the spoon, and took the silver disk between a pair of old pincers, he nodded his head to us and muttered Klimmin- the Chinook word for soft. Holding it with the pincers, he hammered it on an old piece of iron, and heating it, turning it, and pounding away vigorously, he soon laid a long slender strip of silver before us. Another heating, a deft hammering and polishing, and the bracelet was ready to be engraved with a clumsy steel point in simple geometrical designs, or with the conventionalized dog-fish, salmon, seals, and whales of Hooniah art. After that it was heated and bent into shape to fit the wrist.

For these Klickwillies, or bracelets, the white visitors were asked three dollars a pair, while the native rule is to pay the silversmith just twice the value of the coins used. He was an amiable old fellow, this Hooniah silversmith, and he kept no secrets of his art from us, bringing out finger rings, nose rings, long silver lip pins, and earrings to show us. The Indian women in his tent were well bedecked with silver ornaments, and if all three of them were his wives, the silversmith's trade must be a profitable one. Each women had her wrists covered with rows of closely fitting bracelets, always in odd numbers, and double rows of rings were on their fingers. The men of these tribes sport the nose ring as well as the women, and are not satisfied with wearing one pair of earrings at a time, but pierce the rim of the ear with a succession of holes, and wear in each one a silver hoop, a bead, or a charm, in memory of some particular deed.

The Hooniahs are next to the Haidas in skill and intelligence, and in the graves of their medicine men.

are found carvings on bone, and fossil ivory, mountain goat horns, and shells, that prove that they once possessed even greater skill in these things. On the grave cloth of one shaman buried near a village on Cross Sound, were lately found some flat pieces of ivory and bone, four and six inches long, carved with faces and totemic symbols. Age had turned them to a deep rich yellow and brown, and a slight rubbing restored the brilliant polish, that enhanced them when they were first sewed to the blankets and wrappings of the dead shaman. His rattles, masks, drums, and implements of his profession, buried with him, were of the finest workmanship, and proved the superiority of the ancient carvers.

The Hooniah women weave baskets from the fine bark of the cedar and from split spruce roots, and ornament them with geometrical patterns in brilliant colors, but the weaving that we saw was not as fine as that of some of the more southern tribes.

WHE

CHAPTER X.

MUIR GLACIER AND IDAHO INLET.

HEN Dick Willoughby told of the great glacier thirty miles up the bay, the thud of whose falling ice could be heard and felt at his house, and declared that it once rattled the tea-cups on his table, and sent a wave washing high up on his shore, the captain of the Idaho said he would go there, and took this Dick Willoughby along to find the place and prove the tale. Away we went coursing up Glacier Bay, a fleet of one hundred and twelve little icebergs gayly sailing out to meet us, as we left our anchorage the next morning. Entering into these unknown and unsurveyed waters, the lead was cast through miles of bottomless channels, and when the ship neared a green and mountainous island at the mouth of the bay, the captain and the pilot made me an unconditional present of the domain, and duly entered it on the ship's log by name. It is just off Garden Point, and for a summer resort Scidmore Island possesses unusual advantages. Heated and suffering humanity is invited to visit that emerald. spot in latitude 58° 29′ north, and longitude 135° 52′ west from Greenwich, and enjoy the July temperature of 45°, the seal and salmon fishing, the fine hunting, and the sight of one of the grandest of the

many great glaciers that break directly into the sea along the Alaska coast.

The gray-green water, filled with sediment, told that glaciers were near, and icebergs, from the size of a house down to the merest lumps, circled around us, showing the ineffable shades of pale greens and blues, and clinking together musically as the steamer passed by. The tides rush fiercely in and out of Glacier Bay, and heavy fogs add to the dangers of navigation, and Captain Beardslee and Major Morris, who entered it in the little steamer Favorite in 1880, were obliged to put back without making any explorations. The charts as they now appear are very faulty, the sketches having been made from information given by Mr. Willoughby and Indian seal hunters, and from brief notes furnished by Professor Muir. At the head of every inlet around the great bay there are glaciers, and Mr. Willoughby said that in five of these fiords there are glaciers a mile and a half wide, with vertical fronts of seamed ice rising two hundred and four hundred feet from the water. In one of them a small island divides the ice cataract, and Niagara itself is repeated in this glacial corner of the north. At low tide, bergs and great sections of the fronts fall off into the water, and Glacier Bay is filled with this debris of the glaciers, that floats out from every inlet and is swept to and fro with the tides.

Dick Willoughby stood on the bridge with the navigators, and gave them the benefit of his experience. After a while he came back to the group of ladies on deck, and, sitting down, shook his head. seriously and said :

"You ladies are very brave to venture up in such

a place. If you only knew the risks you are running the dangers you are in!" And the pioneer's voice had a tone of the deepest concern as he said it.

We received this with some laughter, and expressed entire confidence in the captain and pilot, who had penetrated glacial fastnesses and unknown waters. before. A naval officer on board echoed the Willoughby strain, and declared that a commander would never attempt to take a man-of-war into such a dangerous place, and deprecated Captain Carroll's daring and rashness.

The merchant marine was able to

retaliate when this naval comment was repeated, and Glacier Bay was suggested as the safest place for a government vessel's cruise, on account of the entire absence of schooners.

The lead was cast constantly, and the Idaho veered gracefully from right to left, went slowly, and stopped at times, to avoid the ice floes that bore down upon it with the outgoing tide. Feeling the way along carefully, the anchor was cast beside a grounded iceberg, and the photographers were rowed off to a small island to take the view of the ship in the midst of that Arctic scenery. Mount Crillon showed his hoary head to us in glimpses between the clouds,