As we slowly floated out of Lake Marsh it was known to us by Indian reports that somewhere not far ahead on the course of the river would be found the longest and most formidable rapid on the entire length of the great stream. At these rapids the Indians confidently expected that our raft would go to pieces, and we were therefore extremely anxious to inspect them. By some form of improper interpretation, or in some other way, we got the idea into our heads that these rapids, "rushing," as the natives described them, "through a dark caÑon," would be reached very soon, that is, within two or three miles, or four or five at the furthest. Accordingly I had the raft beached at the river's entrance, and undertook, with the doctor, the task of walking on ahead along the river bank to inspect them before making any further forward movement, after which one or both of us might return. After a short distance I continued the journey alone, the doctor returning to start the raft. I hoped to be at the upper end of the rapids by the time she came in sight so as to signal her in ample time for her to reach the bank from the swiftest current in the center, as the river was now five or six hundred yards wide in places. It turned out afterward that the great rapids were more than fifty miles further on.

I now observed that this new stretch of river much more closely resembled some of the streams in temperate climes than any we had yet encountered. Its flanking hillsides of rolling ground were covered with spruce and pine, here and there breaking into pleasant-looking grassy prairies, while its own picturesque valley was densely wooded with poplar and willows of several varieties. These latter, in fact, encroached so closely upon the water's edge, and in such impenetrable confusion, that camping places were hard to find, unless a friendly spur from the hills, covered with evergreens, under which a little elbow room might be had, wedged its way down to the river, so as to break the continuity of these willowy barriers to a night's good camping place. The raft's corduroy deck of pine poles often served for a rough night's lodging to some of the party.

Muskrats were plentiful in this part of the river, and I could hear them "plumping" into the water from the banks, every minute or two, as I walked along them; and afterward, in the quiet evenings, these animals might at once be traced by the wedge-shaped ripples they made on the surface of the water as they swam around us.

I had not walked more than two or three miles, fighting great swarms of mosquitoes all the way, when I came to a peculiar kind of creek distinctive of this portion of the river, and worth describing. It was not very wide, but altogether too wide to jump, with slopes of slippery clay, and so deep that I could not see bottom nor touch it with any pole that I could find. These singular streams have a current seemingly as slow as that of a glacier, and the one that stopped me—and I suppose all the rest—had the same unvarying canal-like width for over half a mile from its mouth. Beyond this distance I dared not prolong my rambles to find a crossing place for fear the raft might pass me on the river, so I returned to its mouth and waited, fighting mosquitoes, for the raft to come along, when the canoe would pick me up. In my walks along the creek I found many moose and caribou tracks, some of them looking large enough to belong to prize cattle, but all of them were old. Probably they had been made before the mosquitoes became so numerous.

The first traveler along the river was one of our old Tahk-heesh friends, who came down the stream paddling his "cottonwood" canoe with his family, a squaw and three children, wedged in the bottom. He partially comprehended my situation, and I tried hard to make him understand by signs that I wanted simply to cross the canal-like creek in his canoe, while he, evidently remembering a number of trifles he had received from members of the party at a few camps back, thought it incumbent upon him to take me a short way down the river, by way of a quid pro quo, to which I did not object, especially after seeing several more of those wide slack-water tributaries, and as I still supposed that the rapids were but a short distance ahead, and that my Indian guide expected to camp near them. The rain was falling in a persistent drizzle, which, coupled with my cramped position in the rickety canoe, made me feel any thing but comfortable. My Indian patron, a good natured looking old fellow of about fifty, was evidently feeling worried and harassed at not meeting other Indians of his tribe—for he had previously promised me that he would have a number of them at the rapids to portage my effects around it if my raft went to pieces in shooting them, as they were all confident it would, or if I determined to build another forthwith at a point below the dangerous portion of the rapids—and he ceased the not unmusical strokes of his paddle every minute or two in order to scan with a keen eye the river banks or the hillsides beyond, or to listen for signals in reply to the prolonged shouts he occasionally emitted from his vigorous lungs. After a voyage of three or four miles, he became discouraged, and diving down into a mass of dirty rags and strong-scented Indian bric-a brac of all sorts in the bottom of the canoe, he fished out an old brass-mounted Hudson Bay Company flintlock horse-pistol, an object occasionally found in the possession of a well-to-do Yukon River savage. He took out the bullet, which he did not desire to lose, and held it in his teeth, and pointing the unstable weapon most uncomfortably close to my head, pulled the trigger, although from all I have seen of these weapons of destruction (to powder) I imagine the butt end of the pistol was the most dangerous. The report resounded through the hills and valleys with a thundering vibration, as if the weapon had been a small cannon, but awakened no reply of any kind, and as it was getting well along into the evening my "Stick" friend pointed his canoe for an old camping place on the east bank of the river (although the boat was so warped and its nose so broken that one might almost have testified to its pointing in any other direction), and with a few strokes of his paddle he was soon on shore. Thereupon I went into the simplest camp I had ever occupied, for all that was done was to pull an old piece of riddled canvas over a leaning pole and crawl under it and imagine that it kept out the rain, which it did about as effectually as if it had been a huge crochet tidy. My companions, however, did not seem to mind the rain very much, their only apparent objection to it being that it prevented their kindling a fire with their usual apparatus of steel and damp tinder; and when I gave them a couple of matches they were so profuse in their thanks and their gratitude seemed so genuine, that I gave them all I had with me, probably a couple of dozen, when they overwhelmed me with their grateful appreciation, until I was glad to change the subject to a passing muskrat and a few ducks that were swimming by. I could not help contrasting their behavior with that of the more arrogant Chilkats. They seemed much more like Eskimo in their rude hospitality and docility of nature, although I doubt if they equal them in personal bravery.

