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stores in Victoria successfully, and learned the processes of acid treatments. The Haida rules of art, by which they conventionalize any animal they depict, are very exact, and on the large bracelet, shown in a previous illustration, the cinnamon bears represented as advancing in profile are joined in one full, grinning face which is recognized as the Haida crest. Their totemic Eagle has now degenerated into a base copy of the bird on American coins, but otherwise their art rules and traditions are unperverted. The key and original idea in many of their designs is the strange marking like a peacock's eye found on the back of the skate fish or sculpin, and besides carving it on all their solid belongings, they tattoo the emblem on their bodies.

These Kaigahnees have a curious tradition, related to us by the resident teacher, that quite resembles the biblical story of the ark and the flood. One old Indian now claims to have the bark rope which held the anchor of the big canoe when it rested on the high mountain back of Howkan. They have also a story resembling that of Lot's wife, only Sodom and Gomorrah were on Forrester Island, and a brother and sister, fleeing from a pestilence, were turned to stone, because the woman looked back while crossing the river. Their houses were petrified as well, and the petrified bodies of the disobedient ones still stand in the river to tell the tale.

When Wiggin's storms were being promised to the whole North American continent, in March, 1882, a white man at Kasa-an Bay read the prophecies, and explained them to the Indians. The warning spread rapidly from island to island, and at Howkan the

natives began moving their things to the high ground, and were carrying up water and provisions for one whole afternoon. They believed that the promised tidal wave was coming, and at the time set for the storm, began to say, “Victoria all gone." There was a heavy storm outside that March night, and the agent of the trading company, returning from the Klinquan fishery in a whale-boat, was drowned by a wave upsetting the boat as he let go the tiller to furl the sail.

It was at Port Bazan, across Dall Island, that one of the Kaigahnees, whom we saw, found the remains of Paymaster Walker, who was lost with the steamer George S. Wright, in February, 1873. The loss of the Wright was one of the tragedies of the sea, and is still a current topic in Alaska. The steamer left Sitka on its return trip to Portland with several army officers and their families and residents on board. It was last seen at Cordova Bay, on the south end of Prince of Wales Island, and, in the face of warnings, the captain put out to sea in a heavy storm, -as he was hurrying to Portland for his wedding. It is supposed that the ship foundered, or struck a rock in Queen Charlotte Sound. The most terrible anxiety prevailed as week after week went by, with no tidings of the Wright, and the feeling was intensified when the rumor was started that it had been wrecked near a village of Kuergefath Indians, and that the survivors had been tortured and put to death. Two years after the disappearance of the Wright, the body of Major Walker was found in Port Bazan, recogni zable only by fragments of his uniform, that had been held to him by a life-preserver. Other remains

and fragments of the wreck were then found in the recesses of the ocean shores of the island, and the mystery of the Wright was at last solved.

Further up this coast, beyond the Klawock cannery, the mission has a branch station and a sawmill, and, in time, will establish a school in this Shakan Island.

On my second visit to Kaigahnee Straits, the Ancon dropped anchor at two o'clock in the morning, and it was up and off again before five o'clock. A few enthusiasts did manage to row over to Howkan and back, but the rest of us were contented with one sleepy glance at the little settlement that, in a year's time, had surrounded the Northwest Trading Company's stores in American Bay. It was with great regret that we woke again to find the ship sailing over the most placid of waters, as it coursed up Dixon Entrance. It touched at Cape Fox, where we enjoyed the last of our delights and experiences on Alaska shores, stopped in a twilight rain at Tongass, and then slipped across the boundary line at night, and gave us all over again those enchanting days along the British Columbia coast.

ON

CHAPTER XXI.

THE METLAKATLAH MISSION.

N occasional trips the steamer anchors off Metlakatlah, the model mission-station of the northwest coast, and an Arcadian village of civilized Indians, built round a bay on the Chimsyan Peninsula, in British Columbia. Metlakatlah is just below the Alaska boundary line, and but a little way south of Fort Simpson, the chief Hudson Bay Company trading post of the region, where the great canoe market, and the feasts and dances of the Indians, enliven that centre of trade each fall.

It was a rainy morning when the Idaho anchored off Metlakatlah, and the small boats took us through the drizzle and across a gentle ground-swell to the landing wharf at the missionary village. We were met there by Mr. Duncan, one of the noblest men that ever entered the mission field. He left mercantile life to take up this work, and was sent out by the English Church Missionary Society in 1857. He spent the first four years in working among the Indians at Fort Simpson, but the evils and temptations surrounding such a place quite offset his efforts, and he decided to go off by himself and gather the Indians about him at some place where they would be

safe from other influences. Fifty Chimsyans started with him to found the village of Metlakatlah, and, in the twenty-odd years, they have built up a model town that they have reason to be proud of. When they first went there, a strip of the land was marked off for church purposes, and the rest of it divided among the Indians. It was considered a doubtful experiment at first, but Mr. Duncan put his whole heart and soul into the enterprise, and every Indian who went with him signed a temperance pledge, agreed to give up their medicine-men as advisers in sickness, and to do no work on the Sabbath. His faith has been proven in the results attained, and the self-respecting, self-supporting community at Metlakatlah proves that the Indian can be civilized as well as educated in one generation, if the right man and the right means are employed.

At the end of twenty-three years there is a welllaid-out village, with two-story houses, sidewalks, and street lamps. A large Gothic church has been built, with a comfortable rectory adjoining, and around the village green a school-house, a public hall, and a store are prominent buildings. All of these structures have been built by the Indians, and, with their own saw-mill and planing-mill, they have turned out the lumber and woodwork required for the public buildings and their own houses. Mr. Duncan has taught them all these necessary arts, working with them himself, and dividing the profits of their labors among the Indians. Under his management the Indians have established their cannery and store as a joint-stock company, and these once savage islanders understand the scheme, and draw their dividends as

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