Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1892 — JUNEAU. [ARTICLE]

JUNEAU.

Scenes in Alaska's Metropolis:: Miss E. R. Scidmore, in Harper’s Weekly. Juneau is ruinous for the amateur photographer who can reel off spools of film on the beech any sunny day. Canoes are being loaded or unloaded, or covered with blankets to protect them when drawn high on shore. Families and friends sit on the sands to gossip, eat and trade. Aged relics crawl out te sun themselves, and children frolic and play. One boatman splits, his salmon and hangs them te dny, and another has a frame hanging full of drying seafc= A worthy couple bring the tub out, and lathering their pet dog, give him such a sudsing and sousing as they never gave themselves. Off the wharf at Juneau and off the floats at Douglas Island Indians are always fishing—a restful occupation for this large leisure class, in a land where 10-o’clock sunsets make it seem always afternoon. And then, on summer davs. the natives flock to Ahe wharf and the beach with baskets, bracelets, spoons and carvings for sale, the Indians being more alive te the profits of tourists trade than tbtt whites. The Indians were not so very simple in trade when tourists began coming to Alaska, but the present absurd value put upon theiy work is all the work of- tourists. Seven and eight years ago they trailed the amateur photographer for hours, and foregrounded themselves every time he levelled his camera. “Quatah ” cries the Indian woman now, hiding her soot-smeared face at sight of a black box; and if not paid,; the family seem ready te tear the camera fiend to pieces. One day an old Indian 1 wandered to the Fashion Bazar, chose a piece of greenish-yellow satin, and producing a shoe, said that he wanted a dress made to fit- the woman who wore that shoe. A scientist might have furnished plumage for a bird from that much of a clew, but the j little dressmaker was helpless with only a shoe for a waist pattern. ‘‘Make it heap big for me,” wasjffie puzzled shopper's last resource, and after trying it on, he rolled it up, put it in a new basket, and paddled back to his Chilkat home. - Another day the great medicineman of the Taku tribe beached his long canoe, and strolled up town in his gayly ...striped., blanket. with.-sa-

cred unkempt locks falling be!ow/his shoulders. His two pretty young wives walked with him, twins in looks and twins in their yellow headkerChiefs, and dark blue hlankcts patterned and bordered with dozens and grosses of small white buttons. His-old wife hobbled behind them, a withered little woman of eighty years, gray haired, nearly blind, but wearing.the soft and gentle expression of old age on her poor, patient face. A few hours later I found her sitting statuesque at the back of the trader’s store, while her liege yvas spending many dollars over the trinket counter with the younger wives.' This unspeakable Turk had come to confer with the Indian policeman at Juneau, his rival for the hand of the Eagle Princess, the reigning beauty of the Taku tribe. | The aged wife had interrupted the conference by attacking the Eagle j beauty with a knife, and the inateli ! was off. But the two women sat“in tableau not ten feet apart, the old woman leaning on a bent staff iu an ! attitude of desperate calm and tragic repose, the face placid, patient, in- ; scrutable, and the Eagle beauty sat ! undisturbed near this slumbering old j volcano. The damask bloom in her I pale yellow cheek, her fine straight nose and splendid eyes, were no less I remarkable than her self-possession, I her dignity and repose of manner, that she had not lost even during the incident of the morning.