re.
Otherwise the path of travel has been made almost as smooth as Cook's
easiest tours.

As the reader may one day summon the courage to visit this great
Northern land, it may not be out of place to give a brief history of
Alaska, which, only thirty years ago, was peopled solely by Indians and
a few Russian settlers, and was practically unknown to the civilised
world.

It has always seemed strange to me that Russia, a country with a
world-wide reputation for diplomatic shrewdness, should have made such
an egregious error as to part with Alaska at a merely nominal
price,[72] the more so that when the transfer took place gold had long
been known to exist in this Arctic province. Vitus Bering discovered
traces of it as far back as the eighteenth century. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State under President Johnson, was mainly responsible for
the purchase of this huge territory, which covers an area of about
600,000 square miles, measuring 1000 miles from north to south and 3500
miles from east to west. It is said that the coast line alone, if
straightened out, would girdle the globe.

[Footnote 72: The word "Alaska" is derived from the Indian "Al-ay-eksa,"
which signifies a great country.]

The formal transfer of Alaska to the United States was made on October
18, 1867, and its acquisition was first regarded with great disfavour by
the majority of the American public. Although only $7,200,000 was paid
for the whole of Russian America,[73] the general opinion in New York
and other large cities of the Union was that "Seward's ice-box," as it
was then derisively termed, would prove a white elephant, and that the
statesman responsible for its purchase had been, plainly speaking, sold.
It was only when the marvellous riches of Nome were disclosed that
people began to realise what the annexation of the country really meant,
although even at this period Alaska had already repaid itself many times
over. Klondike had already startled the civilised world, but this is,
of course, in British territory. Nevertheless, between the years 1870
and 1900 Secretary Seward's investment had returned nearly $8,000,000,
and within the same period fisheries and furs had yielded no less than
$100,000,000. Gold and timber had produced $40,000,000 more, making a
clear profit of nearly $200,000,000 in thirty years.

[Footnote 73: It is said that most of this was used in Petersburg to
satisfy old debts and obligations incurred by Alaskan enterp