1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



313 



peace till the person by whom death was caused, 

 or his friends, pay over to the relatives of the de- 

 ceased person 200 blankets — a blanket being the 

 Indian measure of value, meaning ^3. An Indian 

 was killed by the accidental explosion of a mortar, 

 and a demand was made on the United States for 

 200 blankets accordingly. But they were given to 

 understand that United States laws were different 

 from the Indian laws, no blankets or $600 could 

 be given. The Indians then seized two white 

 men, and held them as hostages till 200 blankets 

 were paid. The commander of the ship then sent 

 word that the men must be restored, and 200 

 blankets besides, within a certain time or he would 

 blow their village down. It did not come within 

 a certain time, when the commander sent word 

 that he would now demand 400 blankets. The 

 Indians, getting frightened at the big ship, returned 

 the two men and two hundred blankets — but the 

 commander sent word that " their great father in 

 Washington always kept his word, and having 

 demanded 400 blankets must have them." As 

 they did not immediately respond, the ship opened 

 fire on the poor wretches, and the village was 

 blown to pieces. 



I suppose it was right to show these creatures 

 that their great father is the most honorable of all 

 beings, in keeping his word^but would it not have 

 been better to have met their very humanitarian 

 demand, in the first instance, in a more concilia- 

 tory spirit ? Better have spent two hundred 

 blankets, in the shape of $600 worth of seed pota- 

 toes and turnip seed, than some thousands, 

 probably, on powder and ball. Some of the 

 settlers are very fond of flowers and have oc- 

 casionally nice things in their gardens. One lady, 

 in Sitka, showed me, with much elation, a nice 

 growing plant of Hydrangea paniculata, which she 

 said came by mail from Dingee & Conard nursery — 

 only think of it, six thousand miles safely by mail I 

 What will our English friends think who are now 

 and then discussing in their journals the wonderful 

 fact related by some correspondent, that plants 

 have actually come three thousand miles across 

 the Atlantic in safety. 



The wild fruits of Alaska are very varied. I 

 will not give the botanical names with certainty, 

 as, at this distance from books of reference, I may 

 not identify them correctly. The crab-apple has 

 ovoid fruit, about the size of a medium cherry. I 

 could not learn that it was used except in the form 

 of a preserve. I found the alpine strawberry, 

 Fragaria vesca, just over the boundary, in British 

 Columbia, and I suppose it is also common in 



Alaska. But there is another species I have never 

 collected before in the United States, with dark 

 shining upper surface to the leaves, and silvery 

 white beneath. The stems supporting the cluster 

 of fruit, are of immense length — eighteen inches in 

 one instance — and the fruit depressed-globose, 

 and pale, say greenish-red. I suppose it is the 

 Chili strawberry. The Indians collect them. 

 They will sell anything they have. For trial 

 I asked a young girl to sell me her silver ear-rings, 

 the silver ring which they wear through their nose, 

 and the silver pin which, after they become adults, 

 they wear through their lower lip. To my sur- 

 prise she sold them to me for "four bits." After 

 some words in her own tongue with an older 

 woman she returned with the half dollar, and by 

 signs demanded them back — but the offer of "two 

 bits" more secured the jewelry. Wherever I could 

 I endeavored to get the Indian names of the fruits 

 and vegetables used. Of an old Indian woman 

 who was gathering these strawberries I asked the 

 name, but she would only offer a small shell full 

 and say "one bit." This was all the English she 

 knew as a general thing, except "half dollar." 

 Our people soon learned a little in this line also, 

 and when an Indian asked a dollar for anything he 

 or she had to sell, and our party would say "sik- 

 kum tolla " (half dollar), it was evident by the 

 contemptuous turning of the Indian on his heel 

 that so much of the language had been learned 

 thoroughly and well. The raspberry here most 

 prevalent is the Salmon berry, but though a 

 raspberry botanically the flavor is precisely that 

 of our blackberry, — not as good, however, as a 

 first-class Lawton. A singular fact is, that while 

 our raspberries and blackberries are normally 

 black or red and sometimes change to salmon 

 (white) — here the normal color is salmon and the 

 exceptional changes red. In some places the red 

 departures are not uncommon. There is a species 

 of Black cap raspberry here which has quinate 

 leaves, — sometimes the five leaflets arranged in 

 a pinnate manner. Perhaps it is R. leucodermis. 

 The fruit is about the size of our best Black caps, 

 and to my mind the best wild fruit in the terri- 

 tory. A white flowered species, probably Nut- 

 kanus, resembles our flowering raspberry (odor- 

 atus) and fruit is of about the same quality. The 

 common blackberry has a much smaller fruit 

 than ours, with the leaves gray like the Black 

 caps. I suppose it is Rubus ursinus. There are 

 numbers of species of currants, two of which of the 

 black currant class are much prized. One of these 

 is very strong. In Pyramid Harbor, near the 



