passing leaves after it a faint odor of wild roses. The basement is half filled with old rubbish . I found rooms where an amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the walls recorded Oocr the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 145 the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork debris was scattered about, and there were **old soldiers" enough on the premises to have quite staggered a moralist. The Musco^ xte reign is over. The Princess is in her grave on the hill yonder, — a grave that was for- gotten for a time and lost in the jungle that has overgrown the old Russian cemetery. The Indians mutilated that tomb; but Lieutenant Gilman, in charge of the marines attached to the Adams, restored it; and he, with his men, did much toward preserving Pitka from going to the dogs. Gone are the good old days, but the Americanized Sitka does not propose to be behind the times. I discovered a thea- tre. It was in one of the original Rus- sian houses, doomed to last forever — a long, narrow hall, with a stage at the upper end of it. A few scenes, evidently painted on the spot and in dire distress ; a drop-curtain depicting an utterly im- practicable roseate ice-gorge in the ideal Alaska, and four footlights, constituted the sum total of the properties The stage was six feet deep, about ten feet broad, and the ''flies" hung like "bangs" above i , 146 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. the foreheads of the players. In the next room, convenient in case of a panic, was the Sitka fire department, consisting of a machine of one-man-power, which a smaii boy might work without endanger- ing anybody or an^hing. Suburban Sitka 7.s sweet and sad. One passes on the way to the wildwood, where everybody goes as often as may be, — a so-called * 'blarney stone. ' ' Many a fellow has chipped away at that stone while he chatted with his girl — I suppose that is where the blarney comes in, — and left his name or initials for a sacred memory. There are dull old Russian hieroglyphs there Hkewise. Love is alike in all lan- guages, you know. The truth about the stone is merely this : it is a big soft stone by the sea, and of just the right height to rest a weary pilgrim. There old Baranoff , the first governor, used to sit of a sum- mer afternoon and sip his Russian brandy until he was as senseless as the stone be- neath him; and then he was carried in state 'ip to the colonial castle and suffered to sooer off. Beyond the stone, and the curving beach with the grass-grown highway skirting it, is the forest ; and through this forest is the lovers' lane, made long ago Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 147 by the early colonists and kept in perfect trim by the latest, — a lane that is green- arched overhead and fern-walled on either side, and soft with the dust of dead pine boughs underfoot. There also are streams and waterfalls and rustic bridges such as one might look for in Pome stately park in England, but hardly in Alaska. Surely thpre is no bit of wilderness finer than this. All is sweet and grave and silent, save for the ripple of waters and the sighing of winds. As for the Siwash village on the other side of Sitka, it is a Siwash village over again. How soon one wearies of them ! But one ought never to weary of the glori- ous sea isles and the overshadowing mountains that lie on every side of the quaint, half-baxbarous capital. Though it is dead to the core and beginning to show the signs of death, it is one oi the droamiest spots on eartn, and just t'ae one for long summer solitude, — at lease so we all thought, for on the morrow we were homeward bound •M Chapteb XIV. From the Par North. It QITKA is the turning-point in the Alaskan summer cruise. It is the beginning of the end ; and I am more than half inclined to think that in most cases — charming as the voyage is and unique in its way beyond any other voyage within reach of the summer tonrist — the voyager is glad of it. One never gets over the longing for some intelligence f^om the outer world ; never quite becomes accus- tomed to the lonely, far-away feeling that at times is a little painful and often is a bore. During the last hours at Sitka, Mount Edgecombe loomed up gloriously, and reminded one of Fugjyamma. It is a very handsome and a highly ornamental moun- tain. So are the islands that lie between it and the Sitkan shore handsome and ornamental, but there are far too many of them. The picture is overcrowded, and in this respect is as unlike the Bay of (148) Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 149 Naples as possible ; though some writers have compared tliem, and of course, as is usual in cases of comparison, to the dis- advantage of the latter. Leaving Sitka, we ran out to sea. It was much easier to do this than go a long way round among the islands; and> as the weather was fair, the short cut was delightful. We rocked like a cradle — the Ancon rocks like a cradle on the slightest provocation. The sea sparkled, the wavelets leaped and clappf their hands. Once in awhile a plume oi pray was blown over the bow, and the delicate stomach recoiled upon itself suggestively ; but the deliciousness of the air in the open sea and the brevity of the cruise — we were but live or six hours outside — kept us in a state of intense delight. Presently we ran back into the maze of fiords and land-locked lakes, and resumed the same old round of daily and nightly experiences. Juneau, Douglas Island, FortWrangell, and several fishing stations were revisited. They seemed a little stale to us, and we were inclined to snub them slightly. Of course we thought we knew it all — mos*^^ of us knew as much as we cared