158 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



Alaska is one of the loneliest lands on earth. By 

 right of geographical position it should belong to 

 Canada, for it consists of the north-west corner of the 

 continent ; but twenty years ago the United States 

 Government purchased it from Eussia for a compara- 

 tively small sum of money, which has since been 

 amply repaid to them, not only by the lease of the 

 Prybiloff Islands to the Alaska Commercial Company 

 (with the right of killing thereon 100,000 fur-seals 

 yearly), but also from its salmon fisheries and gold 

 mines. 



Had Alaska become a British possession I doubt if 

 its resources would have been so quickly developed 

 to their present extent as they have become under 

 the sway of the star-spangled banner, owing to the 

 enterprise of the Americans, and their priority of 

 establishment upon the Pacific coast, and their 

 greater facilities for communication by sea with their 

 Arctic province from the ports of San Francisco and 

 Portland. 



I have elsewhere given a more detailed description 

 of my nine months' visit to Alaska.* So much has 

 been written about the Canadian Pacific Eailway that 

 I may well omit altogether that portion of the journey 

 as far as Yictoria on Vancouver's Island, the chief 

 town among the few in British Columbia. This 



* See "Shores and Alps of Alaska," by H. W. Seton Karr, 

 F.K.GKS., &c. (London, S. Low & Co., 1887); Proceedings of 

 the Royal Geographical Society, May, 1887; Fortnightly Review, 

 March, 1887 (Chapman & Hall). 



