with the stubble fields of wheat or oats in more civilized climes. I have no doubt that they furnish good grazing to mountain goats, caribou and moose, and would be sufficient for cattle if they could keep on friendly terms with the mosquitoes. According to the general terms of the survival of the fittest and the growth of muscles the most used to the detriment of others, a band of cattle inhabiting this district in the far future would be all

tail and no body unless the mosquitoes should experience a change of numbers.

At Marsh a few miserable "Stick" Indians put in an appearance, but not a single thing could be obtained from them by our curiosity hunters. A rough-looking pair of shell ear-rings in a small boy's possession he instantly refused to exchange for the great consideration of a jack-knife offered by a member of the party, who sup

posed the ornaments to be purely local in character and of savage manufacture. Another trinket was added to the jack-knife and still refused, and additions were made to the original offer, until just to see if there was any limit to the acquisitiveness of these people, a final offer was made, I believe, of a double-barreled shot-gun with a thousand rounds of ammunition, a gold watch, two sacks of flour and a camp stove, and in refusing this the boy generously added the information that its value to him was based on the fact that it had been received from the Chilkats, who, in turn, had obtained it from the white traders.

A few scraggy half-starved dogs accompanied the party. An unconquerable pugnacity was the principal characteristic of these animals, two of them fighting until they were so exhausted that they had to lean up against each other to rest. A dirty group of children of assorted sizes completed the picture of one of the most dejected races of people on the face of the earth. They visited their fish lines at the mouth of the incoming river at the head of Lake Marsh, and caught enough fish to keep body and soul together after a fashion. This method of fishing is quite common in this part of the country, and at the mouth of a number of streams, or where the main stream debouches into a lake, long willow poles driven far enough into the mud to prevent their washing away are often seen projecting upward and swayed back and forth by the force of the current. On closer examination they reveal a sinew string tied to them at about the water-line or a little above. They occasionally did us good service as buoys, indicating the mud flats, which we could thereby avoid, but the num

ber of fish we ever saw taken off them was not alarming. The majority of those caught are secured by means of the double-pronged fish-spears, which were described on page 76. I never observed any nets in the possession of the Tahk-heesh or "Sticks," but my investigations in this respect were so slight that I might easily have overlooked them. Among my trading material to be used for hiring native help, fish-hooks were eagerly sought by all of the Indians, until after White River was passed, at which point the Yukon becomes too muddy for any kind of fishing with hook and line. Lines they were not so eager to obtain, the common ones of sinew sufficiently serving the purpose. No good bows or arrows were seen among them, their only weapons being the stereotyped Hudson Bay Company flintlock smooth-bore musket, the only kind of gun, I believe, throwing a ball that this great trading company has ever issued since its foundation. They also sell a cheap variety of double-barreled percussion-capped shotgun, which the natives buy, and loading them with ball-being about No. 12 or 14 guage -find them superior to the muskets. Singular as it may appear, these Indians, like the Eskimo I found around the northern part of Hudson's Bay, prefer the flintlock to the percussion-cap gun, probably for the reason that the latter depends on three articles of trade--caps, powder and lead--while the former depends on but two of these, and the chances of running short of ammunition when perhaps at a distance of many weeks' journey from these supplies, are thereby lessened. These old muskets are tolerably good at sixty to seventy yards, and even reasonably dangerous at twice that distance. In all their huntings these Indians contrive by that tact pecu

liar to savages to get within this distance of moose, black bear and caribou, and thus to earn a pretty fair subsistence the year round, having for summer a diet of salmon with a few berries and roots.

The 28th we had on Lake Marsh a brisk rain and thunder shower, lasting from 12.45 P. M. to 2.15 P. M., directly overhead, which was, I believe, the first thunderstorm recorded on the Yukon, thunder being unknown on the lower river, according to all accounts. Our Camp 15 was on a soft, boggy shore covered with reeds, where a tent could not be pitched and blankets could not be spread. The raft lay far out in the lake, a hundred yards from the shore, across soft white mud, through which one might sink in the water to one's middle. When to this predicament the inevitable mosquitoes and a few rain showers are added, I judge that our plight was about as disagreeable as could well be imagined. Such features of the explorer's life, however, are seldom dwelt upon. The northern shores of the lake are unusually flat and boggy. Our primitive mode of navigation suffered also from the large banks of “glacier mud" as we approached the lake's outlet. Most of this mud was probably deposited by a large river, the McClintock (in honor of Vice-Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, R. N.), that here comes in from the northeast a river so large that we were in some doubt as to its being the outlet, until its current settled the matter by carrying us into the proper channel. A very conspicuous hill, bearing north-east from Lake Marsh, was named Michie Mountain after Professor Michie of West Point.

allowed to die rapidly away, by reason of the great amount of exercise we had to go through in managing the raft in its many eccentric phases of navigation. On the lakes, whether in storm or still weather, one man stationed at the stern oar of the raft had been sufficient, as long as he kept awake, nor was any great harm done if he fell asleep in a quiet breeze, but once on the river an additional oarsman at the bow sweep was imperatively needed, for at short turns or sudden bends, or when nearing half-sunken bowlders or tangled masses of driftwood, or bars of sand, mud or gravel, or while steering clear of eddies and slack water, it was often necessary to do some very lively work at both ends of the raft in swinging the ponderous contrivance around to