24 JOHN BURROUGHS 



can hardly touch it without being stung. The falls are 

 the outlet of a most enticing deep hidden valley, with a 

 chain of beautiful lakes, we were told, but our time was 

 too brief to explore it. The winter wren was found here, 

 and the raven, and a species of woodpecker. 



METLAKAHTLA. 



We were not really in Alaska waters until the next day, 

 June 4th. This was Sunday and we spent most of the 

 day visiting Metlakahtla, the Indian Mission settlement 

 on Annette Island, where we saw one of the best object 

 lessons to be found on the coast, showing what can be 





METLAKAHTLA. 



done with the Alaska Indians. Here were a hundred or 

 more comfortable frame houses, some of them two stories, 

 many of them painted, all of them substantial and in good 

 taste, a large and imposing wooden church, a large school 

 house, a town hall, extensive canning establishments, and 

 so on, owned and occupied by seven or eight hundred Tlin- 

 kit Indians, who, under the wonderful tutelage of William 

 Duncan, a Scotch missionary, had been brought from a 

 low state of savagery to a really fair state of industrial civ- 

 ilization. The town is only twelve years old and is situated 

 on a broad expanse of nearly level land at the foot of the 

 mountains. The large stumps and logs on the surface 

 between the houses show how recently the land has been 



