Our camp is in quite a bustle this week preparing for Christmas. We have invited the Hanson boys up to dinner with us, and we are getting ready for a big time. The Saturday before Christmas we are to have a tree and feed all the natives in the country. The doctor has been at work on scrap picture books for the children, finding no end of beautiful chromes on the tin cans about the respective camps, besides other lithographs and steel engravings from various sources. Art is taking on shape and form and expression under the magic of the doctor's touch in a way surprising to both him and us.
The literary society last Wednesday was the best so far. Thies, of the Los Angeles Camp, read a paper on Theosophy. It was entitled, "The Home of Contentment," and was very reasonable from his point of view, and well received by all. The doctor gave a short talk on "How to Care for a Frost Bite." This was of great practical value to all present.
Dec. 21.—Forty-six degrees below zero to-day, and I, for the fun of it, walked down to the Hanson Camp. It was not at all uncomfortable, nothing like what it is when the wind blows, at ten degrees below zero. Normandin, of the San Jose cabin, has rigged up a turning lathe, using a grindstone as the driving wheel. He is turning out all sorts of things from birch and spruce. He has sent up a quantity of dolls' heads and tops for the Eskimo Christmas tree. One of the Los Angeles boys is carving faces on the dolls' heads, to distinguish which is the front side of the head, the image being of the same proportions all around. He gives them almond eyes and flat noses just like the native babies.
Now that the first snow has appeared, the natives are busy at snowshoes, and several of our boys are experimenting in the same line. The Eskimos are very expert in this kind of work, and their snowshoes are models of symmetry and neatness.
Near-by Neighbors.
The aurora is very brilliant some nights now, but there is no reason visible why, on other nights just as favorable, as far as we can discover, there is none at all. In this extremely cold weather, and especially during a sudden change of temperature, the ice in the river cracks and groans terrifically. This morning, as I was walking down to the Hanson Camp, the phenomena were very much in evidence, so much so that it was gruesome to a lonely body. At one place when I stepped off from a drift of packed snow on to the bare ice, there came a series of thundering reports like cannon shots, and then a succession of sharp reports and creaks and other awful sounds, that finally died away into the dead silence of Arctic darkness. Such combination of sounds, together with a reasonable amount of imagination sure to accompany them, is startling, especially If it is quite dark and one is all alone. Sometimes a faint crack will start others like it all around, and these in turn will give rise to a rapid fusillade extending hundreds of yards up and down the river. And there are the crunch and crackle of the dry snow under one's muckluks, emitting various modulations of sound, from the sharp bark of a dog to the squeak of a mouse. One has company even in solitude, and there can be no solitude in the world like this in the Arctics. Oh, it is all so enjoyable and fascinating to me! It is like reading a book on a new subject, for one interested in Nature to visit this country. I fear I will be sorry to leave it when the time comes. However, two years may change one's views of many things.
Dec. 29.—Four men from the Orphans' Home on their way up the river, spent last night with us, and were interesting company. One of the men, a Mr. Thornton, knows several people of Seattle and Sitka whom I know. He was at Sitka and Mt. St. Elias with the Prince Luigi party in 1897, and has an article in the "Overland Monthly" just out. He claims to have seen the Silent City, a mirage exactly resembling a distant view of a large city. Several have seen it, and one man, a photographer whom I met at Juneau two years ago, claims to have a photograph of it. I have heard it intimated that the photo is a fake. Prof. Jordan's article on the Silent City in the March, 1898, number of "Popular Science Monthly" is to the point. Thornton says there is no doubt about photos and cuts of the mirage being unauthentic, but he affirms that he and five men of the Prince Luigi party saw it just as he describes it. We had a big discussion on mirages last night. Yesterday at the literary, my paper was on the familiar topic, "What Birds Eat." and, though rather lengthy, was well received. I think our men would be interested in almost any paper that discussed the subject of eating. Dr. Gleaves lectured a week ago on the "Cruise of the Revenue Cutter 'Bear' in 1893." He was surgeon on board of her during that year. He is now president of the Hanson crowd,—more properly speaking, "The Kotzebue Mercantile and Trading Company,"—just as we of the "Penelope" gang are the "Long Beach, Alaska, Mining and Trading Company." How bulky and pompous that sounds! If we do not find a bit of gold while we are here, we shall have the satisfaction of presuming ourselves to be one of the best equipped companies on the Kowak, and are looked up to very much as the Vanderbilts are in New York. Sense of such distinction as tills tends to increase the size of our heads, which are really very large indeed, when considered in their covering of wool hood, canvas hood, scarf, etc. We are advised to enjoy these sensations while it is feasible, as doubtless when we reach the wharf at San Francisco or San Pedro on our return trip we may have to foot it home just like common tramps, or prodigal sons who have wasted their substance and that of our grub-stakers in "riotous living."
On Christmas, day of all days, didn't we have a "spread"! C. C. worked at it for a month beforehand and even stayed up all the night previous cooking and compounding. I suppose he will have forty pages about it in his diary, for although he worked until he was exhausted, he declares it the happiest occasion we have had. And the results of all our labor were really immense.
