92 
THROUGH WONDERLAND. 
set on foot, without first consulting the women. Their veto is never disre¬ 
garded. I bought a silver-fox skin from Tsatate; but his wife made him return 
the articles of trade and recover the skin. In the same way I was perpetually 
being annoyed by having to undo bargains because his wife said ‘ clekh; that 
is, ‘no.’ I hired a fellow to take me about thirty miles in his canoe, when my 
own crew was tired. He agreed. I paid him the tobacco, and we were about 
to start, when his wife came to the beach and stopped him. He quietly 
unloaded the canoe and handed me back the tobacco. The whole people are 
curious in the matter of trade. I was never sure that I had done with a 
bargain; for they claimed and exercised the right to undo a contract at any 
time, provided they could return the consideration received. This is their 
code among themselves. For example: I met, at the mouth of the Chilkat, a 
native trader who had been to Fort Simpson, about six hundred miles away, 
and, failing to get as much as he gave in the interior of Alaska for the skins, 
was now returning to the interior to find the first vender, and revoke the whole 
transaction. 
“From the Asonque village I went, with a party of mountain goat hunters, 
up into the Mount St. Elias Alps back of Mount Fairweather,—that is, to the 
northeast of that mountain. For this trip our party made elaborate prepara¬ 
tions. We donned belted shirts made of squirrel skins, fur head-dresses 
(generally conical), sealskin bootees, fitting very closely, and laced half way to 
the knee. We carried spears for alpenstocks, bows and arrows, raw-hide 
ropes, and one or two old Hudson Bay rifles. Ptarmigan were seen on the 
lower levels where the ground was bare. The goats kept well up toward the 
summit, amid the snow fields, and fed on the grass which sprouted along the 
edges of melting drifts. The animal is like a large, white goat, with long, 
coarse hair and a heavy coat of silky underfleece. We found a bear that, so 
far as I know, is peculiar to this country. It is of a beautiful bluish under-color, 
with the tips of the long hairs silvery white. The traders call it 1 St. Elias 
silver bear.’ The skins are not uncommon.” This little mountain trip of 
Lieutenant Wood’s is especially spread before the attention of those who find in 
this form of exercise their best recreation from their regular duties. 
But, however much the tourists may want to dwell amidst the curious and 
marvelous scenes of Glacier Bay (and so great has been this demand that it is 
contemplated building a summer resort near by, that passengers may remain 
over one steamer), yet a time must come when we will have to bid good-bye to 
this polar part of our wonderland, and pass on to the next grand panorama in 
view. Southeastward out of Glacier Bay into Icy Straits, and we turn south- 
westward into Cross Sound, headed for the Pacific Ocean, and for the first time 
enter its limitless waters. Cross Sound was named by Vancouver, in 1778, in 
honor of the day on which it was discovered, and is about fifty-five miles long. 
It corresponds on the north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south, these 
two waterways being the limiting channels north and south of the inland 
passage as it connects with the Pacific Ocean. As the Puget Sound projects 
