INDIANS. 303 



At the mouth of the Little SaLiion River, 

 and at several other places, we passed small 

 encampments of Indians, all engaged in 

 catching and drying salmon. These Yukon 

 Indians are almost all short of stature, but 

 strongly built. Their hair is very coarse and 

 black, and their whole appearance suggests 

 a closer relationship to the inhabitants of 

 North-east Asia than to the typical North 

 American Indians of the countries to the east 

 of the Rocky Mountains. 



Many of the Indians I saw in the Yukon and 

 on the Pacific coast of British Columbia looked 

 to me strangely like Japanese, and I cannot 

 help thinking that whether or no the ancestors 

 of all the aboriginal inhabitants of North and 

 South America came to those continents from 

 Asia by way of Behring Straits, the forefathers 

 of the Indians of Alaska and the North Pacific 

 coast must certainly have done so in compara- 

 tively recent times. 



After a slight delay in Selkirk we crossed 

 the Yukon and entered the mouth of the Pelly, 

 reachiug the farm, which is being worked by 



