126 
BALL. 
as the “ castle,” was built of squared logs, with two stories and 
a cupola and was defended by a battery. The warm colors 
of the buildings, above which rose the pale green spire and 
bulbous domes of the Greek church, seen against steep, snow- 
tipped mountains densely clothed with sombre forests of 
spruce, produced a picturesque effect unique among Ameri¬ 
can settlements. 
Outside the walls, along the beach, was a long row of large 
Indian houses, low and wide, without windows, built of im¬ 
mense planks painfully hewn out of single logs with stone 
adzes, whose marks could still be distinctly seen. They were 
entered by small, low doors, rounded above, so that he w T ho 
came in must bend to an attitude ill suited to defense. The 
front of each house was painted with totemic emblems in red 
ochre. Their dimensions were sometimes as much as 40 by 
60 feet, and the area within formed one large room* with the 
rafters visible overhead, the middle portion floored only with 
bare earth, on which the fire was built, the smoke escaping 
through a large square hole in the roof. On either side were 
raised platforms with small partitioned retreats like state¬ 
rooms, each sheltering a single family. As many as one 
hundred people sometimes dwelt in one of these houses. The 
only ornaments were totemic carvings, generally against the 
wall opposite the entrance; overhead hung nets, lines, and 
other personal property drying in the smoke along with strips 
of meat or fish and fir branches covered with the spawn of 
herring. 
On the bank, which rose behind the houses, densely cov¬ 
ered with herbage of a vivid green, were seen curious box¬ 
like tombs, often painted in gay colors or ornamented with 
totemic carvings or wooden effigies. These tombs sheltered 
the ashes of their cremated dead. On the beach in front of 
the houses lay numerous canoes whose graceful shape and 
admirable workmanship extorted praises from the earliest 
as well as the later explorers of the coast. When not in 
use these were always sheltered from the sun by branches of 
spruce and hemlock or tarpaulins of refuse skins. Among 