There is certainly one good thing about a rain-storm in Alaska, however, and that is the repulsion that exists between a moving drop of rain and a comparatively stationary mosquito when the two come in contact, and which beats down the latter with a most comforting degree of pertinacity. Mosquitoes evidently know how to protect themselves from the pelting rain under the broad deciduous leaves, or under the lee of trees and branches, for the instant it ceases they are all out, apparently more voracious than ever. All along this bank near the Indians' camp, the dense willow brake crawled up and leaned over the water, and I feared there was no camping place to be found for my approaching party, until after walking back about half a mile I espied a place where a little spur of spruce-clad hillocks infringed on the shore. Here I halted the raft and we made an uncomfortable camp. Fish of some kind kept jumping in the river, but the most seductive "flies" were unrewarded with a single bite, although the weather was not of the kind to tempt one either to hunt or fish.

The next day, the 30th of June, was but little better as far as the weather was concerned, and we got away late from our camp, having overslept ourselves. Our Tahk-heesh friend, with his family, now preceded us in his canoe for the purpose of indicating the rapids in good season; but of course he disappeared ahead of us around every bend and island, so as to keep us feeling more anxious about it. At one time, about eight o'clock in the evening—our Tahk-heesh guide out of sight for the last half hour—we plainly heard a dull roaring ahead of us as we swung around a high broken clay bluff, and were clearly conscious of the fact that we were shooting forward at a more rapid pace. Thinking that discretion was the better part of valor, the raft was rapidly swung inshore with a bump that almost upset the whole crew, and a prospecting party were sent down stream to walk along the bank until they found out the cause of the sound, a plan which very soon revealed that there were noisy, shallow rapids extending a short distance out into the bend of the river, but they were not serious enough to have stopped us; at least they would have been of no consequence if we had not landed in the first place, but, as matters stood, they were directly in front of our position on the shore, and so swift was the current that we could not get out fast enough into the stream with our two oars to avoid sticking on the rough bar of gravel and bowlders. Shortly after the crew had jumped off, and just as they were preparing to pry the raft around into the deeper water of the stream, the most violent splashing and floundering was heard on the outer side of the craft, and it was soon found that a goodly-sized and beautifully-spotted grayling had hooked himself to a fish-line that some one had allowed to trail over the outer logs in the excitement of attending to the more important duties connected with the supposed rapids. He was rapidly taken from the hook, and when the line was again thrown over into the ripples another immediately repeated the operation, and it soon became evident that we were getting into the very best of fishing waters, the first we had discovered of that character on the river. After the raft was swung clear of the outer bowlders of the reef and had started once more on its way down stream, several lines, poles and flies were gotten out, and it was quite entertaining to see the long casts that were attempted as we rushed by distant ripples near the curve of the banks. More than one of these casts, however, proved successful in landing a fine grayling. A jump and a splash and a miss, and there was no more chance at that ripple for the same fish, for by the time a recover and a cast could be made the raft was nearly alongside of another tempting place, so swift was the river and so numerous the clean gravel bars jutting into it at every bend. Many a pretty grayling would come sailing through the air like a flying squirrel and unhooking himself en route, with a quick splash would disappear through the logs of the raft, with no other injury than a good bump of his nose against the rough bark, and no doubt ready to thank his stars that his captors were not on land. Passing over shallow bottoms covered with white pebbles, especially those shoaling down stream from the little bars of which I have spoken, a quick eye could often detect great numbers of fish, evidently grayling, with their heads up stream and propelling their tails just enough to remain over the same spot on the bottom, in the swift current. That evening we camped very late—about 10 P.M.—having hopes to the last that we might reach the upper end of the Grand CaÑon. Our Stick guide had told us that when we saw the mouth of a small stream coming in from the west and spreading out in a mass of foam over the rocks at the point of confluence, we could be sure of finding the great caÑon within half a mile. An accurate census of small creeks answering exactly to that description having been taken, gave a total of about two dozen, with another still in view ahead of us as we camped. Knowing the penchant of our fishy friends for half-submerged gravel bars, our camp was picked with reference to them, and near it there were two of such bars running out into the stream. Some fifty or sixty grayling were harvested by the three lines that were kept going until about eleven o'clock, by which time it was too dark to fish with any comfort, for the heavy banked clouds in the sky brought on darkness much earlier than usual. Red and white mixed flies were eagerly snapped by the voracious and active creatures, and as the evening shadows deepened, a resort to more white in the mixture kept up the exhilarating sport until it was too dark for the fisherman to see his fly on the water. The grayling caught that evening seemed to be of two very distinct sizes, without any great number of intermediate sizes, the larger averaging about a pound in weight, the smaller about one-fourth as much. So numerous and voracious were they that two or three flies were kept on one line, and two at a cast were several times caught, and triplets once.