to know ; and so we strolled leisurely about the 150 Over the Bocky Mov/ntains to Alaska. solemn little settlements, and, no doubt, but poorly succeeded in disguising the superior air which distinguishes the new arrival in a strange land. It is but a step from a state of absolute greenness on one's arrival at a new port to a hlas^ languor, wherein nothing can touch one further; and the step is easily and usually taken inside of a week. May the old settlers forgive i^s our idiocy ; There was a rainy afternoon at Fort Wrangell, — a very proper background, for the place is dismal to a degree. An old stern-wheel steamboat, beached in the edge of the village, was used as a hotel luring the decline of the gold fever; but Irhile the fever was at its height the boat is said to have cleared $135,000 per season. The cooUe has bored into its hollow shell and washes there, clad in a semi-Boyton suit of waterproof. I made my way through tho dense drizzle to the Indian village at the far end of the town. The untrodden streets are grass-grown ; and a number of the little houses, gray with weather stains, ar de- serted and faUing to decay. Reaching a point of land that ran out and lost itself in mist, I found a few Indians smoking and steaming, as they sat in the damp sand by their csnoes. r tSMr m Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. 151 A long footbridge spans a strip of tide land. I ventured to cross it, though it looked as if it would blow away in the first gust of wind. It was a long, long bridge, about broad enough for a single passenger; yet I was met in the middle of it by a well-blanketed squaw, bound in- land. It was a question in my mind whether it were better to run and leap lightly over her, since we must pass on a single rail, or to lie down and allow her to climb over me. happy inspiration! In the mist and the rain, in the midst of that airy path, high above the mud flats, and with the sullen tide slowly sweeping in from the gray wastes beyond the capes, I seized my partner convulsively, and with our toes together we swung as on a pivot and went our ways rejoicing. The bridge led to the door of a chief's house, and the door stood open. It was a large, square house, of one room only, and with the floor sunk to the depth of three feet in the centre. It was like looking into a dry swimming bath. A step, or terrace, on the four sides of the room made the decent easy, and I descended. The chief, in a cast-off military jacket, gave me welcome with a mouthful of low gutterals. I found a good stove in the 152 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. lodge and several comfortable-looking beds, with chintz curtains and an Oriental superabundance of pillows . A few photo- graphs in cheap frames adorned the walls ; a few flaming chromos — Crucifixions and the like — hung there, along with fathoms of fishnet, clusters of fishhooks, paddles, kitchen furniture, wearing apparel, and a blunderbuss or two. Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings, supported the heavy beams of the roof in the man- ner of caryatides. These figures, half veiled in shadow, were most impressive, and gave a kind of Egyptian solemnity to the dimly lighted apartment. The chief was not alone. His man Friday was with him, and together we sat and smoked in a silence that was almost suffocating. It fairly snapped once or twice, it was so dense ; and then we three exchanged grave smiles and puffed away in great contentment . The interview was brought to a sudden close by the chief's making me a very earnest offer of $6 for my much-admired gum ulster, and I re- fusing it with scorn — for it was still rain- ing. So we parted coldly, and I once more walked the giddy bridge with fear and trembling ; for I am not a sunambu- list, who alone might perform there with impunity. Over the JRocky Mountains to Alaska. 153 It was a bad day for curios. The to v7n had been sacked on the voyage up ; yet I prowled in these quarters, where one would least expect to find treasure, inas- much as it is mostly found just there. Presently the most hideous of faces was turned up at me from the threshold of a humble lodge. It was of a dead green color, with blood trimmings; the nose beaked like a parrot's, the mouth a gap- ing crescent ; the eyeless sockets seemed to sparkle and blink with inner eyes set in the back of the skull ; murderous scalp locks streamed over the ill-shapen brow ; and from the depths of this monstrosity some one, or something, said, **Boo!" I sprang backward, only to hear the gurgle of baby laughter, and see the wee f ?ce of an half-In(£an cherub peering from be- hind the mask. Well, that mask is mine now; and whenever I look at it I think of the falling dusk in Fort Wrangell, and of the child on all-fours who startled me on my return from the chief's house beyond the bridge, and who cried as if her little heart would break when I paid for her plaything and cruelly bore it away. Some of the happiest hours of the voyage were the ''wee sma' " ones, when I lounged about the deserted deck mth M 154 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska, Captain George, the pilot. A gentleman of vast experience and great reserve, for years he has haunted that archipelago; he knows it in the dark, and it was his nightly duty to pace the deck while the ship was almost as still as death. He has heard the great singers of the past, the (]^ueens of song whose voices were long since hushed. We talked of these in the vast silence of the Alaskan night, and of the literature of the sea, and especially of that solitary northwestern sea, while we picked our way among the unpeopled islands that crowded all about us. On such a