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. 



I 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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