36 Sketches of an Excursion to Southern Alaska. 



SUSCEPTIBLE OF CIVILIZATION. 



They are well formed, p-thletic, and active. Their intelligence is evinced by 

 the excellence which the native arts have attained among them, and by the 

 shrewd nes.-. and enterprise with which they carry on the trade of that coast. 

 In industry they compare very favorably with our other native tribes, hundreds 

 being employed annually as laborers in salmon canneries, cod and herring fish- 

 eries, and in the active business of the Cassiar gold mines. According lo the 

 uniiorm testimony of white employers, they are the best laborers that they can 

 find. In view of the fact that th ,t country has for sometime presented the un- 

 precedented spectacle of a territory of the United States entirely unprotected 

 by civil law or government, these Indians have generally evinced a remarkably 

 peaceable disposition, the whites traveling freely among their villages withou 

 fear or molestation. 



Without exception, these tribes have all expressed their earnest desire for 

 schoi'ls and teachers, seeming to recognize the superiority of the white race, 

 and tracing that superiority to its true source — the enlightenment of the mind by 

 the acquisition and use of knowledge. To this we add the inspiration of the 

 Spirit of God. 



MISSIONARY OPERATIONS AND LABORERS. 



Sitka and Fort Wrangel are the only points at which schools have been es- 

 tablished. At the former, our school was suspended in consequence of the 

 removal of Miss Kellogg to Fori Wrangel, on her marriage with our mission- 

 ary, Rev. S. H. Young. Rev. J. G. Brady, who was appointed as missionary 

 lo Sitka, resigned after a few months' trial. The beginning of our mission at 

 Fort Wrangel is too well known to need rehearsing in the Synod. For the 

 history I refer inquirers to the first Report. At Fort Wrangel, the missionary 

 in charge is Rev. S. H. Young. He arrived there in August, 1878. Mrs. A. 

 R. McFarland is mistress of the Industrial School for girls; she arrived in Au- 

 gust, 1877. Miss M. J. Dunbar, teacher in dny-school, arrived in July, 1879. 

 These are under the appointment of our lioard of Hoi..e Missions. Rev. W. 

 R. Corlies, M. D., and his wife, arrived in June, 1879. They are Baptists, 

 open communion, and independent. Dr. Corlies has begun the practice of 

 medicine, and Mrs. Corlies is engaged in teaching a school for Indian children. 

 Two day-schools, beside the Industrial School, are now in operation at Fort 

 Wrangel. 



The labor of our missionaries at Fort Wrangel have been arduous and try- 

 ing, in an unusual degree ; but they have been prosecuted w-ith courage, dili- 

 gence and undeviating devotion. The laborers have been sustained by faith 

 in the cause, and trust in their Master; and in one congregation at least, pray- 

 ers for them and their work are seldom omitted. Indeed, every one of these 

 missionaries, both at Sitka and Wrangel, ihchuling Dr. and Mrs. Corlies, set 

 out from the pastor's home in Portland for their work, set apart anew in con- 

 ference and prayer. 



