The inexorable law of ship's duty only permits it to linger at a harbor for the time necessary to load or unload cargo, or for the time specified in the mail contract, and in this same hard practical vein it makes little difference whether a place is reached by night or day. It is light enough these summer nights to carry on all outdoor work, and the rare visits of the steamer are enough to set all the inhabitants astir at any hour, while the constant excitement of the trip, and the strange spell of the midnight light, makes the tourist indifferent to his established customs. Once on the Idaho we were at anchor in Naha Bay only from five to six o'clock in the morning, but it was barely two o'clock on a clear, still morning when the rattling of the Ancon's anchor chains again broke the silence of Naha Bay. Although we lay there for five hours, few passengers could be roused to watch the sunrise clouds, the leaping salmon, and the brilliant green and gold of the sun-touched woods and water. In the dew and freshness of the early morning, Naha Bay was more lovely than ever, and the little black canoes seemed to float in emerald air, so clearly green were the calm waters under them.

For another perfect summer afternoon the Ancon lay at the wharf in Kasa-an Bay, and, in the mellow, Indian summer sunshine, we roamed the beach, buying the last remaining baskets, bracelets, pipes, and spoons of the Indians, and pulling hard at the amateur's oar as we trailed across the bay in small boats to watch the fishermen cast and draw the net. The huge skeleton wheels on which the nets are dried had raised many comments at every fishery,

but we had never been lucky enough to catch the men doing anything but winding the nets on these reels to dry. The fishermen had dropped the weighted net when we reached the cove on the opposite shore, and the line of bobbing wooden floats showed how this fence in the water was being gradually drawn in, and the area limited as it crept toward the beach. The sun was hot on the water, and the far away peal of the lunch gong, sounding in the stillness of the mountain bay, caused us to turn back to the ship before all the shining salmon were drawn up and thrown into the scows. The fascination of the water

was too great to resist, and in the warmer sun of the afternoon we followed the shores of Baronovich's little inlet, rowing close in where the menzie and merton spruce formed a dense golden-green wall and threw clear shadows and reflections upon the water. We dipped into each little shaded inlet, posed in the boat for the amateur's camera to preserve the scene, and floated slowly over the wonderland that lay beneath the keel. It was with real regret that we saw the last barrel of salmon dropping into the hold, and, steaming down the beautiful bay in full sunshine, had a glimpse of the inlet where the village of Karta and its totem poles lies, before we turned into Clarence Strait.

CHAPTER XX.

THUS

HOWKAN OR KAIGAHNEE.

HUS in its commercial mission the steamer wandered among the islands, touching at infant settlements and trading posts, and anchoring before Indian villages with traditions and totem poles centuries old. Rounding the southern end of the Prince of Wales Island to Dixon Entrance, the fog and mist crept upon us as we neared the ocean. It was a wet and gloomy afternoon when the Idaho anchored in the little American Bay on Dall Island, not more than a mile from Howkan, an ancient settlement of the Kaigahnee Haidas and a place of note in the archipelago. Howkan has more totem poles than any other village, and is one of the most interesting places on the route; but as Kaigahnee Strait before the village is thickly set with reefs, and swift currents and strong winds sweep through the narrow channel, it is dangerous for vessels to go The fur traders used always to anchor in the little bays on the opposite shore, and to one of them, American Bay, the Northwest Trading Company was about to move its stores. Only a small clearing had been made, and two buildings put up, at the time of that first visit, and it looked a very dreary and forlorn

near.

place, as we picked our way about in the rain, climbing over logs and sinking in the wet moss.

After the cargo had been discharged, the captain obligingly took the ship over to the nearest safe anchorage off the village, and we had a welcome on shore from the five white residents. For two years the missionary's wife and sister had met but one white woman, until the boatload of ladies went ashore from the Idaho, and overwhelmed them with a superfluity. We all gathered in the trader's house and store at first, and these two white residents of Howkan were none other than the Russian Count Z― and his pretty black-haired Countess, a couple interesting in themselves and their history, and all the more extraordinary in their being found in this remote end of the world. The Count is a man of fascinating address and appearance, polished manners and cultivated tastes, and, being exiled for Nihilistic tendencies, he chose Alaska in preference to Siberia, and made his way across the friendly chain of islands. to "the home of the free and the land of the brave." He married a charming Russian lady at Sitka, and, with the calm of a philosophic mind and the patience of a patriotic heart, he waits the time when amnesty or anarchy shall permit his return to holy Russia. Adversity and years in the savage wilderness have not robbed these people of their ease and grace of manner, and the handsome Count had all the charm and spirit that must have distinguished him in the gay world of his native capital. The little Countess was unfeignedly glad to see a few fellow creatures, and in the dusk of that dreary, wet night welcomed us to her simple home, and showed us her treasures, from the

big blue-eyed baby to a wonderfully painted dance blanket. When we expressed curiosity at the latter, the pretty Russian seized the great piece of fringed and painted deerskin, and, wrapping it about her shoulders, threw her head back with fine pose, and stood as an animated tableau in the dusk and firelight of her Alaska chalet. "This was a cultus potlatch," she said, with a dainty accent, as she explained the way it came into her possession, and we all laughed at the way the Chinook jargon interprets that dilettante word as meaning "worthless." The Countess told us a better one about her asking a trader what had become of a man who used to live at Sitka, and the trader answering her that he was cultusing around here somewhere." This Russian family was most interesting to us, and, setting aside all traditions of his rank, the Nihilist Count talked business with the captain in a most American manner, and, but for the inherent accent and air, a listener might have taken him for the most practical of business men, whose whole life had been spent in commercial marts, or as agent for a great trading company.

All of these kind people helped to show us about the place, and give us bits of local history on the way, and from them we learned that the Indian name Howkan means a fallen stone, and this village was called so on account of a peculiar boulder that lay on the beach. Like other places in Alaska, it has several names, and several ways of spelling each of them. The traders call it oftener Kaigahnee than Howkan, although old Kaigahnee, the original village of that name, is many miles distant from this place of the