census of southeastern Alaska was taken.

Before starting on the voyage, we heard that there was a Harvard
graduate, bearing an honored New England name, living among the Kake
Indians on Kouyou Island. On arriving at the chief town of that tribe we
inquired for the white man and were told that he was camping with the
family of a sub-chief at the mouth of a salmon stream. We set off to
find him. As we neared the shore we saw a circular group of natives
around a fire on the beach, sitting on their heels in the stoical Indian
way. We landed and came up to them. Not one of them deigned to rise or
show any excitement at our coming. The eight or nine men who formed the
group were all dressed in colored four-dollar blankets, with the
exception of one, who had on a ragged fragment of a filthy, two-dollar,
Hudson Bay blanket. The back of this man was towards us, and after
speaking to the chief, Muir and I crossed to the other side of the fire,
and saw his face. It was the white man, and the ragged blanket was all
the clothing he had upon him! An effort to open conversation with him
proved futile. He answered only with grunts and mumbled monosyllables.
Thus the most filthy, degraded, hopelessly lost savage that we found in
this whole voyage was a college graduate of great New England stock!

"Lift a stone to mountain height and let it fall," said Muir, "and it
will sink the deeper into the mud."

At Angoon, one of the towns of the Hootz-noo tribe, occurred an incident
of another type. We found this village hilariously drunk. There was a
very stringent prohibition law over Alaska at that time, which
absolutely forbade the importation of any spirituous liquors into the
Territory. But the law was deficient in one vital respect--it did not
prohibit the importation of molasses; and a soldier during the military
occupancy of the Territory had instructed the natives in the art of
making rum. The method was simple. A five-gallon oil can was taken and
partly filled with molasses as a base; into that alcohol was placed (if
it were obtainable), dried apples, berries, potatoes, flour, anything
that would rot and ferment; then, to give it the proper tang, ginger,
cayenne pepper and mustard were added. This mixture was then set in a
warm place to ferment. Another oil can was cut up into long strips, the
solder melted out and used to make a pipe, with two or three turns
through cool water,--forming the worm, and the still. Talk about your
f