CHAPTER XXXIV
"What kind of place is Uyak?" I asked a deck-hand who was a native of Sweden, as we stood out in the bow of the Dora one day.
He turned and looked at me and grinned.
"It ees a hal of a blace," he replied, promptly and frankly. "It ees yoost dat t'ing. You vill see."
And I did see. I should, in fact, like to take this frank-spoken gentleman along with me wherever I go, solely to answer people who ask me what kind of place Uyak is—his opinion so perfectly coincides with my own.
There were canneries at Uyak, and mosquitoes, and things to be smelled; but if there be anything there worth seeing, they must first kill the mosquitoes, else it will never be seen.
The air was black with these pests, and the instant we stepped upon the wharf we were black with them, too. Every passenger resembled a windmill in action, as he raced down the wharf toward the cannery, hoping to find relief there; and as he went his nostrils were assailed by an odor that is surpassed in only one place on earth—Belkoffski!—and it comes later.
The hope of relief in the canneries proved to be a vain one. The unfortunate Chinamen and natives were covered with mosquitoes as they worked; their faces and arms were swollen; their eyes were fierce with suffering. They did not laugh at our frantic attempts to rid ourselves of the winged pests—as we laughed at one another. There was nothing funny in the situation to those poor wretches. It was a tragedy. They stared at us with desperate eyes which asked:—
"Why don't you go away if you are suffering? You are free to leave. What have you to complain of? We must stay."
We went out and tried to walk a little way along the hill; but the mosquitoes mounted in clouds from the wild-rose thickets. At the end of fifteen minutes we fled back to the steamer and locked ourselves in our staterooms. There we sat down and nursed our grievances with camphor and alcohol.