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 unbounded 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 dilapidated quarters, down among the spray-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 Indian 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 fishermen, 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 perpetual 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 red-man. Over one door was this inscription: "In memory of ——, who died by his own hand." The lodge door was fastened 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 deliberate 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.
When Captain Cook—who, with Captain 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 fruitfulness 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 possibilities, and greatest of all in its measureless wealth of gold.
In the good old days of the Muscovite reign—1811,—Governor Baranoff sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise. The Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if his fresh food fails.
The stagnation of life in Alaska 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 so seldom—once or twice a 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 excitement is over, quietly subsiding into a comatose state, and remaining in it until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically; takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one of the goat-paths that strike inland; nodding now and again to the familiar faces that seem never to change in expression except during tourist's hours; and then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of the solitary, for sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the brief night—barely forty winks in length—is so silvery and so soft that it is a delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and shadows play with one another, and 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 daytime—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 four 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 luminary, having barely got above the 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 moon is no more obliging to the Alaskans than 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 hours between him and daylight. It is a great land in 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.