bkdliOka] WRITERS TRIP ON YUKON 73 



is yet in the United States and presumably under some sort of 

 supervision. 



Which brings me to a realization that the first half of my jour- 

 ney — the preliminary survey of the Yukon — is slowly closing; a 

 little, and it will be the sea and other conditions, which also brings 

 the realization that I have seen much but learned not greatly. What 

 should be done would be to own a suitable fast boat ; to locate on each 

 of the more important old sites a party for careful, prolonged exca- 

 vation ; and to try to locate, in the rear of or on the higher places on 

 the present river fiats, more ancient sites than are known to date. 

 These steps, together with the enlisting of the interest in these mat- 

 ters of every prospector, miner, and trader, would before many years 

 lead to much substantial knowledge. 



Friday. July 9. Must keep up these notes, for they alone keep me 

 posted on the day and date ; even then I am not always sure. There 

 are no Sundays in nature. 



Slept in my bag on the roof of the Agnes. Her namesake must 

 have been one of these goodly but insufficient and but indifferently 

 clean native women, plodding, doing not a little work, but wanting 

 in many a thing. It was cold and dreary, but I found an additional 

 blanket, and so, with mosquito netting about my head — one or two 

 got in anyway — would have slept quite well had it not been for a 

 dog. At about 1 a. m. we stopped in front of a little place called 

 also " Mountain Village." And almost at once we began to hear a 

 most piteous and insistent wail of a dog who either had colic or thirst 

 or hunger, and he kept it up with but little stops for what seemed 

 like two hours, making my sleep, at least, impossible. 



Saturday, July 9. Morning. Cold, cloudy, rough — head almost 

 beginning to feel uncomfortable, the boat is tossing so much. A 

 teacher comes aboard with an inflamed hand which I fix; a few 

 questions, the mail bag, and we are off again. Enter a slough where 

 it is less rough and warmer. Later the sun will probably come out 

 again. This evening we shall be at Old Hamilton and then a new 

 anxiety — how to get to St. Michael. 



Just had a little walk over the roof — my roof, for the other two 

 passengers prefer to sleep in the gassy, dingy room below, though how 

 they can stand it is beyond my medical ken. It is four short steps 

 long, or five half steps in an oblique direction. 



Every object in distance appears magnified all along the river for 

 many days now. An old snag will look like a boat or a man, hills 

 look higher, a boat looks much more pretentious than she proves to 

 be on meeting. 



Firs and spruce have now completely disappeared, also forests of 

 birch, etc., are reduced to brush both on flats and lower parts of hills. 



88253°— 30 6 



