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Transcriber’s note:
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Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text
for details of corrections made to the text.
ALASKA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lothrop’s Historical Library.
EDITED BY ARTHUR GILMAN, M. A.
=AMERICAN PEOPLE.= By Arthur Gilman, M. A.
=INDIA.= By Fannie Roper Feudge.
=EGYPT.= By Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement.
=CHINA.= By Robert K. Douglas.
=SPAIN.= By Prof. James Herbert Harrison.
=SWITZERLAND.= By Miss Harriet D. S. MacKenzie.
=JAPAN, and its Leading Men.= By Charles Lanman.
=ALASKA: The Sitkan Archipelago.= By Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore.
Other volumes in preparation.
-------
_Each volume 12mo, Illustrated, cloth, $1.50._
=D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers,=
Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey
Map of Alaska.
Compiled by W. H. Dall
1884.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALASKA
Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago
by
E. RUHAMAH SCIDMORE
With Map and Illustrations
----------
“BERLIN, Sept. 5.—We have seen of Germany enough to show that its
climate is neither so genial, nor its soil so fertile, nor its resources
of forests and mines so rich as those of Southern Alaska.”—_William H.
Seward_—_Travels Around the World_, Part VI. chap. v. page 708.
----------
Boston
D. Lothrop and Company
32 Franklin Street
Copyright, by
D. Lothrop and Company,
1885.
Electrotyped by
C. J. Peters and Son, Boston.
PREFACE.
These chapters are mainly a republication of the series of letters
appearing in the columns of the _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ during the
summer of 1883, and in the _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ and the _New York
Times_ during the summer of 1884. To readers of those journals, and to
many exchange editors, who gave further circulation to the letters, they
may carry familiar echoes. The only excuse for offering them in this
permanent form is the wish that the comparatively unknown territory,
with its matchless scenery and many attractions, may be better known,
and a hope that those who visit it may find in this book information
that will add to their interest and enjoyment of the trip.
In rearranging the original letters many errors have been corrected and
new material incorporated. During brief summer visits it was impossible
to make any serious study, solve the mysteries of the native people, or
give other than fleeting sketches of their out-door life and daily
customs. Elaborate resumés of the writings of Baron Wrangell and Bishop
Veniaminoff have been given by Professor Dall in his work on “The
Resources of Alaska,” and by Ivan Petroff in the Census Report of 1880
(Vol. IX.), and have since been so often and so generally quoted as
hardly to demand another introduction to those interested in ethnology.
Such mention as I have made of the traditions and customs of the
Thlinkets is condensed from many deck and table talks, and from
conversations with teachers, traders, miners, and government officers in
Alaska. Wherever possible, credit has been given to the original sources
of information, and the “Pacific Coast Pilot” of 1883 and other
government publications have been freely consulted. The nomenclature and
spelling of the “Coast Pilot” have been followed, although to its
exactness and phonetic severity much picturesqueness and euphony have
been sacrificed.
The map accompanying the book is a reduced section of the last general
chart of Alaska published by the United States Coast and Geodetic
Survey, and is reproduced here by the permission of the compiler, Prof.
William H. Dall.
Of the illustrations, the cut of the Indian grave at Fort Wrangell was
one accompanying an article published in _Harper’s Weekly_, August 30,
1884, and other pictures have been presented to readers of the _Wide
Awake_ magazine of March, 1885. For views of the Davidson glacier, the
North River, and the top of the Muir glacier, and the interior of the
Greek Church at Sitka, from which cuts were made, I am indebted to a
daring and successful amateur photographer of San Francisco, to whom
especial credit is due.
To the officers of the ship and agents of the company I have to express
appreciation of the favors and courtesies extended by them to my friends
and to myself. Each summer I bought my long purple ticket, reading from
Portland to Sitka and return, with pleasurable anticipations; and all of
them—and more—being realized, I yielded up the last coupons with regret.
For information given and assistance rendered in the course of this work
I am under obligations to many people. I would particularly make my
acknowledgments in this place to Prof. WILLIAM H. DALL, Capt. JAMES C.
CARROLL, Hon. FREDERIC W. SEWARD, Prof. JOHN MUIR, Prof. GEORGE
DAVIDSON, Capt. R. W. MEADE, U.S.N., Capt. C. L. HOOPER, U.S.R.M., and
Hon. J. G. SWAN.
