I will give thee all thy fill!”
which, addressed to a “sweet Klootchman,” a “forest maiden,” means, that loving her so much, all that he had was hers. Much greater absurdities have been put in plain English.
A bishop of British Columbia was, however, hardly so successful; not being himself a student of Chinook, the entire vocabulary of which would have taken him rather less time to learn than the barest elements of Latin, he engaged an interpreter, through whom to address the Indians. The latter was perfectly competent to say all that can be said in Chinook, but was rather nonplussed when his lordship commenced his address by “Children of the forest!” He scratched his head and looked at the bishop, who, however, was determined, and commenced once more, “Children of the forest!” The interpreter knew that it must make nonsense, but he was cornered, and had to do it. And this is what he said: “Tenass man copa stick!”—literally, “Little men among the stumps” (or trunks of trees). The writer will not comment upon the subject here, more than to say that Chinook is not adapted for the translation of Milton or Shakespeare; while the simplest story or parable of the Scriptures must be unintelligible, or worse, when attempted in that jargon.
The only other settlement on Vancouver Island which has any direct interest to the Royal Navy, is Nanaimo, the coal-mines of which yield a large amount of the fuel used by the steamships when in that neighbourhood and about all that is used on the island; a quantity is also shipped to San Francisco. The mines are worked by English companies, and are so near the coast that, by means of a few tramways and locomotives, the coal is conveyed to the wharves, where it can be at once put on board. It is a pleasant [pg 169]little place, and many an English miner would be glad to be as well off as the men settled there, who earn more money than at home, own their cottages and plots of land, obtain most of their supplies cheaper than in England, and have a beautiful gulf before them, in summer, at least, as calm as a lake, on which boating and canoeing is all the rage in the evenings or on holidays.
The Pacific Station is an extensive one, for it commences at the most northernmost parts of Bering Sea, and extends below Cape Horn. It embraces the Alaskan coast. Many English men-of-war have visited these latitudes, principally, however, in the cause of science and discovery.
In the old days, when the colony of Russian America was little better than are many parts of Siberia—convict settlements—the few Government officials and officers of the Russian Fur Company were, it may well be believed, only too ready to welcome any change in the monotony of their existence, and a new arrival, in the shape of a ship from some foreign port, was a day to be remembered, and of which to make much. The true Russians are naturally hospitably and sociably inclined, and such times were the occasion for balls, dinners, and parties to any extent. The writer well remembers his first visit to Sitka, which, although the capital of Alaska, is situated on an island off the mainland. On approaching the small and partially land-locked harbour, a mountain of no inconsiderable height, wooded to the top, appeared in view, and below it a little town of highly-coloured roofs, in the middle of which rose a picturesque rock, surmounted by a semi-fortified castle, which, in the distance at least, looked most imposing. Near this, but separated by a stockade, was the village of the Kalosh Indians, a powerful tribe, who had at times, as the members of the expedition learned, given a considerable amount of trouble to the Russians—in 1804 they murdered nearly the whole of the Russian garrison—while beyond on every side were rocky shores and wooded heights. An old hulk or two, lying on the beach below the old castle, itself principally built of wood, the residence of the Governor of Russian America, then Prince Maksutoff, which had been roofed in and were used for magazines of stores, and some rather shaky pile-wharfs, made up the town.
