Presently, however, we came to a hut wherein we stumbled upon all kinds of real treasures—old bows and arrows, kamelinkas, bidarkas, virgin charms, and ivory spears. We all gathered these things unto ourselves—all but my Scotch friend. She stood by, watching us, silent, ruminative.
She had spent all that she cared to spend on curios in one day on the single treasure which she carried in her hand. We observed that presently she carried it less proudly and that her carriage had less of haughtiness in it, as we went across the beach to the dory.
She took the basket down to the engine-room to have it steamed. I do not know what the engineer said to her about her purchase, but when she came back, her face was somewhat flushed. The Scotch are not a demonstrative race, and when she ever after referred to the chief engineer simply as "that engineer down there," I felt that it meant something. She never again mentioned that basket to me; but I have seen it in six different curio stores trying to get itself sold.
At Seldovia connection is made with small steamers running up the inlet to the head of the arm. Hope and Sunrise are the inspiring names of the chief settlements of the arm.
The tides of Cook Inlet are tremendous. There are fearful tide-rips at the entrance and again about halfway up the inlet, where they appeared "frightful" to Cook and his men. The tide enters Turnagain Arm, at the head of the inlet, in a huge bore, which expert canoemen are said to be able to ride successfully, and to thus be carried with great speed and delightful danger on their way.
Cook thought that the inlet was a river, of which the arm was an eastern branch. Therefore, at the entrance of the latter, he exclaimed in disappointment and chagrin, "Turn again!"—and afterward bestowed this name upon the slender water-way.
He modestly left only a blank for the name of the great inlet itself; and after his cruel death at the hands of natives in the Sandwich Islands, Lord Sandwich directed that it be named Cook's River.
The voyage of two hundred miles to the head of the arm by steamer is slow and sufficiently romantic to satisfy the most sentimental. The steamer is compelled to tie up frequently to await the favorable stage of the tide, affording ample opportunity and time for the full enjoyment of the varied attractions of the trip. The numerous waterfalls are among the finest of Alaska.
Even to-day the trip is attended by the gravest dangers and is only attempted by experienced navigators who are familiar with its unique perils. The very entrance is the dread of mariners. The tide-rips that boil and roar around the naked Barren Islands subject ships to graver danger than the fiercest storms on this wild and stormy coast.
The tides of Turnagain Arm rival those of the Bay of Fundy, entering in tremendous bores that advance faster than a horse can run and bearing everything with resistless force before them. After the first roar of the entering tide is heard, there is but a moment in which to make for safety. There is a tide fall in the arm of from twenty to twenty-seven feet.