night, while we were chatting in low voices as we leaned over the quar- ter-rail, and the few figures that still haunted the deck were Uke veritable ghosts. Captain George seized me by the arm and exclaimed: '^Look there!" I looked up into the northern sky. There was not a cloud visible in all that wide expanse, but something more filmly than a cloud floated like a banner among the stars. It might almost have been a cob- web stretched from star to star — each strand woven from a star beam, — but it was ever changing in form and color. Now it was scarf-like, fluttering and wav- ing in a gentle breeze; and now it hung n Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 155 motionless — a deep fringe of lace gathered in ample folds. Anon it opened suddenly from the horizon, and spread in panels like a fan that filled the heavens. As it opened and shut and swayed to and fro as if it were a fan in motion, it assumed in turn all the colors of the rainbow, but with a delicacy of tint and texture even beyond that of the rainbow. Sometimes it was like a series of transparencies — shadow pictures thrown upon the screen of heaven, lit by a light beyond ifc — the mysterious light we know not of. That is what the pilot and I saw while most of the passengers were sleeping. It was the veritable aurora horialis, and that alone were worth the trip to Alaska. One day we came to Fort Tongass — a port of entry, and our last port in the great, lone land — for all the way down through the British possessions we touch no land until we reach Victoria or Nanai- mo. Tongass was once a military post, and now has the unmistakable air of a desert island. Some of us were not at all eager to go on shore. You see, we were beginning to get our fill of this monoton- ous out-of-the-world and out-of-the-way life . Yet Tongass is unique , and certainly has the most interesting collection of ^1 ^1 k I 156 Over the Rocky Motmtains to Alaska. totem poles that one is likely to see on the voyage. At Tongass there is a little curving beach, where the ripples sparkle among the pebbles. Beyond the beach is a strip of green lawn, and at the top of tlie lawn the old officers^ quarters, now falling to decay. For background there are rocks and trees and the sea. The sea is everywhere about Tongass, and the sea- breezes blow briskly, and the sea-gulls waddle about the lawn and sit in rows upon the sagging roofs as if they were thoroughly domesticated. Oh, what a droll place it is! After a little deliberation we all went ashore in several huge boat-loads; and, to our surprise, were welcomed by a charming young bride in white muslin and ribbons of baby-blue. Somehow she had found her way to the desert island — or did she spring up there like a wild flower? And the grace with which she did the honors was the subject of un- bounded praise during the remainder of the voyage. This pretty Bret Harte heroine, with all of the charms and virtues and none of the vices of his camp-followers, led us through the jagged rocks of the dilapi- dated quarters, down among the spray- Tl Over the Mocky Mountains to Alaska. 157 wet rocks on the other side of the island, and all along the dreary waste that fronts the Indian village. Oh, how dreary that waste is! — the rocks, black and barren, and scattered far into the frothing sea ; the sandy path along the front of the In- dian lodges, with rank grass shaking and shivering in the wind; the solemn and grim array of totem poles standing in front or at the sides of the weather-stained lodges — and the whole place deserted. I know not where the Indians had gone, but they were not there — save a sick squaw or two. Probably, being fisher- men, the tribe had gone out with their canoes, and were now busy with the spoils somewhere among the thousand passages of the archipelago. The totem poles at Tongass are richly carved, brilliantly colored, and grotesque in the extreme. Some of the lodges were roomy but sad-looking, and with a per- petual shade hovering through them . We found inscriptions in English — very rudely lettered — on many of the lodges and totem poles: ''In memory of some one or another chief or notable redman. Over one door was this inscription: ''In memory of , who died by his own hand." The lodge door was fastened 158 Over the Bocky Mountains to Alaska. with a rusty padlock, and the place looked ghoulish. I think we were all glad to get out of Tongass, though we received our best welcome there. At any rate, we sat on the beach and got our feet wet and our pockets full of sand waiting for the delib- erate but dead-sure boatmen to row us to the ship. When we steamed away we left the little bride in her desert island to the serene and sacred joy of her honeymoon, hoping that long before it had begun to wane she might return to the world ; for in three brief weeks we were beginning to lust after it. That evening we anchored in a well-wooded cove and took on several lighter-loads of salmon casks. Captain Carroll and the best shots in the ship passed the time in shooting at a barrel floating three hundred yards distant. So ran our little world away, as we were homeward bound and rapidly nearing the end of the voyage. Chapter XV. Out of the Arctic. TyHEN Captain Cook- -who, with Cap- tain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young ladies' ideal romance of the seas — was in these waters, he asked the natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied: '^Alaska" — great land. It is a great land, lying loosely along the northwest coast, — great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of its forests and in the f ruitf ulness of its many waters ; great in the splendor of its ice fields ; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence of its snow-clad peaks ; great also in its pos- sibihties, and greatest of all in its measure- less wealth of gold. In the good old days of the Muscovite reign — 1811, — Governor BaranofE sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settle- ment in California where grain and vege- tables might be raised for the Sitka mar- ket. The ruins of Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that interprise. (159) l^'^ Over the Mocky Mountains to Alaska. mf. « m m m The Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that sutfices; but his wants are few, and then he can ilways fall back on canned provision if his fresh food fails. The stagnation of life in AJaska is all but inconceivable. The summer tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the only variety it knows; and this comes ho seldom— once or twice u month — that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the e^^dtement is over, quietly sub- siding into a comatose state, and remain- ing in ?t until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically ; takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one ol the goat-paths that strike inland; nodding now a. id again to the familiar faces that saem never to change in exp.'ession except uring tourist's hours ; and then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of ihe solitary, for sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the brief night — barely foi-ty winks in length — is so silvery and so soft that it is v delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and shadows play with one another, and Over the Hooky Mountains to Alaska. 161 a LIS ys sh all St to « ICQ a ler )le b- n- in ly; )re ke ihe ige t's ch lep lat ief -is :ht its nd are reflected in sea and sky until the eye is almost dazzled with the loveliness of the scene. I believe if I were banished to Alaska I would sleep in the day time — say from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m., — and revel in the wakeful beauty of the other hours. But the winter, and the endless night of winter! — when the sun sinks to rest in discouragement at three or foar o'clock in the afternoon, and rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name — for the dull lu- minary, having barely got above th^ fence at twelve o'clock, backs out of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty ! Since the moan is no more obliging to the Alaskans th;m the sun is, what is a poor fellow to do? He can watch the aurora until his eyes ache ; he can sit over a game of cards and a glass of toddy — he can always get the latter up there ; he can trim his lamp and chat with his chums and fill his pipe over and over again. But the night thickens and the time begins to lag; he looks at his watch, to find it is only 9 p. m., and there are twelve hears between him and daylight. It is a great land in 162 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. H which to store one's mind with knowledge, provided one has the books at hand and good eyes and a lamp that won't flicker or smoke . Yet why should I worry about this when there are people who live through it and like it? ■ — or at least they say they do. In my mind's eye I see the Alaska of the future — and the not far-distant future. AmoE;]' the nost beautiful of the islands there w.ll '3e fine openings; lawns and flowers "Vviil carpet the slopes from the dark walls of the forest to the water's edge. In the midst of these favored spots summer hotels will throw wide their glorious windows upon vistas that are like glimpses of fairy land. Along the beach numerous skiffs await those who are weary of towns ; riteam launches are there, and small barges for the transportation of picnic parties to undiscovered islands in the dim distance. Sloop yachts with the more adventurous will go forth on vo3''ages of exploration and discovery, two or three days in length, under the guidance of stolid, thoroughbred Indian pilots. There may be an occasional wreck, with narrow escapes from the watery grave — variety. let us hope There will so, for the sake of be fishing parties ^ Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 163 galore, and camping on foreign shores, and eagle hunts, and the delights of the chase ; with Indian retinues and Chinese cooks, and the ''swell toggery" that is the chief, if not the only, charm of that sort of thing. There wHl be circulating libraries in each hotel, and grand pianos, and private theatricals, and nightly hops that may last indefinitely, or at least until sunrise, without shocking the most pru- dent ; for day breaks at 2 a. m. There will be visits from one hotel to the other, and sea-voyages to dear old Sitka, where the Grand Hotel will be located; and there will be the regular weekly or semi-weekly boat to the Muir glacier, with professional guides to the top of it, and all the necessary traps furnished on board if desired. And this wild life can begin as early as April and go on until the end of September without serious in- jury. There will be no hay fever or prickly-heat; neither will there be sun- strokes nor any of the horrors of the Eastern and Southern summer. It will remain true to its promise of sweet, warm days, and deliciously cool evenings, in which the young lover may woo his fair to the greatest advantage ; for there is no night there. Then everyone will come 91 164 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. home with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with, and the rarest nowadays ; and with a pocket- ful of Alaskan garnets, which are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utteily valueless, and unhand- some