On the morning of July 1st, we approached the great rapids of the Grand CaÑon of the Yukon. Just as I had expected, our Tahk-heesh guide in his cottonwood canoe was non est, until we were within sight of the upper end of the caÑon and its boiling waters, and tearing along at six or seven miles an hour, when we caught sight of him frantically gesticulating to us that the rapids were in sight, which was plainly evident, even to us. He probably thought that our ponderous raft was as manageable in the seething current as his own light craft, or he never would have allowed us to get so near. In the twinkling of an eye we got ashore the first line that came to hand, and there was barely time to make both ends fast, one on the raft and the other to a convenient tree on the bank, before the spinning raft came suddenly to the end of her tether with a snappish twang that made the little rope sing like a musical string. Why that little quarter-inch manilla did not part seems a mystery, even yet,—it was a mere government flagstaff lanyard that we had brought along for packing purposes, etc.—but it held on as if it knew the importance of its task, and with the swift water pouring in a sheet of foam over the stern of the shackled raft, she slowly swung into an eddy under the lee of a gravel bar where she was soon securely fastened, whereupon we prepared to make an inspection of our chief impediment. A laborious survey of three or four hours' duration, exposed to heat and mosquitoes, revealed that the rapids were about five miles long and in appearance formidable enough to repel any one who might contemplate making the passage even in a good boat, while such an attempt seemed out of the question with an unmanageable raft like ours.

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The Yukon River, which had previously been about three hundred or three hundred and fifty yards in width, gradually contracts as it nears the upper gate of the caÑon and at the point where the stream enters it in a high white-capped wave of rolling water, I do not believe its width exceeds one-tenth of that distance. The walls of the caÑon are perpendicular columns of basalt, not unlike a diminutive Fingal's cave in appearance, and nearly a mile in length, the center of this mile stretch being broken into a huge basin of about twice the usual width of the stream in the caÑon, and which is full of seething whirlpools and eddies where nothing but a fish could live for a minute. On the western rim of this basin it seems as though one might descend to the water's edge with a little Alpine work. Through this narrow chute of corrugated rock the wild waters of the great river rush in a perfect mass of milk-like foam, with a reverberation that is audible for a considerable distance, the roar being intensified by the rocky walls which act like so many sounding boards. Huge spruce trees in somber files overshadow the dark caÑon, and it resembles a deep black thoroughfare paved with the whitest of marble. At the northern outlet of the caÑon, the rushing river spreads rapidly into its former width, but abates not a jot of its swiftness, and flows in a white and shallow sheet over reefs of bowlders and bars thickly studded with intertwining drifts of huge timber, ten times more dangerous for a boat or raft than the narrow caÑon itself, although perhaps not so in appearance. This state of things continues for about four miles further, offering every possible variety of obstacle in turn, when the river again contracts, hemmed in by low basaltic banks, and becomes even narrower than before. So swift is it, so great the volume of water, and so contracted the channel, that half its water ascends the sloping banks, runs over them for nearly a score of yards, and then falls into the narrow chute below, making a veritable horseshoe funnel of boiling cascades, not much wider than the length of our raft, and as high at the end as her mast. Through this funnel of foam the waves ran three or four feet high, and this fact, added to the boiling that often forced up columns of water like small geysers quite a considerable distance into the air, made matters very uninviting for navigation in any sort of craft.

