IN GREEN ALASKA 



much the same in other respects. Some of the 

 younger women were fairly good-looking, and their 

 fur hoods and fur cloaks became them well. I no- 

 ticed that the babies cried very much as babies do 

 at home. Most of the women were dressed in hair 

 seal or reindeer skins, but some wore an outer gar- 

 ment of colored cotton cloth, hanging loosely to the 

 knees. It was interesting to see them tuck their 

 babies under this garment from the rear. The 

 mother would bend forw^ard very low, thrust the 

 child under the garment at her hips, and by a dexter- 

 ous wriggling movement of her body propel it for- 

 ward till its head protruded above her shoulder. 

 One marked its course along her back as he does 

 that of a big morsel down a chicken's gullet. 



Some of the captains of the whalers came aboard 

 our ship to advise us about taking water. They were 

 large, powerful, resolute-looking men, quite equal, 

 one would say, to the task before them. Water was 

 to be procured from a stream that ran in from the 

 tundra on the southern shore of the bay about a 

 dozen miles distant. Leaving part of our company 

 to visit the whalers and the Eskimos, the ship steamed 

 away with the rest of us for water, and in due course 

 anchored near the mouth of the little stream. This 

 gave us an opportunity to spend several hours upon 

 the real tundra. Cape Nome was on the other side of 

 the peninsula, fifty miles away, but the fame of the 

 gold fields had not then reached us. We may have 



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