Deerskin breeches are worn by the natives, but are rarely needed by white men when provided with clothing of ordinary warmth and thickness.

The value of a good parka is at present about six dollars. Boots and other articles are usually obtained by barter. Ten musket-balls and a few caps are the regular price for a pair of torbassá, a pair of deerskin mittens being worth from four to six balls; ornamental gloves and other articles are more or less costly, according to the amount of work and the scarcity of the article at the time. So far, the natives have not yet learned to make a well-shaped thumb to gloves and mittens, a triangular shapeless protuberance serving their needs, but they may be easily taught a better mode of manufacture.

A deer or bear skin in the raw, dry state is used as a bed, and a blanket of dressed deer or rabbit skins, in addition to a pair of woollen ones, completes the list of articles needed for winter travel, though a small pillow is a great addition to one's comfort. A deerskin is worth, at the regular price, about sixty

cents.

For a number of days nothing occurred of special interest. Captain Ketchum delayed starting across the portage to the Yukon for Nuláto, as it was still doubtful whether all the small rivers were securely frozen over. I found my nights in the tent not uncomfortable, though the thermometer ranged from twentyeight to zero of Fahrenheit. Waking one morning, I found myself so deeply snowed up that I had a good deal of difficulty in getting out of the tent. It proved to be only a drift, however. A tin dipper of water frozen the first night showed no signs of melting.

The Russian trading-post at this point is much smaller than the Redoubt. It is in rather a decayed condition, and has only two glass windows, the remainder being made of gut, as used by the natives. Glass is a rare article here.

The stockade is built after the same plan as that at St. Michael's, and encloses one barrack building, with a room for the commander, a store, cook-house, bath-house, and a shed for storing oil, &c.; it is defended by two square bastions pierced for cannon. The guns had lately been removed, and the turrets fitted up for the accommodation of our officers. They

were of the most antiquated description, and likely to do as much damage by the breech as by the muzzle.

The fort is situated on the right bank of the Unalaklík River, where it empties into Norton Sound. It is said to have been built in 1840 and 1841.

To the north are two assemblages of houses occupied by Innuit of the Káviak, Máhlemut, and Únaleet tribes during part of the year, the latter being the only permanent residents. The village was formerly situated on the left bank of the river, but, an epidemic occurring, they removed and built new houses on the north side. The remains of the old houses and the graves may be distinctly traced.

The steamer Wilder, with the assistance of several hundred natives and our own party, under the direction of Captain Smith, had been hauled up on the beach beyond the reach of the ice, and might be considered as in winter quarters.

The Captain, who was an enthusiastic and successful sportsman, gave me the first specimens I had seen of the beautiful snowwhite arctic grouse (Lagopus albus), which may be started in coveys on all the plains around the mouth of the river.

The beach at Unalaklík is shelving and sandy, and is bounded by a ridge, on which the houses are built. Back of this ridge the land is low, and overflowed for some distance when the freshets occur in the spring; beyond this low strip, which is parallel with the beach, it rises slowly and evenly, culminating in the ridges of the Shaktólik hills, which trend in a northeast and southwesterly direction, and attain a height of about a thousand feet above the sea. Several miles north of the river they come down to the shore in high bluffs of gray sandstone. The country to the south, already mentioned, is much the same, though the hills are farther inland and attain a higher elevation. From the beach near the fort, Besborough Island may be seen standing sharply and precipitously out of the sea, about thirty miles northnorthwest. Egg Island and Stuart's Island, to the southwest, are so low that it is only on a very clear day, with a faint mirage to elevate them, that they can be distinguished. Covered with snow and without trees, the easy slopes and gracefully rounded hills have an aspect of serene beauty; the effect on a calm moonlight evening is delightful.

Thursday, October 25th.-Captain Ketchum having made up his mind to an early start across the portage, we entered on the necessary preparations for our journey. Appointing Lieutenant F. M. Smith Acting Surgeon for the Unalaklík party, I divided our exceedingly insufficient supply of medicines with him. The liberal scale on which everything was purchased allowed of no excuse for the inefficiency and red tape which left fifty men for a year, in a country where nothing of the kind was obtainable, with a supply of medicines which could be packed into a Manila cigar-box.

The proposed party for Nuláto was composed of Captain Ketchum in charge of that division, Mr. Frederick Whymper the artist of the Expedition, Mr. Francis the engineer of the Wilder, Lieutenant Michael Lebarge, a constructor who may be called Scratchett, and myself. Mr. Dyer the quartermaster proposed to join us later in the season. It will doubtless be noticed that this comprised some six officers to one man, but it must be recollected that the work laid out for the coming year in our division comprehended only exploration, and that we relied on the Indians in the vicinity of Nuláto for such manual labor as we should need. The following season we expected to receive a large number of constructors, who should proceed to build the line as soon as the route was determined.

