42 ALASKA. 



hundred-weight of goods, such as are likely to be most prized 

 by the tribes they iutend to visit for the purposes of trade, 

 usually tobacco, calico, beads, and powder and ball, caps, &c. ; 

 but the great bulk is generally tobacco. These men start in 

 the dead of winter, provided with nothing but a blanket, a 

 tent, a few pounds of dried meat or fish, and tea, and go in 

 this way from tribe to tribe, from settlement to settlement, 

 until the intended circuit is made or the goods disposed of. 



When the trader reaches a settlement he inquires if the 

 Indians there have any furs ; if so, he pitches his tent and 

 unpacks his goods under it, seats himself in the middle, near 

 an aperture in the tent, so that the natives may approach and 

 look in upon his assortment. Their skins are then passed 

 through the opening with an intimation of what is desired 

 from the trader's stock in exchange. The trader examines the 

 skins, tosses them over into a common heap, and tears off the 

 cloth or passes out the tpbacco as the Indians require ; and 

 this continues till the business is concluded. 



If the trader finds at the close of his trading at any one or 

 more settlements that the bulk or weight of his furs is too great 

 for removal on his sled, he gives the surplus into the care of 

 some one of the people, counting over to him in the presence 

 of the whole village all the skins. This man takes charge and 

 honestly guards them until the trader comes in person or sends 

 for them, and the whole community seems to feel as if their 

 reputation were at stake, for they will neither molest the 

 trader's cache nor permit others to do so. This is certainly a 

 strange and most noteworthy characteristic of the Indians of 

 the great interior of Alaska, designated in this report as the 

 Yukon district. 



The trading on the northwest coast, however, from Puget 

 Sound up to Prince William's Sound, was and is conducted in 

 a very different manner from that of the Yukou district. Here 

 the traders, large and smaH, employed vessels varying from 

 steamers of considerable size to sloops. Since, however, the 

 withdrawal of the Russian American Oompany from the Terri- 

 tory, and the steamer Labouchere of the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany, but one trading-steamer remains upon this coast, viz, tlie 

 old Otter, the property of the last-named corporation. Sailing- 

 vessels, small schooners principally, monopolize the trade, and 

 of these there are eight or ten at least. 



The practice of these trading-vessels is to cruise along the 



