‘And Tom,’ the elder Dupuy whispered to his nephew confidentially, as soon as their host had gone back into the house to prepare for his journey, ‘I have business, too, in Port-of-Spain, immediately. You go and look at the bullocks if you like—that’s your department. I shall ride down the hills at once, and into town with old Hawthorn.’
Tom looked at him with a vacant stare of boorish unintelligence. ‘Why, what do you want to go running off like that for,’ he asked, open-mouthed, ‘without even waiting to see the cattle? What does it matter to you, I should like to know, whether old Hawthorn’s precious son is coming to Trinidad or not, Uncle Theodore?’
The uncle looked back at him with undisguised contempt. ‘Why, you fool, Tom,’ he answered quietly, ‘you don’t suppose I want to let Nora come out alone all the way from England to Trinidad in the very same steamer with that man Hawthorn’s son Edward? Impossible, impossible!—Here, you nigger fellow you, grinning over there like a chattering monkey, bring my mare out of the stable at once, sir, will you—do you hear me, image?—for I’m going to ride down direct to Port-of-Spain this very minute along with your master. Hurry up, there, jackanapes!’
THE LAND OF FURS.
In 1867, the United States government, for a payment to Russia of about a million and a half pounds sterling, received in exchange the strange isolated country in the far north known as Alaska, separated by one thousand miles of British colonial territory from the republican frontier. For some years there were constant conflicts with the Indians, and altogether the early history of the American occupation of Alaska is not a bright one. The San Franciscan speculators who had been attracted by hopes of gold and of untold wealth in forests and fisheries were wofully disappointed, and the majority of them gradually cleared out again.
A mere glance at the map hardly gives one an idea of the enormous superficial extent of this outlying possession of our American cousins. According to the special Report of the United States Census Commissioners—to which we are mainly indebted for the facts given in this article—the total area of Alaska is five hundred and thirty-one thousand four hundred and nine square miles, or about one-sixth of the entire area of the United States. But one hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and forty-five square miles are wholly within the arctic circle, an area which has rarely been traversed by the white man, and upon the coast-borders of which are a few Eskimo villages. The natives of these, it is sad to learn, are becoming rapidly deteriorated by commerce with the crews of the whalers which resort in summer to the neighbourhood, and seek only to barter what natural produce, in the shape of furs, or oil, or ivory, they can collect for the means of intoxication. The immense area of the northern division of Alaska is left to the bear, the fox, the reindeer, and other polar animals, and to somewhere about three thousand degraded Eskimos.
The largest geographical division of Alaska is that which the United States officials have named the Yukon section. It is so called because it comprises the valley of the river Yukon, said to be the largest river in America, if not in the world, and which discharges into Behring’s Sea a volume of water estimated at about one-third more than that of the Mississippi. The Yukon division contains one hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and fifteen square miles, and is peopled by four thousand two hundred and seventy-six Eskimos, two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven Athabaskan Indians, eighteen whites, and nineteen creoles—total, six thousand eight hundred and seventy. The occupation of the natives is entirely in hunting fur-skinned animals, which they barter with the whites for sugar, flour, tea, cloth, hardware, &c. The money value of the skins bartered is said to be about fifteen thousand pounds annually. Foxes are the chief wealth-yielders of this district, and they are found of all shades, from silver-gray and black to red and snow-white. Next to these in importance are the skins of the martens (or sables) and land-otters; and then, but in a much smaller degree, those of the black and brown bears. The moose-skins and deerskins are all retained by the natives for their own purposes, for clothing, bedding, &c.
The principal trading-post is called Saint Michael, and here are kept stocks of coal for the use of the whaling-steamers which force their way into the arctic seas every year.
The third largest geographical division is called the Kuskokvim division, from the river which intersects it. The Kuskokvim division lies to the south of the Yukon division, is bounded on the east by a range of mountains, on the west by Behring’s Sea, and it comprises the valleys of three large rivers and an intervening system of lakes. There is a trading-station called Kalmakovsky, from which are brought down from the unknown interior, by the natives, skins of beaver, marten, and fox, which all appear to be very plentiful. This trade is carried on by a race which appears to be a mixture of the Eskimos and Indians; but below Kalmakovsky, down to the sea, and along the coast, the Eskimos alone appear. These Eskimos support themselves mainly by seal and salmon fishing. The salmon are caught in traps, and are dried upon poles, which line both banks of the lower river from June to August. The estuary is very wide, and the tide rushes in with tremendous force, the rise and fall being very great, sometimes over fifty feet when the wind is from the south-west.
The houses of the natives are much the same in all the divisions of Alaska. These dwellings are thus described: ‘A circular mound of earth, grass-grown and littered with all sorts of household utensils, a small spiral coil of smoke rising from the apex, dogs crouching, children climbing up or rolling down, stray morsels of food left from one meal to the other, and a soft mixture of mud and offal surrounding it all. The entrance to this house is a low irregular square aperture, through which the inmate stoops, and passes down a foot or two through a short low passage on to the earthen floor within. The interior generally consists of an irregularly shaped square or circle, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, receiving its only light from without, through the small smoke-opening at the apex of the roof, which rises, tent-like, from the floor. The fireplace is directly under this opening. Rude beds or couches of skin and grass mats are laid, slightly raised above the floor, upon clumsy frames made of sticks and saplings or rough-hewn planks, and sometimes on little elevations built up of peat or sod. Sometimes a small hall-way with bulging sides is erected over the entrance, where, by this expansion, room is afforded for the keeping of utensils and water-vessels and as a shelter for dogs. Immediately adjoining most of these houses will be found a small summer kitchen, a rude wooden frame, walled in and covered over with sods, with an opening at the top to give vent to the smoke. These are entirely above ground, rarely over five or six feet in diameter, and are littered with filth and offal of all kinds; serving also as a refuge for the dogs from the inclement weather. In the interior regions, where both fuel and building material are more abundant, the houses change somewhat in appearance and construction; the excavation of the coast-houses, made for the purpose of saving both, disappears, and gives way to log-structures above the ground, but still covered with sods. Living within convenient distance of timber, the people (inland) do not depend so much upon the natural warmth of mother-earth.’