The Alaskan Mines 255 



ice, as closely together as they could squat. They 

 circled about a little and then drifted back to their 

 heel-cooling perches. Such a winding way as that 

 ship pursued ! east, northeast, north, southeast, 

 north again, and finally west. The sound of blast- 

 ing came down the strait from the Treadwell mines. 

 To the left emerged the long lines of stamp-mills 

 in which eight hundred and eighty huge pestles 

 pound away night and day every day in the year 

 but two, the Fourth of July and Christmas. There 

 is no cessation in the attempt to supply the insa- 

 tiable and universal hunger for gold. Farther 

 along, the pretty little city of Juneau could be seen, 

 like a patch of snow newly fallen from one of the 

 two mountains, in a small angle of which it climbs. 

 They tell me they have plenty of room for a city, 

 but the way in which the little houses are set upon 

 ledges, like hatching sea-birds, does not seem to 

 imply much room. Juneau presents the singular 

 exception of a city well ordered, well improved, well 

 kept, without municipal government, without tax- 

 ation, without police. The money needed for muni- 

 cipal purposes is voluntarily paid by the property- 

 holders. It was ten o'clock and raining when we 

 drew up to the wharf, but I was bound to sleep in 

 a full-sized bed that night. I had said that as soon 

 as I could get ashore I would take a room in the 

 hotel, that contained two wide beds, and change 

 from one to the other frequently during the night. 

 Still, the bed I had on the Excelsior had its advan- 



