THE WHITE WORLD 



Friday, August 13 



In the morning natives brought alongside trout and 

 salmon. I tried to make a trade for the salmon but the 

 wretch haggled so long about it that I gave up in disgust. 



Captain Herendeen went seining and caught young scul- 

 pin, two species of blennies, and young capelin. After 

 lunch he and I went to the spit for birds. We got two 

 species of snipe, wagtails and longspurs, and I killed three 

 marmots and picked up a recently killed ermine. The 

 wagtails were exceedingly hard to approach and the long- 

 spurs hung around the huts so closely that one could 

 scarcely get them; then when they did fly away they were 

 hard to overtake, staying only a few seconds in one place. 

 Mr. Dall secured from a native a perfect specimen of 

 banded seal. 



I saw one of the gill nets for seal lying on the beach. 

 It is made of seal skin, with stones for sinkers and seal 

 flippers for floats. They are set off from the beach and of 

 course are sunk to the bottom, standing up for the seal to 

 run into as they swim along near shore in search of food. 



With a bidarra of natives to-day was a little girl, the child 

 of some white man by a native woman. The poor, pretty 

 little thing was white and has no appearance whatever like 

 the rest. 



These people are inveterate beggars and exasperating 

 traders. If you go near a hut you are importuned for 

 tobacco and many other things that they think you may 

 have. Cleanliness is unknown among them. The eye is 

 not pleased and the nostril is offended; yet the natives are 

 far better and they look better than some of the Indians, for 

 example. When whales ran up into this bay the village 

 was large and thriving; now it has dwindled to two canoe- 

 loads. Whalebone frames are here in large numbers. 

 Blubber houses are numerous, but everything has gone to 

 ruin. An illustration of the cheek of these begerars oc- 

 curred to-day; one said to Captain Herendeen: "Me see 

 two fish! You give me tobacco! " 



Saturday, August 14 

 Went to the spit again in the forenoon and shot a snipe, 

 a plover, a gull, a wagtail, a longspur, and an ermine 



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