E. R. S.
WASHINGTON, D. C., March 15, 1885.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE START—PORT TOWNSEND—VICTORIA—NANAIMO 1
II. THE BRITISH COLUMBIA COAST AND TONGASS 16
III. CAPE FOX AND NAHA BAY 26
IV. KASA-AN BAY 31
V. FORT WRANGELL AND THE STIKINE 46
VI. WRANGELL NARROWS AND TAKU GLACIERS 72
VII. JUNEAU, SILVER BOW BASIN, AND DOUGLASS ISLAND 81
MINES
VIII. THE CHILKAT COUNTRY 100
IX. BARTLETT BAY AND THE HOONIAHS 123
X. MUIR GLACIER AND IDAHO INLET 131
XI. SITKA—THE CASTLE AND THE GREEK CHURCH 153
XII. SITKA—THE INDIAN RANCHERIE 174
XIII. SITKA—SUBURBS AND CLIMATE 184
XIV. SITKA—AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 198
XV. SITKA—HISTORY SUCCEEDING THE TRANSFER 214
XVI. EDUCATION IN ALASKA 229
XVII. PERIL STRAITS AND KOOTZNAHOO 236
XVIII. KILLISNOO AND THE LAND OF KAKES 246
XIX. THE PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND 258
XX. HOWKAN, OR KAIGAHNEE 269
XXI. THE METLAKATLAH MISSION 280
XXII. HOMEWARD BOUND 289
XXIII. SEALSKINS 300
XXIV. THE TREATY AND CONGRESSIONAL PAPERS 315
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
MAP OF ALASKA _Frontispiece_
THREE CARVED SPOONS AND SHAMAN’S RATTLE 38
TOTEM POLES AT FORT WRANGELL 53
GRAVE AT FORT WRANGELL 55
SILVER BRACELETS AND LABRETTES 61
A THLINKET BASKET 90
THE DAVIDSON GLACIER 103
CHILKAT BLANKET 106
THLINKET BIRD-PIPE (Side and bottom) 127
DIAGRAM OF THE MUIR GLACIER 133
RIVER ON NORTH SIDE OF THE MUIR GLACIER 137
GLACIER BAY—FRONT OF THE MUIR GLACIER 141
SECTION OF THE MUIR GLACIER (Top) 144
SECTION OF THE MUIR GLACIER (Front) 147
SITKA 155
THE GREEK CHURCH AT SITKA 162
INTERIOR OF THE GREEK CHURCH AT SITKA 165
EASTER DECORATIONS IN THE GREEK CHURCH AT SITKA 167
BASKET WEAVERS AT KILLISNOO 251
INDIAN PIPE 268
TOTEM POLES AT KAIGAHNEE OR HOWKAN 273
THE CHIEF’S RESIDENCE AT KAIGAHNEE, SHOWING TOTEM 274
POLES
HALIBUT HOOK 276
SOUTHERN ALASKA
AND
THE SITKAN ARCHIPELAGO.
------------------
CHAPTER I.
THE START—PORT TOWNSEND—VICTORIA—NANAIMO.
Although Alaska is nine times as large as the group of New England
States, twice the size of Texas, and three times that of California, a
false impression prevails that it is all one barren, inhospitable
region, wrapped in snow and ice the year round. The fact is overlooked
that a territory stretching more than a thousand miles from north to
south, and washed by the warm currents of the Pacific Ocean, may have a
great range and diversity of climate within its borders. The jokes and
exaggerations that passed current at the time of the Alaska purchase, in
1867, have fastened themselves upon the public mind, and by constant
repetition been accepted as facts. For this reason the uninitiated view
the country as a vast ice reservation, and appear to believe that even
the summer tourist must undergo the perils of the Franklin Search and
the Greeley Relief Expeditions to reach any part of Alaska. The official
records can hardly convince them that the winters at Sitka are milder
than at New York, and the summers delightfully cool and temperate.
In the eastern States less has been heard of the Yukon than of the
country of the Congo, and the wonders of the Stikine, Taku, and Chilkat
rivers are unknown to those who have travelled far to view the less
impressive scenery of the Scandinavian coast. Americans climb the
well-worn route to Alpine summits every year, while the highest mountain
in North America is unsurveyed, and only approximate estimates have been
made of its heights. The whole 580,107 square miles of the territory are
almost as good as unexplored, and among the islands of the archipelago
over 7,000 miles of coast are untouched and primeval forests.
