In spite of slight showers and a general "bad outlook," we started early next morning, and were very soon driven into a slough on the left (southern) bank by a strong north-west wind. Through this spot the current was so stagnant that we were over two hours in making a little less than two miles. At one time the head wind threatened to bring us completely to a standstill, so slight was our motive power. Nor was this our only episode of the same character. Several times the exasperating wind played us this trick, and when we camped for the night after twelve hours spent on the water, we could only reckon twenty-six miles to our credit. The event thoroughly established the fact that the central channels of the many which penetrate this flat district contain the swiftest currents, while along the main banks there are numerous water-ways open at both ends with almost stagnant water in them. About three in the afternoon we passed a double log house on the right bank with two or three small log caches mounted high in the air on the corner posts, and two graves, all of which seemed new in construction, although the place was entirely deserted. Indian signs of all kinds now began to appear as we approached the lower ramparts, although no Indians were seen. By noon the blue hills of the ramparts were seen to our left, and by the middle of the afternoon, we could make out individual trees upon them, and at half-past seven o'clock we camped on the last island in the great group of from two to ten thousand through which we had been threading our way so long, with the upper gates of the lower ramparts in full sight, about a mile or two distant.
[CHAPTER XI.]
THROUGH THE LOWER RAMPARTS, AND THE END OF THE RAFT JOURNEY.
INDIAN "CACHE" ON LOWER YUKON.
Very well defined indeed are the upper gates of the lower ramparts, and one enters them from above with a suddenness that recalls his childish ideas of mountain ranges taken from juvenile geography-books, where they are represented as a closely connected series of tremendously steep peaks, with no outlying hills connecting them with the level valleys by gently rolling slopes, as nature has fortunately chosen to do; this approach to the lower ramparts being one of the few exceptions. The lower termination is not by any means so well marked as after the rapids at Senati's village are passed; there is a gradual lowering of the range, broken by many abrupt as well as gradual rises until the delta at the mouth of the river is reached, far beyond the point at which any traveler has placed their western limit. I think I agree pretty well with others in placing it about the mouth of the Tanana or Nuklakayet trading station. This would give the lower ramparts a length of about one hundred miles along the river, or about one-fourth the length of the upper ramparts.
On August 3d we started at 7:30 A. M., and half an hour afterward our hearts were gladdened by re-entering the hilly country, for the flat and monotonous districts through which we had been drifting for many days induced a peculiar depression difficult to describe as well as to suffer. Our entry was signaled by the killing of three young but almost full-grown gray geese out of a small flock which we surprised as we floated around a point of land near the northern bank. This incident ushered in a hunting season when our shot-guns might have done great service but for our unfavorable condition for hunting, planted as we were upon a raft in the middle of a broad river.
We had supposed that when we entered the ramparts and the widely-scattered waters of the river were united into a single channel, our speed would surely increase; in fact, we had been told as much by the steamboat men. On the contrary, the current was distinctly slower than that of any main channel of the stream through which we had drifted since leaving the head of the river, and after floating for thirteen hours we could only reckon thirty-six geographical miles to our credit, the poorest record we had made except on days when we had stranded upon a river bar or had been forced down a side channel of slack water.
About one o'clock in the afternoon we passed three canoes hauled up on the right bank, their owners being asleep on the warm sand of the shore, nearly naked. Their clothes were hanging out to dry, and they were evidently remaining over from the heavy rain-storm of the day before. Persistent yelling aroused them, and one of their number put off in his canoe, paddling around the raft, but not understanding each other, he returned to the shore, having uttered but one word that we could comprehend, chy (tea).