great country and its 33,246 native inhabitants, who are certainly as much entitled to educational aid as the inhabitants of the nearer Territories and the Southern States. The Alaska Commercial Company has maintained schools on St. Paul's and St. George's islands as agreed, and, becoming interested in the rapid progress made by one very bright and clever young Aleut at St. Paul's, the company sent him to Massachusetts to complete his studies. They paid

all his expenses for five years, and he left the Massachusetts State Normal School with credit, and is now in charge of the schools at the Seal Islands, an intelligent and highly esteemed young man, in whom the company takes a natural pride.

According to the census report of 1880, the native population of Alaska numbers 33,246. Of this number 7,225 are Thlinkets and Haidas, inhabiting the southeastern part of the Territory, and Petroff gives the following enumeration of the tribes:

While the military garrison was at Sitka, the wives of the officers taught classes of the natives every Sunday, and when General O. O. Howard's attention was directed to the matter, during a trip through the country, he reported the condition of affairs to the mission boards. The Presbyterian Board was the first to enter the field, Mrs. McFarland establishing the school at Fort Wrangell in 1877. In 1878 a school was started at Sitka; in 1880 one was established at Chilkoot Inlet, and after that, one among the Hooniahs of Cross Sound, and at Howkan and Shakan, among the Haidas. A school for Russiar and Creole children was maintained at Sitka in 1879. under the protection of Captain Glass, U.S.N., whose efforts in the cause of Indian education have already been recorded.

The Indians are quick to learn and anxious to b taught, and, appreciating the practical advantages of an education, they unceasingly beg for teachers and schools. The only drawback to their upward progress is their want of all moral sense or instincts. The missionary teachers sent out by the Presbyterian Board have been well received by the Indians, but, on account of a few unfortunate instances, are not popular with the white residents. The native chiefs have often given up the council-houses and their own lodges to them for school-rooms, and taken the instructors under their special protection.

Recognition was at last given to the rights and the wants of these people in 1884, and in section 13 of the "Act providing a civil government for Alaska,” an appropriation of $25,000 was made for the education of all children of school age, without reference to

race. The public schools contemplated in this act are yet to be established, as the civil officers have first to inspect, and make their reports and suggestions as to the wisest disposal of the fund.

At the same session of the forty-eighth Congress, the Indian appropriation bill made this provision: "For the support and education of Indian children of both sexes at industrial schools in Alaska, $15,000." The Presbyterian Board of Missions, through the Rev. Dr. Kendall, made application for a portion of this fund in 1884, and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his letter recommending that it should be granted, said:

"In the total neglect of the government (since Alaska was purchased) to provide for the educational needs of Alaska Indians, they have been indebted for such schools as they have had solely to religious societies, and for most of these schools they are indebted to the society which Dr. Kendall represents. For the establishment and support of its schools that society, last year, expended over $20,000, and also expended nearly $5,000 for mission work. In the enlargement of their educational work in Alaska, they have therefore the first claim to assistance from the appropriation recently made by government for the support of schools in Alaska. Moreover, they have now on the ground officers and employees who can carry on the work."

A contract was therefore made with the mission authorities at Sitka for the education and care of one hundred pupils, at an expense to the government of $120 per capita per annum, the expenditure to be made in quarterly payments from the appropriation

named above. It was estimated that for the first year the whole expenditure would not exceed $9,000 or $10,000. The contracts are temporary, and can be annulled at two months' notice should a different policy prevail at headquarters; and the original intention of establishing a government industrial school after the plan of the successful institution at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., will probably not be carried out for some time.

The Roman Catholics built a chapel at Fort Wrangell some years ago, but it has been closed for a long time, and there are no missions of that church now maintained in southeastern Alaska at least. It would seem as though this were a field particularly adapted to the efforts of the Jesuits, who have always been so successful among the native tribes of the Pacific coast.

Two Moravian missionaries from Bethlehem, Pa., the Rev. Adolphus Hartman and the Rev. William Weinland, were taken up to the Yukon region by the U. S. S. Corwin in the spring of 1884, and will devote themselves to mission work among the Indians of the interior.

CHAPTER XVII.

PERIL STRAITS AND KOOTZNAHOO.

WHEN

HEN the steamer gets ready to leave Sitka, there is always regret that the few days in that port could not have been weeks. There are always regrets, too, at not seeing Mount St. Elias, when the passengers realize that the ship has begun the return voyage. Mr. Seward was most desirous of seeing Mount St. Elias from the sea, but was deterred from carrying out his plan by the stories of the rough water to be crossed, and the certainty of fogs and clouds obscuring his view when he reached the bay at the base of the great mountain. There are seldom any passengers or freight billed for Mount St. Elias, and the mail contract does not require the steamer to run up that three hundred miles to northwestward of Sitka and call at the mountain each month. The U. S. S. Adams carried some prospectors up to Yakutat Bay in 1883, and its officers took that opportunity of visiting the great glacier that fronts for seventy miles on the coast at the foot of the giant peak of North America. One of the officers made a series of admirable water-color sketches, but no angles were taken to determine the exact height of the mountain, and the elevation of the untrodden summit is not yet determined with precision.