The Pribyloff or Seal Islands have usurped all interest in Alaska, and
these two little fog-bound islands in Behring Sea, that are too small to
be marked on an ordinary map, have had more attention drawn to them than
any other part of the territory. The rental of the islands of St. Paul
and St. George, and the taxes on the annual one hundred thousand
sealskins, pays into the treasury each year more than four per cent
interest on the $7,200,000 originally paid to Russia for its possessions
in North America. This fact is unique in the history of our purchased
territories, and justifies Secretary Seward’s efforts in acquiring it.
The neglect of Congress to provide any form of civil government or
protection for the inhabitants checked all progress and enterprise, and
kept the country in the background for seventeen years. With the
development of the Pacific northwest, settlements, mining-camps, and
fisheries have been slowly growing, and increasing in numbers in the
southeastern part of Alaska, adjoining British Columbia. The prospectors
and the hardy pioneers, who seek the setting sun and follow the
frontiers westward, were attracted there by the gold discoveries in
1880, and the impetus then given was not allowed to subside.
Pleasure-travellers have followed the prospectors’ lead, as it became
known that some of the grandest scenery of the continent is to be found
along the Alaska coast, in the region of the Alexander or Sitkan
Archipelago, and the monthly mail steamer is crowded with tourists
during the summer season. It is one of the easiest and most delightful
trips to go up the coast by the inside passage and cruise through the
archipelago; and in voyaging past the unbroken wilderness of the island
shores, the tourist feels quite like an explorer penetrating unknown
lands. The mountain range that walls the Pacific coast from the
Antarctic to the Arctic gives a bold and broken front to the mainland,
and everyone of the eleven hundred islands of the archipelago is but a
submerged spur or peak of the great range. Many of the islands are
larger than Massachusetts or New Jersey, but none of them have been
wholly explored, nor is the survey of their shores completed. The
Yosemite walls and cascades are repeated in mile after mile of deep
salt-water channels, and from the deck of an ocean steamer one views
scenes not paralleled after long rides and climbs in the heart of the
Sierras. The gorges and cañons of Colorado are surpassed; mountains that
tower above Pike’s Peak rise in steep incline from the still level of
the sea; and the shores are clothed with forests and undergrowth dense
and impassable as the tangle of a Florida swamp. On these summer trips
the ship runs into the famous inlets on the mainland shore and anchors
before vast glaciers that push their icy fronts down into the sea. The
still waters of the inside passage give smooth sailing nearly all of the
way; and, living on an ocean steamer for three and four weeks, one only
feels the heaving of the Pacific swells while crossing the short
stretches of Queen Charlotte Sound and Dixon Entrance.
The Alaska steamer, however, is a perfect will o’ the wisp for a
landsman to pursue, starting sometimes from Portland and sometimes from
San Francisco, adapting its schedule to emergencies and going as the
exigencies of the cargo demand. It clears from Puget Sound ports
generally during the first days of each month, but in midwinter it
arranges its departure so as to have the light of the full moon in the
northern ports, where the sun sets at three and four o’clock on December
afternoons.
When the steamer leaves Portland for Alaska, it goes down the Columbia
River, up the coast of Washington Territory, and, reaching Victoria and
Port Townsend three days later, takes on the mails, and the freight
shipped from San Francisco, and then clears for the north. The traveller
who dreads the Columbia River bar and the open ocean can go across
overland to Puget Sound, and thence by the Sound steamers to whichever
port the Alaska steamer may please to anchor in.
The first time that I essayed the Alaska trip, the steamship _Idaho_
with its shining black hull, its trim spars, and row of white cabins on
deck, slipped down the Columbia River one Friday night, and on Monday
morning we left Portland to overtake it. It was a time of forest fires,
and a cloud of ignorance brooded over Puget Sound, only equalled in
density by the clouds of smoke that rolled from the burning forests on
shore, and there was an appalling scarcity of shipping news. The
telegraph lines were down between the most important points, and the
Fourth of July fever was burning so fiercely in patriotic veins that no
man had a clear enough brain to tell us where the ship _Idaho_ was, had
gone to, or was going to. For two restless and uncertain days we
see-sawed from British to American soil, going back and forth from
Victoria to Port Townsend as we were in turn assured that the ship lay
at anchor at one place, would not go to the other, and that we ran the
risk of losing the whole trip if we did not immediately embark for the
opposite shore. The dock hands came to know us, the pilots touched their
hats to us, the agents fled from their ticket-offices at sight of us,
and I think even the custom-house officers must have watched
suspiciously, when the same two women and one small boy paced
impatiently up and down the various wharves at that end of Puget Sound.
