TWO HUNDRED MILES UP THE KUSKOKWIM 91 



a bluff. The country seems much more populous than Alaska 

 had been credited with being. All the white traders whom the 

 missionaries met had adopted native women as partners, who 

 were ver}^ decorous in manner and behavior. Their children are 

 of ] (repossessing appearance, dressed in European fashion, and 

 trained in the ways of their white fathers. There are some 50 

 children at Napaimute, a village 10 miles higher up the stream. 

 These people know nothing about intoxicating liquors. 



Kolmakovsky is 200 miles above the mouth of the Kuskokwim. 

 Tli ere is another trading post, called Venizali, twenty days' jour- 

 ney still farther up. The missionaries retraced their voyage from 

 tins point, reaching the mouth of the Kuskokwim on July 17, in 

 nine days' time, while the journey upstream occupied twenty- 

 one. The weather for the previous fortnight had been fickle — 

 sometimes bright and often rainy, warm and cold by turns, and 

 frequently too hot for comfort. Thence they cruised along the 

 seacoast, following its indentations to Good News bay, a large 

 and beautiful basin surrounded by lofty mountains, and, pass- 

 ing safely through its narrow entrance on the surf of an in- 

 coming tide, came to anchor at the head of the bay in front of a 

 village of 150 people of mixed complexion, and some of them 

 almost white. By taking a canoe route from there across the 

 neck of a mountainous headland or cape, it was possible to reach 

 their place of destination at Togiak bay, and thus avoid a peril- 

 ous coastwise journey outside, and so poling up a winding moun- 

 tain stream, beautifully clear and very rapid, which finally cut 

 a deep crooked rut through a mossy swamp, with high grass 

 lining the banks, they came to a portage, and, crossing the divide, 

 entered a chain of lakes which formed the headwaters of the 

 stream which they had to descend. The lakes, of which there 

 are four, are small, the largest scarcely a mile in length, with 

 water beautifully clear and sweet, and full of " red salmon," some 

 of which their native guides speared. This fish is probably 

 Salvelinus malma, or Dolly Varden. One characteristic of these 

 fish was " a big swelling on the back close to the neck." (Can 

 these be the same as the redfish of Idaho described by Captain 

 Bendire?) Their flavor was not highly esteemed. The outlet 

 of this chain of lakes which the canoe followed was at first so 

 narrow and crooked as to be scarcely passable, but it soon de- 

 veloped into " a winding mountain torrent, alive with trout, some 

 of which we saw shooting through the water with incredible 

 velocity." The paddlers had little to do except to let her run 