even when they are beautifully symmetrical. Oh, the memory of the voyage, which is perhaps the most precious of all! — this we bring home with us forever. The memory of all that is half civihzed and wholly unique and uncommon : of sleepy and smoky wigwams, where the ten tribes hold powwow in a confusion of gutturals, with a plentiful mixture of saliva ; for it is a moist language, a gurgle that approaches a gargle, and in three weeks the unaccus- tomed ear scarcely recovers from the first shock of it ; a memory of totem poles in stark array, and of the high feast in the Indian villages, where the beauty and chivalry of the forest gathered and squat- ted in wide circles listening to some old- man-eloquent in the very ecstacy of ex- pectoration; the memory of a non-com- mitting, uncommunicative race, whose religion is a feeble polytheism — a kind of demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not injure one, one's whole time is given to Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. 165 the propitiation of the evil. This is called Shamanism, and is said to have been the religion of the Tartar race before the in- troduction of Buddhism, and is still the creed of the Siberians; a memory of solitary canoes on moonlit seas and of spicy pine odors mingled with the tonic of moist kelp and salt-sea air. A memory of friends who were alto- gether charming, of a festival without a flaw. O my kind readers! when the Alaska Summer Hotel Company has stocked the nooks and corners of the archipelago with caravansaries, and good boats are filling them with guests who go to spend the season in the far Northwest, fail not to see that you are numbered among the elect ; for Alaska outrivers all rivers and out-lakes all lakes — being itself a lake of ten thousand islands; it out- mountains the Alps of America, and cer- tainly outdoes everything else everywhere else, in the shape of a watering place. And when you have returned from there, after two or three months' absence from the world and its weariness, you will be- gin to find that your **tum-tum is white" for the first time since your baptismal day, and that you have gained enough in strength and energy to topple the totem "»Wr**WT^K«1^Sl 166 Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska. pole of your enemy without shedding a feather. There is hope for Alaska in the line of a summer resort. As ghostp scent the morning air and are c'ispersed, so we scented the air, which actually seemed more familiar as we approached Washington in the great Northwest; and the spirit of peace, of ease and of lazy contentment that had possessed our souls for three weeks took flight. It was now but a day's sail to Victoria, and yet we began to think we would never get there. We were hungry for news of the world which we had well-nigh forgotten. Three weeks! It seemed to us that in this little while cities might have been destroyed, governments overthrown, new islands upheaved and old ones swallowed out of sight. Then we were all expecting to find heaps of letters from everybody awaiting us at Victoria or Port Townsend, and our mouths fairly watered for news. We took a little run into the sea and got lost in a fog; but the pilot whistled for the landmarks, and Echo answered; so that by the time the fog was ready to roll away, like a snowy drop-curtain, we knew just where we were, and ran quietly into a nook that looked as if it would fit Over the Eocky Mountains to Alaska. 167 us like a bootjack. The atmosphere grew smoky ; forest fires painted the sky with burnt umber, and through this veil the sun shone like a copper shield. Then a gorgeous moonlight followed. There was blood upon that moon, and all the shores were like veins in moss-agate and the sea like oil. We wound in and out, in and out, among dreamy islands ; touched for a little while at Nanaimo, where we should have taken in a cargo of coal for Portland, whither the Ancon was bound; but Cap- tain Carroll kindly put us all ashore first and then returned for his freight. We hated to sleep that night, and did not sleep very much. But when we awakened it was uncommonly quiet ; and upon going on deck — lo ! we were at Vic- toria. What a quiet, pretty spot! What a restful and temperate climate ! What jutting shores, soft hills, fine drives, old- countrified houses and porters' lodges and cottages, with homely flowers in the door-yards and homely people in the doors ! — homely I mean in the handsomest sense, for I can not imagine the artificial long survives in that community. How dear to us seemed civilization after our wanderings in the wilderness ! We bought newspapers and devoured 168 Over the Rochy Moimtains to Alaska, them ; ran in and out of shops just for the fun of it and because our liberty was so dear to us then. News? We were fairly staggered with the abundance of it, and exchanged it with one another in the most fraternal fashion, sharing our joys and sorrows with the whole ship's company. And deaths? What a lot of these, and how startling when they come so unex- pectedly and in such numbers! Why is it, I wonder, that so many people die when we are away somewhere beyond reach of communication? But enough of this. A few jolly hours on shore, a few drives in the suburbs and strolls in the town, ar ^ we headed for Port Townsend and tLo United States, where we parted company with the good old ship that carried us safely to and fro. And there we ended the Alaskan voyage gladly enough, but not without regret; for, though uneventful, I can truly say it was one of the pleasantest voyages of my life ; and one that — thanks to e\ ery one who shared it with me — I shall ever remember with unalloyed delight. •^sg^«--