We saw the Union Jack float and heard the American eagle scream on the
Fourth of July, and after a night of fire-crackers, bombs, and inebriate
chorus-singing, the _Idaho_ came slipping into the harbor of Port
Townsend as innocently as a messenger of peace, and fired a shot from a
wicked little cannon, that started the very foundations of the town with
its echoes.
Port Townsend, at the entrance of Puget Sound, is the last port of entry
and custom-house in the United States, and the real point of departure
for the Alaska steamers. It was named by Vancouver in 1792 for his
friend, “the most noble Marquis of Townsend,” and scorning the rivalry
of the new towns at the head of Puget Sound, believes itself destined to
be the final railway terminus and the future great city of this extreme
northwest. The busy and thriving little town lies at the foot of a steep
bluff, and an outlying suburb of residences stretches along the grassy
heights above. A steep stairway, and several zig-zag walks and roads
connect the business part of Port Townsend with the upper town, and it
argues strong lungs and a goat-like capacity for climbing on the part of
the residents, who go up and down the stairway several times a day. A
marine hospital flies the national flag from a point on the bluff, and
four miles west on the curve of the bay lies Fort Townsend, where a
handful of United States troops keep up the traditions of an army and a
military post. Near the fort is the small settlement of Irondale, where
the crude bog ore of the spot is successfully melted with Texada iron
ore, brought from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. The sand spit
on which Port Townsend society holds its summer clam-bakes, and the home
of the “Duke of York,” the venerable chief of the Clallam tribe, are
points of interest about the shores.
Across the Straits of Fuca there is the pretty English town of Victoria,
that has as solid mansions, as well-built roads, and as many country
homes around it, as any little town on the home island. It has an
intricate land-locked harbor, where the tides rush in and out in a way
that defies reason, and none have ever yet been able to solve the puzzle
and make out a tide-table for that harbor. All Victoria breathes the
atmosphere of a past and greater grandeur, and the citizens feelingly
revert to the time when British Columbia was a separate colony by
itself, and Victoria the seat of the miniature court of the
Governor-General and commander-in-chief of its forces. There is no real
joy in the celebration of “Dominion Day,” which reminds them of how
British Columbia and the two provinces of Canada were made one under the
specious promise of a connecting railway. Recent visits of Lord Dufferin
and the Marquis of Lorne stilled some of the disaffection, and threats
of annexation to the United States are less frequent now.
Victoria has “the perfect climate,” according to the Princess Louise and
other sojourners, and there is a peace and rest in the atmosphere that
charms the briefest visitor. Every one takes life easily, and things
move in a slow and accustomed groove, as if sanctioned by the custom of
centuries on the same spot. Business men hardly get down town before ten
o’clock in the morning, and by four in the afternoon they are striding
and riding off to their homes, as if the fever and activity of American
trade and competition were far away and unheard of. The clerk at the
post-office window turns a look of surprise upon the stranger, and bids
him go across the street, or down a block, and buy his postage-stamps at
a stationer’s shop, to be sure.
The second summer that my compass was set for the nor’-norwest, our
party of three spent a week at Victoria before the steamer came in from
San Francisco, and the charm of the place grew upon us every day. The
drives about the town, along the island shores, and through the woods,
are beautiful, and the heavy, London-built carriages roll over hard and
perfect English highways. Ferns, growing ten and twelve feet high by the
roadside, amazed us beyond expression, until a loyal and veracious
citizen of Oregon assured us that ferns eighteen feet high could be
found anywhere in the woods back of Astoria; and that he had often been
lost in fern prairies among the Cascade mountains, where the fronds
arched far above his head when he was mounted on a horse. Wild
rose-bushes are matted together by the acre in the clearings about the
town, and in June they weight the air with their perfume, as they did a
century ago, when Marchand, the old French voyager, compared the region
to the rose-covered slopes of Bulgaria. The honeysuckle attains the
greatest perfection in this climate, and covers and smothers the
cottages and trellises with thickly-set blossoms. Even the
currant-bushes grow to unusual height, and in many gardens they are
trained on arbors and hang their red, ripe clusters high overhead.