Soon was experienced the warmth of a Russian welcome, and for a week afterwards a succession of gaieties followed, which were so very gay that they would have killed most men, unless they had been fortified with a long sea-trip just before. Every Russian seemed to wish the party to consider all that he had at their service; the samovar boiled up everywhere as they approached; the little lunch-table of anchovies, and pickles, rye-bread, butter, cheese, and so forth, with the everlasting vodka, was everywhere ready, and except duty called, no one was obliged to go off at night to the three vessels comprising the expedition to which the writer was attached, for the best bed in the house was always at his service. There was only one bar-room in the whole town, and there only a kind of lager-bier and vodka were to be obtained. When the country was, for a consideration of 7,250,000 dollars, transferred to the United States, there was a “rush” from Victoria and San Francisco. Keen Hebrew traders, knowing that furs up country bore a merely nominal price, and that Sitka was the great entrepôt for their collection—a million dollars’ worth being frequently gathered there at a time—thought they would be able to buy them for next to nothing still. Parcels of land in the town, which had not at [pg 170]the utmost a greater value than a few hundred dollars, now ran up to fabulous prices; 10,000 dollars was asked for a log house! Hotels, “saloons”—i.e., bar-rooms à l’Américaine—German lager-bier cellars, and barbers’ shops sprang up like mushrooms; a newspaper-office was opened, and everything reminded one of the sudden growth of mining-towns in the early days of California. Alas! everything else went up in proportion, excepting salmon, which must be a drug on that coast for many centuries to come;[108] provisions greatly rose in price, and the competition for furs was so great that they became nearly as dear as in San Francisco. The consequence may be imagined; there was an exodus, and the following January the whole city could have been bought for a song. The Russian officials, of course, left it shortly after the transfer, and most of the others as speedily as they could. The “capital” has never recovered from the shock; for, although organised fur-companies are scattered over the country, in one instance the United States Government leasing the sole right—that of fur-sealing, on the Aleutian Islands—to a firm which has a Russian prince as a partner, Sitka is not the entrepôt it was; everything in furs is brought to San Francisco before being consigned to all quarters of the globe. The value of Alaska to the United States is at present very small, but so little is known about it that one can hardly form an estimate concerning its future. It possesses minerals, but these will always be worked with difficulty, on account of the climate. Its grand salmon-fisheries are, however, a tangible property; the cod in Bering Sea is as plentiful as it ever was on the Newfoundland banks; and there are innumerable forests of trees, easily accessible, reaching down to the coast—of pines, firs, and cedars, of size sufficient for the tallest masts and largest spars, so that Alaska has a direct interest for the ship-builder.
By its acquisition, the United States not merely extended its seaboard for, say, 1,500 miles north, but it obtained Mount St. Elias, by far the largest peak of the North American continent, and one of the loftiest mountains of the globe. “Upon Mont Blanc,” says an American writer,[109] “pile the loftiest summit in the British Islands, and they would not reach the altitude of Mount St. Elias. If a man could reach its summit, he would be two miles nearer the stars than any other American could be, east of the Mississippi.... As a single peak it ranks among the half-dozen loftiest on the globe. Some of the Himalaya summits reach, indeed, a couple of miles nearer Orion and the Pleiades, but they rise from an elevated plateau sloping gradually upwards for hundreds of miles. As an isolated peak, St. Elias may look down upon Mont Blanc and Teneriffe, and claim brotherhood with Chimborazo and Cotopaxi.” It acquired also one of the four great rivers of the globe, of which the writer had the pleasure of being one of the earliest explorers. The Yukon, which renders the waters of Bering Sea fresh or semi-fresh for a dozen miles beyond its many mouths, is a sister-river to the Amazon, Mississippi, and, perhaps, the Plata; it has affluents to which the Rhine or Rhône are but brooks.
The Kalosh Indians of Sitka live in semi-civilised wooden barns or houses, with [pg 171]invariably a round hole for a door, through which one creeps. They are particularly ingenious in carving; and Jack has many an opportunity of obtaining grotesque figures, cut from wood or slate-stone, for a cast-off garment or a half-dollar. One brought home represents the Russian soldier of the period, prior to the American annexation, and is scarcely a burlesque of his stolid face, gigantic moustache, close fitting coat with very tight sleeves, and loose, baggy trousers. Masks may be seen cut from some white stone, which would not do dishonour to a European sculptor. But now, leaving Sitka, let us make a rapid trip to the extreme northern end of the Pacific Station.
Men-of-war proceeding north of Sitka—which, except for purposes of science or war, is not likely to be the case, although the Pacific Station extends to the northernmost parts of Alaska—would voyage into Bering Sea through Ounimak Pass, one of the best passages between the rocky and rugged Aleutian Islands. In the pass the scenery is superb, grand volcanic peaks rising in all directions. While there, many years ago, the writer well remembers going on deck one morning, when mists and low clouds hung over the then placid waters, and seeing what appeared to be a magnificent mountain peak, snowy and scarped, right overhead the vessel, and having a wreath of white cloud surrounding it, while a lower and greyer bank of mist hid its base. It seemed baseless, and as though rising from nothing; while the bright sunlight above all, and which did not reach the vessel, lit up the eternal snows in brilliant contrasts of light and shadow. This was the grand peak of Sheshaldinski, which rises nearly 9,000 feet above the sea level.