When I returned I found that Ned’s wife had washed the blacking off her face with surprising results. I had sat at her feet for three days in the canoe under the impression that she was a hideous creature of about thirty, but now she appeared to be about seventeen, and really quite good-looking, being as fair as most Italians. Ned was himself a smart-looking fellow, and they made a handsome pair, though, like nearly all these coast Indians, their legs were deformed from the continual canoe life. All the women of these parts, and a good many of the men, black their faces in summer, partly to preserve the complexion, and partly to keep off mosquitoes. They used to employ a mixture of soot and seal-oil, but now that the advance of civilisation has introduced them to blacking, they much prefer that. My watch now took to going all right again, the fine glacier mud apparently dropping out as it dried.
At noon it began to rain steadily and kept on till five, when it kindly left off for a little, so we turned out and had supper. In spite of the rain, Finn had managed to bake some sour-dough bread in our tin plates, and he persuaded it to rise by covering it with our warm blankets. Though a good deal burnt in baking, it was quite excellent, and I particularly appreciated it as being the only crusty bread we ever had, but the men didn’t care for it. A crusty loaf is always an abomination to an American, and our preference for the outside always surprised our men. It soon began to rain again, so we turned in at seven, and lay in bed talking. Lyons had been in France and Germany as a child, but did not remember much about his journey.
Tuesday, the 28th.—In the middle of the night we heard the Indians making a great noise and roaring with laughter, and, on one of the men going out to inquire, we found that the little lake behind had been so swollen by the continued rain, that a stream had burst up through the shingle in the middle of their tent and swamped them out. Like the episode of the frogs, they seemed to consider it an excellent joke, though I should have been exceedingly annoyed had I had to move tent and blankets under pouring rain in the dark. But the coast Indian is a cheerful personage, and quite unlike his statelier cousin of the plains. The question of his relationship to Japan I leave to wiser heads than mine.
It rained nearly all night, and the wind was much stronger. We lay in bed till 8.30, when Shorty made us some corn-meal cakes, as the oatmeal was finished. It went on raining hard, and we lay in the tent, the wet coming through freely on to our blankets, till half-past three, when it began to clear and the sun came partly out. It soon went in again, but the wind had gone round to the south-west, so we had hope for the morrow.
Wednesday, the 29th.—None of us except Finn were able to sleep much, owing partly to so much lying in the tent, and partly to the influx of insect life which had appeared on the cessation of the rain. Small black spiders which bit like anything, swarms of mosquitoes, and the biggest sand-fleas I ever saw,—they kept up such a pop-popping all night by jumping against the tent, that we thought it was raining when it was really quite fine.
We were up at five and off by 6.30, when we pulled east for an hour round the point into Cross Sound. Here we found a dense fog and an icy-cold north-east wind coming off the glacier in Taylor’s Bay, so we set sail and ran across the Sound in an hour and twenty minutes to Lisianski Channel, between Tchitchagoff and Jacobi Islands. This channel is extremely narrow, and we sailed down it with a light breeze for three hours, seeing quantities of white-headed eagles on the trees. We then reached the corner where the strait turns sharp to the west, and landed for about an hour. We found here a skull on the beach, about which Shorty and Finn had an argument which culminated in the former betting twenty dollars to Finn’s watch on its being a deer’s head; but he lost, for Ned, whom they appointed umpire, pronounced it to be that of a seal.
We went on again at one o’clock, pulling and paddling steadily against the tide, and had almost reached the open sea at 4.30, when the tide turned and a good north-west wind sprang up. We found a heavyish sea outside still running up from the south-east, but the wind drove us through it at a great pace, and we passed Cape Edwardes at about sunset. We then got in among the fringe of small islands, and landed at nine o’clock some six miles further on in a little harbour which took some finding in the dark. We landed over some rather broken rocks, and Lyons was much taken aback at finding himself at the edge of what seemed in the blackness of the night to be a bottomless chasm, though in the morning it proved to be only about four feet deep. We lit a fire and prepared some pea-soup, after consuming which we curled up on the moss under the trees, the men rolling up in the tent, while I had blankets enough to take a nook apart. The night was lovely and the starlight most brilliant.
Thursday, the 30th.—A beautiful morning. I woke the rest at five, and after some coffee and corn-meal mush we got off at 6.30 and rowed to the end of the islands, by which time it was half-past nine, and the west wind came again according to custom. About this period I recognised the conical top of Mount Edgcumbe, and pointed it out to Finn, who had not been in these parts before. We reached the entrance of Salisbury Sound at noon, and ate our one precious tin of corned beef, which we had saved so carefully. We flew down the Sound at a great pace through crowds of porpoises, at which the men tried several futile shots. At one o’clock we rounded the corner opposite Peril Straits, and saw a vessel coming towards us, which we at first expected would be the ‘Idaho,’ which, on account of the crowd of tourists, had been doing some supplementary trips to those of the ‘Ancon’ and ‘Elder,’ but as she got nearer we recognised the ‘Pinta.’ Since we were going about nine knots we did not want to waste any of our wind, and merely ran past, exchanging salutes.
About three o’clock the wind began to die away, and at four, just after we had passed St. John the Baptist’s Bay, we had to take to the oars, and, pulling on steadily at a good pace, came in sight of Sitka at about seven, when I sent my previously untouched whisky-flask round, and half an hour later we were ordering a sumptuous supper of clam-soup, halibut, and venison, while half the population were crowding round to hear our tale. I was just in time to secure the ‘Leo,’ a steam schooner of about fifty tons, which would otherwise have sailed at midnight for Port Townsend, and for four hundred dollars her owner consented to go up to Yakutat and fetch the others.
H. said they were wild with delight when they saw her round the point three days later, but after all, I had the best of it, for they encountered a fearful south-east gale, and, after springing a bad leak, had to run back to Yakutat, where they beached and repaired her, and did not reach Sitka till the 17th of September.