ere else in the wide world
to the same advantage.

We were entering a region of desolation. The ice was increasing, and the
water took that ghastly hue, even a glimpse of which is enough to chill
the marrow in one's bones. Vegetation was dying out. A canoe-full of
shivering Indians were stemming the icy flood in search of some chosen
fishery,--all of them blanketed, and all--squaw as well as
papooses--taking a turn at the paddle. These were the children of
Nature, whose song-birds are the screaming eagle, the croaking raven,
and the crying sea-doves blown inland by the wild westerly gales.

We were now nearly within sound of the booming glaciers; and as we drew
nearer and nearer I could but brood over the oft imagined picture of
that vast territory--our Alaska,--where, beyond that mountain range, the
almost interminable winter is scarcely habitable, and the summers so
brief it takes about six of them to make a swallow.

CHAPTER X.

In Search of the Totem-Pole.

Hour after hour and day after day we are coasting along shores that
become monotonous in their beauty. For leagues the sea-washed roots of
the forest present a fairly impassable barrier to the foot of man. It is
only at infrequent intervals that a human habitation is visible, and
still more seldom does the eye discover a solitary canoe making its way
among the inextricable confusion of inlets. Sometimes a small cluster of
Indian lodges enlivens the scene; and this can scarcely be said to
enliven it, for most Indian lodges are as forlorn as a last year's
bird's-nest. Sometimes a bright little village gives hope of a break in
the serenity of the season--a few hours on shore and an extra page or
two in our log-books. Yet again, sometimes it is a green jungle, above
the sea, out of which rise diminutive box-houses, like exaggerated
dove-cotes, with a goodly number of towering cedar columns, curiously
carved, perhaps stained black or red in patches, scattered through them.
These are Indian cemeteries. They are hedged about with staves, from the
top of which flutter ragged streamers. They are rich in rude carvings of
men and birds and beasts. Now and again a shield as big as a target, and
looking not unlike an archery-target, marks the tomb of some warrior.
The unerring shafts of death search out the obscurest handfuls of people
scattered through these wide domains; and every village has its solemn
suburb, where the houses of the dead are decorated with ba