[Illustration: DEVIL'S THUMB, ALASKA.
Reached via the Union Pacific Ry.]

The mission-school hospital, chapel, and architectural buildings occupied
much of the tourists' time, and some were deeply interested. There are
eighteen missionaries in Sitka, under the Presbyterian jurisdiction,
trying to educate and Christianize the Indians. They are doing a noble
work, but it does seem a hopeless task when one goes among the Indian
homes, sees the filth, smells the vile odors, and studies the native
habits.

These Indians, like the other tribes, are not poor, but all have more or
less money.

MANY ARE RICH,

having more than $20,000 in good hard cash, yet the squalor in which they
live would indicate the direst poverty.

The stroll to Indian river, from which the town gets its water supply, is
bewitching. The walk is made about six feet through an evergreen forest,
the trees arching overhead, for a distance of two miles, and is close to
the bay, and following the curve in a most picturesque circle. The water
is carried in buckets loaded on carts and wheeled by hand, for horses are
almost unknown in Alaska. There are probably not more than half a dozen
horses and mules in all Alaska--not so much because of the expense of
transportation and board, as lack of roads and the long, dark days and
months of winter, when people do not go out but very little. All the
packing is done in all sections of Alaska by natives carrying the packs