For a few days we watched anxiously every trail of smoke in the Straits
of Fuca, and at last welcomed the ship, one sunny morning, when the
whole Olympic range stood like a sapphire wall across the Straits, and
the Angels’ Gate gave a clear view of more azure slopes and snow-tipped
summits through that gap in the mountain front. Instead of the trim
propeller _Idaho_, the old side-wheeler, the _Ancon_, was put on the
Alaska route for the summer months, and the fact of its having taken
five days for the trip up from San Francisco did not prepossess us with
any false notions of its speed. The same captain and officers from the
_Idaho_ were on board, and after making the tour of Puget Sound again,
we were quite resigned to the change of ships by the time we finally
left Victoria.
At Victoria the steward buys his last supplies for the coming weeks of
great appetites; for with smooth water and the tonic of sea and mountain
air both, the passengers make great inroads on the ship’s stores. The
captain often affects dismay at the way the provisions disappear, and
threatens to take an account of stores at Sitka and bring the ship down
by the outside passage in order to save some profit for the company.
During the last hours at the Victoria wharf, several wagon-loads of meat
had been put in the ice-boxes of the _Ancon_, when some live beef came
thundering down the wharf, driven by hallooing horsemen. Each month the
ship takes up these live cattle and sheep, and leaving them to fatten on
the luxurious grasses of Sitka, insures a fresh supply of fresh beef for
the return voyage. It was within half an hour of sailing-time when the
herders drove the sleek fellows down to the wharf, and for an hour there
was a scene that surpassed anything under a circus tent or within a
Spanish arena. The sailors and stevedores had a proper respect for the
bellowing beasts, and kept their distance, as they barricaded them into
a corner of the wharf. The ship’s officer who had charge of loading the
cargo is “a salt, salt sailor,” with a florid complexion; and it was his
brave part to advance, flap his arms, and say “Shoo!” and then fly
behind the first man or barrel, or dodge into the warehouse door. The
crowd gathered and increased, the eighty passengers, disregarding all
signs and rules, mounted on the paddle-boxes and clung to the ratlines
forward, applauded the picador and the matador, and hummed suggestive
airs from _Carmen_. When the lasso was fastened round one creature’s
horns, and his head was drawn down close to a pile, there were nervous
moments when we waited to see the herder tossed on high, or else
voluntarily leaping into the water to escape the savage prods of the
enraged beast. There was great delay in getting the belts ready to put
round the animals so that they could be swung over into the ship, and
while the great bull-fight was in progress and the hour of sailing had
come, the captain rode down the wharf in a carriage, strode on to the
ship and demanded, in a stiff, official tone, “How long have these
cattle been here?” “More than an hour, sir,” replied the mate. “Turn
those cattle loose and draw in the gang-plank,” was the brief order from
the bridge, and the one warning shriek of the whistle scattered the
spectators and sent the excited beasts galloping up the wharf. While the
gang-plank was being withdrawn, two Chinamen came down on a dog trot,
hidden under bundles of blankets, with balanced baskets across their
shoulders, and pickaxes, pans, and mining tools in their arms. Without a
tremor the two Johns walked out on the swaying plank, and, stepping
across a gap of more than two feet, landed safely on deck, bound and
equipped for the deserted placer mines on Stikine River.
We left Victoria at noon, and all the afternoon the passengers gave
their preliminary ohs! and ahs! strewed the decks with exclamation
points, and buried their heads in their pink-covered maps of British
Columbia, while the ship ran through narrow channels and turned sharp
curves around the picturesque islands for the possession of which
England and America nearly went to war. San Juan Island, with its
limekilns, its gardens, meadows, and browsing sheep, was as pretty and
pastoral a spot as nations ever wrangled about, and the Emperor of
Germany did just the right thing when he drew his imperial pencil across
the maps and gave this garden spot of San Juan to the United States. The
beautiful scenery of the lower end of the Gulf of Georgia fitly
introduces one to the beauties of the inland passage which winds for
nearly a thousand miles between the islands that fringe this northwest
coast, and even the most captious travellers forgot fancied grievances
over staterooms, table seats, and baggage regulations. The exhausted
purser, who had been persecuted all day by clamoring passengers and
anxious shippers, was given a respite, and all was peace, satisfaction,
and joy on board. In the nine o’clock gloaming we rounded the most
northern lighthouse that gleams on this shore of the Pacific, and,
winding in and through the harbor of Nanaimo, dropped anchor in
Departure Bay.
The coal mines of Nanaimo have given it a commercial importance upon
which it bases hopes of a great future; but it has no bustling air to
it, to impress the stranger from over the border with that prospect. In
early days it was an important trading-post of the Hudson Bay Company,
and a quaint old block-house still stands as a relic of the times when
the Indian canoes used to blacken the beach at the seasons of the great
trades. The traders first opened the coal seams near Nanaimo, and thirty
years ago used to pay the Indians one blanket for every eight barrels of
coal brought out.
