[CHAPTER VII.]
SOLOMON BARANOV.
“All ashore!” sung out Tom as the Queen touched the wharf at Fort Wrangell, at nine o’clock the next morning. “Come on, all of you. We have four hours here, the captain says.”
Mounting the rail for a jump, the boy brought upon himself a sharp rebuke from the officer; but the ship was soon safely moored and the gangplank run down to the wharf.
The excursionists straggled ashore in twos and threes, and began an eager inspection of their first Alaskan town.
The Percivals and their friends stroll down the single street of the village, which borders the shore with a row of low wooden houses.
Here are three or four squaws in gaudy blankets, crouching on a little wooden platform in front of their hut. Their favorite position is that of a seal, or a pussy cat—half-reclining, face downward. Spread out on the platform are baskets made of cedar-root, fiber and bark; carved wooden knives and forks; spoons of horn; little stone images, silver bracelets, and other curiosities of home manufacture.
Mr. Percival purchased one or two of these trinkets for friends at home, and continued his walk, followed by a pack of yelping dogs.
A singular object now came in view—a pole about twenty feet tall and two feet in diameter, carved in strange and fantastic shapes. There were the figures of a bear, a raven, a fish and a frog, with a grotesque human head at the top of all. This was one of the famous “totem poles,” which indicate the tribe to which the owner belongs, and generally display an image of one or more ancestors. A thousand good American dollars could hardly purchase this ugly, worn, weather-beaten old pole from the natives who live in squalid poverty in the log hut behind it.