Our camp that evening was on a bank so high and solid that we conjectured it must be the main bank (of the eastern side). So steep was it that steps had to be cut in it in order to reach the top with our camping and cooking effects.
At this camp—39—and a few of the preceding ones we found rosebuds large and sweet enough to eat, and really a palatable change from the salt and canned provisions of our larder. They were very much larger than those we are accustomed to see in the United States proper and somewhat elongated or pear shaped; the increase in size being entirely in the fleshy capsule which was crisp and tender, while even the seeds seemed to be less dry and "downy," or full of "cotton," than those of temperate climes.
The mosquitoes were a little less numerous in the flat-lands, but, at first, the little black gnats seemed to grow even worse. Mr. Homan, who was especially troubled by these latter pests, had his hands so swollen by their constant attacks that he could hardly draw his fingers together to grasp the pencil with which he recorded his topographical notes. Dr. Wilson and I experimented with some oil of pennyroyal taken from the medicine chest, which is extensively used as an important ingredient of the mosquito cures advertised in more southern climes. It is very volatile and evaporates so rapidly that it was only efficacious with the pests of the Yukon for two or three minutes, when they would attack the spot where it had been spread with their old vigor. Mixed with grease it held its properties a little longer, but would never do to depend upon in this mosquito infested country.
I noticed that evening that banked or cumulus clouds, lying low along the horizon, invariably indicated mountains or hills stretching under them if all the other parts of the sky were clear. At that time we recognized the Romantzoff range by this means, bearing north-west, a discovery we easily verified the next morning when the air was clear in every direction. At no time while we were drifting through the flat-lands, when the weather and our position were favorable, were hills or mountains out of view, although at times so distant as to resemble light blue clouds on the horizon.
Although we were at the most northern part of our journey while in this level tract, actually passing within the Arctic regions for a short distance at old Fort Yukon, yet there was no part of the journey where we suffered so much from the down-pouring heat of the sun, whenever the weather was clear; and exasperatingly enough our greatest share of clear weather was while we were floating between the upper and lower ramparts.
All day on the 26th the current seemed to set to the westward, and we left island after island upon our right in spite of all our efforts, for we wanted to keep the extreme eastern channels so as to make old Fort Yukon, where we had learned that an Indian, acting as a trader for the Alaska Company might have some flour to sell. Our most strenuous efforts in the hot sun were rewarded by our stranding a number of times on the innumerable shoals in the shallow river, delaying us altogether nearly three hours, and allowing us to make but thirty-three miles, our course bringing us almost in proximity to the western bank. I knew that we must be but a short distance from old Fort Yukon, at which point I intended to await the river steamer's arrival so as to procure provisions, for I had only two days' rations left; but this day had been so unfavorable that I almost gave up all hope of making the Fort, expecting to drift by next day far out of sight of it. About eleven o'clock that night "Alexy," the half-breed Russian interpreter for Ladue, came into our camp in his canoe, saying that Ladue had gone on down to Fort Yukon that day, keeping the main right-hand channel which we had missed, and that we were now so far to the west and so near Fort Yukon that we might pass it to-morrow among the islands without seeing it unless we kept more to the right. After receiving this doleful information, which coincided so exactly with our own conclusions, we went to sleep, and "Alexy" paddled away down stream, keeping a strong course to the east, but it would have required Great Eastern's engines on board of our cumbersome raft in order for us to make it.
THE STEAMER "YUKON," (IN A HERD OF MOOSE).
(A scene in the Yukon Flat-lands.)