At each town visited by us lines of women with some men were crouched down on their haunches, with their wares for sale; dressed skins, carved wood, spoons, totems, and uncouth images of animals; baskets beautifully woven of a kind of grass, very close, very strong, and decorated in bold, natural colors. They have what so many untutored but somewhat self-cultured half savage people have, a thorough conception of harmony of color. At first, to our cultivated estheticism, the coloring used by them is too glaring, but when toned down by time, or when seen at a little distance, no civilized people can surpass them.
The baskets made by the people of a sort of strong grass probably mixed with some kind of bark, are very strong and so closely woven, that they will hold water. They can be folded tightly without breaking the fiber. I had considerable difficulty in getting a native to part with an old one. It would seem they recognize the softness lent by age. I offered several women two or three times as much for old ones, which they had in use, as they asked for new ones. The one I succeeded in getting was from a woman who had no new ones for sale. It probably had held rather unsavory messes, but its coloring is exquisitely soft and mellow. A passenger asked what I wanted with the dirty thing. Its soft tone being pointed out, she spent over an hour going from shack to shack fruitlessly endeavoring to obtain one.
The same difference is observable between old and new Turkish rugs. Their beauty is not in the texture or weight but in the harmony of color, which no European has yet been able to surpass, if equal. The high art of France has not yet learned to create in large ungraceful figures the result found in rugs laboriously made by the half civilized people of Eastern Turkey and of the Caucasus. The French attain it only by grouping small figures of graceful design. The Thlinkets are the most numerous of the native tribes, and are the ones which so resemble the Japanese. A Thlinket when playing merchant to the tourist visitors offers his wares with an utter indifference and apparently never drops a tittle from his first price. If you purchase he or she seems pleased; if you decline his air is of one utterly indifferent. We saw a large number at work about the Treadwell mines in different capacities, and in drilling and quarrying the quartz. They seem to work as well as the average white man.
By the way, the Treadwell mine is an extraordinary thing. Gold-bearing quartz is quarried like common stone. The vein, if it can be so termed, is 500 feet wide, open upon the surface and extending to an unknown depth. It is of low grade ore, yielding only from four to eight dollars per ton, but is so easily reached and worked with such cheapness that many think it the most valuable mine in the world. The mine runs 240 stamps, being the largest number in existence under one roof. It is controlled by so close a corporation that the yield is never divulged and its value is a secret. It is said, however, that an offer of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 has been refused. Its machinery is almost if not entirely run by water power furnished by a mountain stream tumbling from a lofty height immediately behind and over the mine. It is on Douglas Island, which is separated from the main land at Juneau by a channel about a mile in width.
Other paying mines are being worked about Juneau, and promising claims have been located in many parts of the Territory. The seal produce of the land is too well known to need any comment, but it will probably surprise the majority of our people when they learn that the salmon crop of last year was of about 750,000 cases. Each case I believe, holds two dozen cans. When one considers the fact that the waste of fish at the great packing canneries is enormous, not more than half of an eight pound sock-eye salmon—the best of all—being used, and then considers the number caught by the natives for themselves and for their dogs, we can easily marvel at the vast schools which frequent these Northern waters. The waste spoken of is not because more cannot be saved, but because the middle part of the fish cans best and is saved with a minimum of labor. The back with its fin is removed by one stroke of the knife, then the same is done with the belly. The head and tail is then cut so deep into the body that only four pounds of an eight-pounder is left. This is divided into four equal parts. One part is then rolled and pressed by the hand into a can. The cans are closed and placed in great vats, where they are boiled. When about done they are taken out and pricked to let the air out, and again soldered. They go again into vats to be boiled an hour and a half. This long cooking in air-tight cans causes the bones to be absorbed without wasting the juices and flavor of the fish. When this is done, each can is again examined and any one at all puffed up is again pricked to let all air escape and is again boiled. They are then cooled for boxing. Some canneries on the Pacific pack from forty all the way up to a hundred thousand fish a day.
I spoke of dogs. There are a great many in the Indian villages. They are all more or less mixed of Esquimaux breed. They exceed the number of children, are all wolf-like, and are on the best of terms with the people. It is amusing to set one of them to barking, especially if the bark be of the howl kind, for immediately it is caught up by his nearest neighbor and carried on until every dog in the camp is squatting on his haunches and lifting his voice to its highest pitch. The medley of sounds, from the pup's quaver through the whole gamut of different ages to the sober howls of the grandfather, is very droll, especially when the hearer sees the performers in their dead earnestness. They lift their heads and look so solemn, and howl in so lugubrious a key, that one feels that in this dogish art at least they are unequaled by the canines of any other part of the world.
LETTER VII.
STEAMING UP THE ICE-PACKED FIORDS AND CHANNELS OF THE ARCTIC COUNTRY OWNED BY UNCLE SAM. SALMON CANNERIES. CANOE BUILDING BY NATIVES. ASCENT OF THE "MUIR" GLACIER, 300 FEET ABOVE WATER. FANTASTIC ICE FORMATIONS AT TAKOU. SUMMER AND WINTER CLIMATES. IMPUDENT CROWS AND ORATORICAL RAVENS.
Steamer Queen,
Gulf of Georgia, Aug. 10.