The sea is now restoring the black sand, and a second Nome may one day spring up on these hills in a single night.
As I have said elsewhere, the Yakutat women are among the finest basket weavers of the coast. A finely twined Yakutat basket, however small it may be, is a prize; but the bottom should be woven as finely and as carefully as the body of the basket. Some of the younger weavers make haste by weaving the bottom coarsely, which detracts from both its artistic and commercial value.
The instant the end of the gangway touches the wharf at Yakutat, the gayly-clad, dark-eyed squaws swarm aboard. They settle themselves noiselessly along the promenade decks, disposing their baskets, bracelets, carved horn spoons, totem-poles, inlaid lamps, and beaded moccasins about them.
If, during the hours of animated barter that follow, one or two of the women should disappear, the wise woman-passenger will saunter around the ship and take a look into her stateroom, to make sure that all is well; else, when she does return to it, she may miss silver-backed mirrors, bottles of lavender water, bits of jewellery that may have been carelessly left in sight, pretty collars—and even waists and hats—to say nothing of the things which she may later on find.
These poor dark people were born thieves; and neither the little education they have received, nor the treatment accorded them by the majority of white people with whom they have been brought into contact, has served to wean them entirely from the habits and the instincts of centuries.
At Yakutat, no matter how much good sound sense he may possess, the traveller parts with many large silver dollars. He thinks of Christmas, and counts his friends on one hand, then on the other; then over again, on both.
When the steamer has whistled for the sixth time to call in the wandering passengers, and the captain is on the bridge; when the last squaw has pigeon-toed herself up the gangway, flirting her gay shawl around her and chuckling and clucking over the gullibility of the innocent white people; when the last strain from the phonograph in the big store on the hill has died across the violet water widening between the shore and the withdrawing ship—the spendthrift passenger retires to his cabin and finds the berths overflowing and smelling to heaven with Indian things. Then—too late—he sits down, anywhere, and reflects.
The western shore of Yakutat Bay is bounded by the largest glacier in the world—the Malaspina. It has a sea-frontage of more than sixty miles extending from the bay "to Westward"; and the length of its splendid sweep from its head to the sea at the foot of Mount St. Elias is ninety miles.
For one whole day the majestic mountain and its beautiful companion peaks were in sight of the steamer, before the next range came into view. The sea breaks sheer upon the ice-palisades of the glacier. Icebergs, pale green, pale blue, and rose-colored, march out to meet and, bowing, pass the ship.
One cannot say that he knows what beauty is until he has cruised leisurely past this glacier, with the mountains rising behind it, on a clear day, followed by a moonlit night.