We intended to travel with dogs and sleds, the universal and only practicable mode of winter transportation in this country. The sleds, harness, and so forth, I shall take another opportunity of describing minutely, and will only state at present that the dogs are about the size of those of Newfoundland, with shorter legs, and of all colors, from white, gray, and piebald to black. They are harnessed to the sled on each side of a line, to which the traces are attached, - two and two, with a leader in front; and the usual number is either five or seven, according to the load. They will draw when in good condition about one hundred pounds apiece with the help of the driver, who seldom rides, unless over a smooth bit of ice or with an empty sled. The sleds of the Eskimo are heavy, and shod with bone sawed from the upper edge of the jaw of the bowhead whale. These bones are obtained in the vicinity of Bering Strait, and good ones are quite valuable. The remainder of the sled is made of spruce wood. They will carry from six to eight hundred pounds. The sleds

used in the interior are much lighter and differently constructed. The Eskimo sleds are suitable only for travelling over ice and the hard snow of the coast.

Saturday, 27th. Having loaded four sleds and finding the number of dogs insufficient, we sent down to the village and procured an additional supply, seizing any stray dog whose owners were not forthcoming, and pressing him into the service. About eleven o'clock, just as we were ready to start, an old woman, howling dismally, cut the harness of one of these conscripts and let him go. He was, however, immediately secured, the old woman pacified with a small present of tobacco; and with a salute of one gun from the fort and a volley of revolver shots from our friends we started up the Unalaklík River on the ice. We got along very well, with the usual number of small casualties, such as the loss of one or two of the vicious dogs, who gnawed their harness in two, and the breaking of the bones with which some of the sleds were shod. We proceeded until darkness and an open spot in the river arrested our progress, and we camped on the bank for the night. The atmosphere being about ten below zero, we all relished our tea, biscuit, and bacon, and the ever-grateful pipe which followed it, before retiring. No tents are used in the winter, as they become coated with ice from the breath of the sleepers and are also liable to take fire; so, pulling our blankets over our heads, we slept very comfortably, with nothing above us except the branches of the spruce-trees and the canopy of the sky. The trees commence as soon as we get sufficiently far up the river to be out of the way of the coast winds and salt air, and are principally willows, birch, poplar, and spruce.

Sunday, 28th.-Woke to the disagreeable discovery that four of our dogs had taken advantage of the darkness to gnaw their sealskin harnesses and decamp to Unalaklik. Pushing on, literally, with only three dogs, and five hundred pounds on the sled, I found rather hard work for a beginner. At last, about noon, we arrived at the first Indian village, called Iktígalik, where we unloaded our sleds, fed our dogs, and went into an Indian house built after the Eskimo fashion and very clean and comfortable.

Iktígalik is a fishing village with a larger population in summer than in winter. On the left bank of the river, which is about six hundred feet wide, are eight or ten summer houses, built on the

bank, of split spruce logs driven into the ground, and roofed with birch bark. The door is at the end facing the river, and is an oval opening some three feet high. The houses are about twelve feet square and entirely above ground, as in summer the underground houses are full of water. Behind these houses are the caches, called kradowói by the Russians. They are simply small houses, about six feet square and high, elevated from six to ten feet above the ground on four upright posts. They are well roofed and are used only as storehouses for provisions, dry fish, and furs, and are thus elevated in order that dampness or fieldmice may not gain access to them; much like an old-fashioned corn-crib. Frames are also erected where the sleds, boats, and snow-shoes may be put out of the way of the dogs, who are always on the alert for any animal substance, and will eat sealskin and even tanned leather with avidity, even when moderately well fed.

On the other side of the river are two winter houses and several caches. One of these houses was the property of an old and rather wealthy Indian, as Indians go, who had been christened Amilka by the Russians. Amílka was anxious to obtain the title of Tyone, or chief, which is here merely a title and conveys no authority except what age and wealth may bring with it. He had been invested with the title by the explorers during the previous season, and, though an exceedingly mean old fellow, had been of some assistance to them. In the house with him were his wife, a very fine-looking Indian woman of considerable intelligence; and a young fellow called Ingechuk by the Russians, who had a wife about four feet high, of whom he was exceedingly fond and jealous. The other occupants were an intelligent fellow known as Andrea, and his wife, an old, very ugly, but dignified and hospitable woman. On our entering, she ordered some one to clear a place, and spreading out a clean grass mat motioned to us to be seated. Without relaxing her diligent oversight of the children around her, of her work, or of a kettle that was boiling by the fire, she sent out to the cache and obtained some dried backfat of the reindeer, the greatest delicacy in this part of the world; cutting it into pieces of uniform size, she placed it on a clean wooden dish and handed it to us, with an air of quiet dignity quite unaffected, and as elegant as that displayed by many a