FAR AND NEAR 



tents and huts. The women and girls were skin- 

 ning them, and cutting out the blubber and tr}dng 

 it out in pots over smouldering fires, while the crack 

 of the men's shotguns could be heard out amid the 

 ice. Apparently their only food at such times is seal 

 meat, with parts of the leaf or stalk of a kind of cow- 

 parsnip, a coarse, rank plant that grows all about. 

 The Indian women frowned upon our photogra- 

 phers, and were very averse to having the cameras 

 pointed at them. It took a good deal of watching 

 and waiting and manoeuvring to get a good shot. 

 The artists, with their brushes and canvases, were 

 regarded with less suspicion. 



The state of vegetation in Yakutat Bay was like 

 that of early May in New York, though the temper- 

 ature was lower. Far up the mountain-side near the 

 line of snow the willows were just pushing out. At 

 their base the columbine, rock-loving as at home, 

 but larger and coarser-flowered, was in bloom, 

 and blue violets could be gathered by the handful. 

 Back of the encampment were acres of lupine just 

 bursting into flower. It gave a gay, festive look to 

 the place. Red-vested bumble-bees were working 

 eagerly upon it. The yellow warbler was nesting in 

 the alders near by. New birds added to our list from 

 these shores were the pine grosbeak, the Arctic tern, 

 and the robber jaeger. No large game was secured 

 by our hunters in Yakutat Bay, though Captain 

 Kelly declared he was at one time so near a beai 



64 



