brdliCka] WRITER'S TRIP ON YUKON 79 



rest, quite earned to-day. Seldom have done as much in a day. 

 Thirty-three graves collected, with over twenty nearly complete skele- 

 tons, and all restored so that I had to take considerable care not to go 

 again into some already emptied. But this place should be dug 

 over. The tundra in a few years swallows up everything on the 

 surface. It literally buries or assimilates bones 1 and all other objects, 

 the moss and other vegetation with probably blown dust covering 

 them very effectively. Finding anything below the surface and that 

 even a foot or more, as was actually experienced, means something 

 cjnite different under these conditions than it might elsewhere. 



Monday, July 12. Slept fairly well and feel refreshed, but the 

 eye still badly swollen. The Eskimo believe, I think, I got it from 

 the bones. Yet they are quite sensible — a marked mental difference 

 between them and the Yukon Indians. 



Breakfast before 7 — cereal, raw smoked fish, and coffee. Then 

 pack. At the store buy empty gasoline boxes, but no nails to be had, 

 and no packing. Lunch at 1 — macaroni, raw smoked fish, sauer- 

 kraut, coffee; then pack again, fix boxes, break old ones to get nails, 

 even pull a few unnecessary ones from the boards of the house, go 

 see my mans wife, a hopeless consumptive, and at 6 through with all 

 except cleaning. Another fair work-day, 12 tightly packed boxes. 

 Then clean up, burn rubbish, and ready for departure early to- 

 morrow. 



Supper — macaroni, raw smoked fish, greengage plums, a little 

 sauerkraut, and coffee. Then a little walk outside, watch Eskimo 

 women and children jump the rope (hilariously, but awkwardly), 

 and go in to catch up with my notes. Nobody scowls at me, so that 

 although they probably fear me as a " medicine man " they are not 

 at all resentful for what I did j'esterday. They are grown-up chil- 

 dren, much more tractable than the Indians. But otherwise they 

 show so much in common with the Indian that the more one sees of 

 them the more he grows drawn to the belief of the original (and that 

 not so far distant) identity of their parentage. It seems the Es- 

 kimo and the Indian are after all no more than two diverging fingers 

 of one and the same hand; or they were so a bit farther back. 

 Mental differences there are. yet these are no more than may be found 

 in different tribes of the Indians or different groups of other races. 



Tuesday, July 13. Rise a little after 6. Eye still sore after 

 Sunday's gnat and sweat and dirt: must use boric acid frequently. 

 An Eskimo actually said yesterday it was a sickness from touching 

 the bones. A little breakfast — have no more salmon strips, so just 

 cereal, canned plums, and coffee. And then with the help of two 

 young Eskimo carry my spoils and baggage on to the tug, which has 

 come for me. By about 7 start. Good-by Kotlik, what little there 

 is of it. 



