IX BACK TO THE KEN A I PENINSULA i6i 



be dissatisfied with his own particular rifle and want to 

 change it. I have read with no small amount of interest and 

 amusement several learned dissertations on the effect of 

 small - bore rifles and bullets upon big game, in most of 

 which the statements made have been proved beyond all 

 possible doubt by some eminent young sportsman on his first 

 shooting trip. The American sporting journals positively 

 teem with such articles, in which respects they are far worse 

 offenders than our own publications. 



We hoped to get away from Sand Point two days after 

 my arrival there, as the steamer Nezvport was due to sail for 

 Cook's Inlet at that time. However, we had long since 

 learned that Alaska is a country in which, as they say there, 

 " You must not figure on a boat being on time." We had a 

 nine -days wait on this occasion. During that time there 

 was little to relieve the monotony of walking down to the 

 store and back to our hut. Glyn went off for two days and 

 crossed to a bay on Unga Island in search of hair-seals, which 

 were said to be numerous there. He did succeed in killing 

 and bagging one young one, but failed to get an old one for the 

 reasons which I have previously stated. A small excitement 

 was caused one night by an earthquake. There was a bunk- 

 house not far from our hut, and this happened to be full at 

 the time of miners and fishermen who were, like ourselves, 

 waiting for the Newport. The door of this house opened 

 outwards, and there was just room to open it without touching 

 the wall of an adjoining hut. When all its inhabitants were 

 in bed, the bunk-house was suddenly moved a foot or more 

 by the earthquake, and it was then so near the other hut 

 that the door could not be opened at all. It is no exaggera- 

 tion to say that things were pretty lively inside that house 

 for a time, and the remarks from its caged prisoners, and the 



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