-lettered placard announcing that the ladies of Juneau
would on the evening in question give a grand ball in honor of the
passengers of the _Ancon_. Tickets, 50 cents.

It began to drizzle. We dodged under the narrow awnings of the shops,
and bargained blindly in the most unmusical lingos. Within were to be
had stores of toy canoes--graceful little things hewn after the Haida
model, with prows and sides painted in strange hieroglyphics; paddles
were there--life-size, so to speak,--gorgeously dyed, and just the
things for hall decorations; also dishes of carved wood of quaint
pattern, and some of them quite ancient, were to be had at very moderate
prices; pipes and pipe-bowls of the weirdest description; halibut
fish-hooks, looking like anything at all but fish-hooks; Shaman rattles,
grotesque in design; Thlinket baskets, beautifully plaited and stained
with subdued dyes--the most popular of souvenirs; spoons with bone bowls
and handles carved from the horns of the mountain goat or musk-ox; even
the big horn-spoon itself was no doubt made by these ingenious people;
Indian masks of wood, inlaid with abalone shells, bears' teeth, or
lucky stones from the head of the catfish; Indian wampum; deer-skin
sacks filled with the smooth, pencil-shaped sticks with which the native
sport passes the merry hours away in games of chance; bangles without
end, and rings of the clumsiest description hammered out of silver coin;
bows and arrows; doll papooses, totem poles in miniature. There were
garments made of fish-skins and bird-skins, smelling of oil and
semi-transparent, as if saturated with it; and half-musical instruments,
or implements, made of twigs strung full of the beaks of birds that
clattered with a weird, unearthly Alaskan clatter.

There were little graven images, a few of them looking somewhat
idolatrous; and heaps upon heaps of nameless and shapeless odds and ends
that boasted more or less bead-work in the line of ornamentation; but
all chiefly noticeable for the lack of taste displayed, both in design
and the combination of color. The Chilkat blanket is an exception to the
Alaskan Indian rule. It is a handsome bit of embroidery, of significant
though mysterious design; rich in color, and with a deep, knotted fringe
on the lower edge--just the thing for a lambrequin, and to be had in
Juneau for $40, which is only $15 more than is asked for the same
article in Portland, Oregon, as some of us discovered to our cost. There