Geologists have hammered their way all up the Pacific Coast without
finding a trace of true coal, and on account of the recent geological
formation of the country they consider further search useless. The
nearest to true coal that has been found was the coal seam on the Arctic
shore of Alaska near Cape Lisburn. Captain Hooper, U.S.R.M., found the
vein, and his vessel, the _Corwin_, was supplied with coal from it
during an Arctic cruise in 1880. Otherwise, the lignite beds of
Vancouver Island supply the best steaming coal that can be had on the
coast, and a fleet of colliers ply between Nanaimo and the chief ports
on the Pacific.
The mines nearest the town of Nanaimo were exhausted soon after they
were worked systematically, and operations were transferred to Newcastle
Island in the harbor opposite the town. A great fire in the Newcastle
mine obliged the owners to close and abandon it, and the whole place
stands as it was left, the cabins and works dropping slowly to decay.
Even the quarry from which the fine stone was taken for the United
States Mint at San Francisco is abandoned, and its broken derricks and
refuse heaps make a forlorn break in the beauty of the mild shores of
the island.
Richard Dunsmuir found the Wellington mines at Departure Bay by
accident, his horse stumbling on a piece of lignite coal as he rode down
through the woods one day. The admiral of the British fleet and one
other partner ventured £1,000 each in developing the mine, and at the
end of ten years the admiral withdrew with £50,000 as his share, and a
year since the other partner sold out his interests to Mr. Dunsmuir for
£150,000. At present the mines pay a monthly profit of £8,000, and
Yankee engineers claim that that income might be doubled if the mines
were worked on a larger scale, as, with duty included, this black
lignite commands the highest price and is most in demand in all the
cities of California and Oregon. Mr. Dunsmuir is the prime mover in
building the Island railway, which is to connect Nanaimo with the naval
harbor of Esquimault near Victoria. Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford
of the Central Pacific road are connected with Mr. Dunsmuir in this
undertaking, and to induce these capitalists to take hold of it the
colonial government gave a land grant twenty-five miles wide along the
whole seventy miles of the railroad, with all the timber and mineral
included.
The great Wellington mines have had their strikes, and after the last
one the white workmen were supplanted by Chinese, who, though wanting
the brawn and muscle of the Irishmen, could work in the sulphur
formations without injuring their eyes. By an explosion of fire-damp in
May, 1884, many lives were lost, and gloom was cast over the little
settlement on the sunny bay.
On this lee shore of Vancouver Island the climate is even softer and
milder than at Victoria, and during my three visits Nanaimo has always
been steeped in a golden calm of steady sunshine. While waiting for the
three or four hundred tons of coal to be dropped into the hold, carload
by carload, the passengers amuse themselves by visiting the quiet little
town, stirring up the local trade, and busying the postmaster and the
telegraph operator. A small boy steers and commands the comical little
steam-tug that is omnibus and street car for the Nanaimo and Wellington
people, and makes great profits while passenger steamers are coaling.
When all the anglers, the hunters, the botanists and the geologists had
gone their several ways from the ship one coaling day, the captain made
a diversion for the score of ladies left behind, by ordering out a
lifeboat, and having the little tug tow us around the bay and over to
Nanaimo. When the ladies had all scattered into the various shops, the
captain made the tour of the town and found that there was not a trout
to be had in that market. Then he arranged that if the returning
fishermen came back to the ship in the evening and laid their strings of
trout triumphantly on deck, a couple of Indians should force their way
into the admiring crowd and demand pay for fish sold to the anglers. Can
any one picture that scene and the effect of the joke, when it dawned
upon the group?
A great bonfire on the beach in the evening rounded off that coaling
day, and the captain declared the celebration to be in honor of
Cleveland and Hendricks, who had that day been nominated at the National
Democratic Convention in Chicago. Although the partisans of the other
side declined to consider it a ratification meeting on British soil,
they helped heap up the burning logs and drift-wood until the whole bay
was lighted with the flames. With blue lights, fire-crackers, rockets
and pistol-popping the fête continued, the Republicans deriding all
boasts and prophecies of their opponents, until the commander threatened
to drop them on some deserted island off the course until after the
election. History has since set its seal upon the prophecies then made,
and some of the modest participants of the Democratic faith think their
international bonfire assisted in the result.