No "camps" here outside the few villages; just an endless dreary waste and water.
New Hamilton—a few native huts only now—no whites.
Reach Old Hamilton—about a dozen houses with a warehouse, a store of the Northern Commercial Co., and a nice looking but now unoccupied school.
Here the governor told me there was somewhere a skull waiting for me, and the storekeeper would tell me of it. But when we arrive there are only two or three natives to meet us. The storekeeper, who is also postmaster, is said to be sick in bed. He is supposed to have an ulcer or some other bad thing of the stomach. So we go to his house and find him in bed, with a lot of medicine bottles on a table next to him. Is alone; no wife. Shows no enthusiasm in seeing me, though heard of my coming. Reads letters—no attention to me. Gets up—I ask him about his illness—answers like a man carrying a chip on his shoulder. Goes to store to attend to mail, and barely asks me to follow. I wait in store; he finishes mail and goes out—orders the Eskimo present out gruffly, and to me says, "You may stay in the store; I'll be back." But I wait and wait, and finally decide the man for some reason is unwilling to help me. Asked him before he went out about the Matanuska, but he told me she might not be back from Holy Cross in a month, trying doubtless to discourage me to stay. On going toward the Agnes I find him sitting on a log and talking to a couple of men from a tugboat that has arrived—just talk, no business, judging from their laughing. So I go on the boat, write a few words to Mr. Townsend of the Bureau of Fisheries, who makes this place his headquarters, and with some feeling hand this to the man, telling him at the same time that plainly he does not wish to assist me in any way. This, of course, rouses him; he gets red and says a few lame words, ending with, "Do you think I would touch any of them dam things or that I would let any of my men (natives) touch them? Not on your life!" So I leave Old Hamilton, for he is the only white man there now. But the place had other distinctions. Until recently, I am told, they have had a teacher, a young girl, who in her zeal had the natives collect all the burial boxes with their contents and had them all thrown into the river. Not long after she accomplished that she left. The storekeeper told me that "If I want them so bad I could pick them up (skulls and bones) along the river where the water washed them out after the teacher threw them in." Luckily there were not many "Old Hamiltons."
We met here a boat from St. Michael with Mr. Frank P. Williams, the well-known postmaster and trader of St. Michael, who comes for the two men, my fellow passengers. We get acquainted and, to escape the gases of the Agnes, I go with them. The boat is heavier and free from fumes, though without accommodation. At about 7 p. m. we arrive at Kotlik, at the mouth of the river—an abandoned wireless station, a store, and four tents of natives. But the old wireless building, now the storekeeper's house, is the dwelling place of a clean white man, Mr. Backlund, who is now "outside," but with whom Mr. Williams is in some partnership; so we occupy the building. Outside the wind has risen to half a gale and there are squalls of rain and drizzle. The Agnes has to "tie to," as she would be swamped in the open. My boxes and bedding, which were on the roof of the Agnes, are soaked, though the contents will be dry. So both boats are fastened to a little "dock," and we soon have fire in the stove, supper, and then—it is 11 p. m.—a bed, not overclean, somewhat smelly, but a bed and free from mosquitoes, rain, wind, and cold.
July 10. Up at 6.30. Outside a storm and rain—just like one of the three-day northeasters with us, and cool. Both boats were to leave, but are unable to do so. I find that Mr. Williams's tug will come back here and go to St. Michael on the 13th, so arrange with Mr. Williams to take me and leave the Agnes for good. This partly because I learn of two graveyards near, one 1½, the other 4½ miles distant.
After lunch, rain for a while ceasing, I set out for the nearer burial place. This is already a tundra country—treeless and bush-less flats overgrown with a thick coat of moss, into which feet bury themselves as in a cushion, and dotted with innumerable swampy depressions with high swamp grass. Walking over all this is very difficult—lucky I have rubber boots. Even so, it is no easy matter, except where a little native trail is encountered.
The graveyard, belonging to the now abandoned little village above Kotlik, consists of only about half a dozen adult graves. These consist of boxes of heavy lumber laid on a base raised above the ground level, and covered with other heavy boards. Some of the burials are quite recent. Open three older ones. In two the remains are too fresh yet, but from one secure a good female skeleton, which I pack in a practically new heavy pail, thrown out probably on the occasion of the last funeral. Then back, farther out, to avoid notice, through swamps and over moss, and with a recurring wind-driven drizzle against which my umbrella is but a weak protection.
Reach home quite wet and a bit tired. Have to undress and, wrapped in a blanket, dry my clothes and underwear about the stove.
Nothing further this day and evening—just wind and heavy low clouds and rain.