CHAPTER XIII 
Alaska (continued)—Ravens—Copper River—Lynch Law— 
Tyonak—Jim Matson—The Salmon-canning Industry— 
Mosquitoes. 
There’s the land. (Have you seen it ?) 
It’s the cussedest land that I know— 
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it, 
To the deep, deathlike valleys below. 
Some say God was tired when He made it; 
Some say it’s a fine land to shun ; 
Maybe: but there’s some as would trade it 
For no land on earth—and I’m one. 
R. W. SERvIcE. 
HAD to remain a few days in Sitka for the 
small steamer Bertha, that was to take me 
to Cook’s Inlet, having to kick my heels 
about in this dull little place. 
I was astonished at the number of ravens 
that I saw on the seashore; on one fish-house 
alone I counted over thirty. The Indians do 
not kill them, being superstitious about them, 
whilst the white inhabitants spare them owing 
to their usefulness as scavengers. 
At last my steamer arrived, and I joyfully 
went aboard. I had met in Sitka a man named 
Dawson, who had been very ill from frostbite. 
He had lost all the toes from one foot; gangrene 
had then attacked the place, and he only saved 
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