Every thing being in readiness, our inspection made, and our resolution formed, in the forenoon of the second of July, we prepared to "shoot" the raft though the rapids of the grand caÑon, and at 11:25 the bow and stern lines were cast loose and after a few minutes' hard work at shoving the craft out of the little eddy where she lay, the poor vessel resisting as if she knew all that was ahead of her and was loth to go, she finally swung clear of the point and like a racer at the start made almost a leap forward and the die was cast. A moment's hesitation at the caÑon's brink, and quick as a flash the whirling craft plunged into the foam, and before twenty yards were made had collided with the western wall of columnar rock with a shock as loud as a blast, tearing off the inner side log and throwing the outer one far into the stream. The raft swung around this as upon a hinge, just as if it had been a straw in a gale of wind, and again resumed its rapid career. In the whirlpool basin of the caÑon the craft, for a brief second or two, seemed actually buried out of sight in the foam. Had there been a dozen giants on board they could have had no more influence in directing her course than as many spiders. It was a very simple matter to trust the rude vessel entirely to fate, and work out its own salvation. I was most afraid of the four miles of shallow rapids below after the caÑon, but she only received a dozen or a score of smart bumps that started a log here and there, but tore none from the structure, and nothing remained ahead of her but the cascades. These reached, in a few minutes the craft was caught at the bow by the first high wave in the funnel-like chute and lifted into the air until it stood almost at an angle of thirty degrees, when it went through the cascades like a charge of fixed bayonets, and almost as swiftly as a flash of light, burying its nose in the foam beyond as it subsided. Those on board of the raft now got hold of a line from their friends on shore, and after breaking it several times they finally brought the craft alongside the bank and commenced repairing the damage with a light heart, for our greatest obstacle was now at our backs.

Near the spot where we camped, just below the cascades that terminated the long rapids, was found a small grove of sapling spruce through which the fire had swept a year or two before, and the trees were thoroughly seasoned and sound, the black burned bark peeling as freely from them as the hull of a chestnut, leaving excellent light and tough poles with which we renewed our two decks, our constant walking over the old ones having converted them into somewhat unsatisfactory places for promenades unless one carefully watched his footsteps. Evidences of conflagration in the dense coniferous forests were everywhere frequent, the fires arising from the carelessness of the Indian campers, and from the making of signal smokes, and even it is said, from design, with the idea of clearing the district of mosquitoes. While waiting at the cascades of the rapids to repair our raft, our fishing tackle was kept busy to such an extent that we landed between four and five hundred fine grayling, a fishing ground that excelled any we afterward found on the Yukon River.

Our favorite fishing place was just below the cascades, where a number of the disintegrating columns of basalt had fallen in, forming a talus along which we could walk between the water and the wall. A little beyond the wall itself sloped down and ran close beside the little ripples where we were always sure of a "rise" when the grayling would bite. This was nearly always in the cool of the mornings or evenings, or in the middle of the day when even a few light fleecy clouds floated over the sun. Yet there were times when they would cease biting as suddenly as if they were disciplined and under orders, and that without any apparent reason, returning to the bait just as suddenly and as mysteriously. Light northern winds brought fine sunny weather, and with it a perfect deluge of light brown millers or moths migrating southward, thousands of which tumbled in the waters of the river and filled every eddy with their floating bodies. These kept the grayling busy snapping at them, and indicated to a certain degree when to go fishing, but still it was remarkable that our efforts should be so well rewarded when there were so many living, struggling bait to tempt them away from our flies. Strangest of all we were most successful when casting with brown flies. The millers caught by the water and drifted into eddies would not be touched, and it was only when a solitary moth came floating along beating its wings and fluttering on the surface around the swiftest corners that a spring for it was at all certain, and even then a brown hackle dancing around in the same place would monopolize every rise within the radius of a fish's eyesight. Our Tahk-heesh friends, who had been made useful by us in several ways, such as carrying effects over the portage, helping with poles and logs, and so on, were as much surprised at this novel mode of fishing as the grayling themselves, and expressed their astonishment, in guttural grunts. They regarded themselves as admitted to high favor when we gave them a few of the flies as presents. They ate all the spare grayling we chose to give them, which was often nearly a dozen apiece, and, in fact, during the three or four days we were together their subsistence was almost altogether derived from this source, as we had no provisions to spare them. The largest grayling we caught weighed two pounds and a quarter, but we had the same invariable two sizes already mentioned, with here and there a slight deviation in grade. These grayling were the most persistent biters I ever saw rise to a fly, and more uncertain than these uncertain fish usually are in grasping for a bait, for there were times when I really believe we got fifty or sixty rises from a single fish before he was hooked or the contest abandoned.

The portage made by the Indians around the caÑon and rapids was over quite a high ridge just the length of the caÑon, and then descended abruptly with a dizzy incline into a valley which, after continuing nearly down to the cascades, again ascended a sandy hill that was very difficult to climb. The hilly part around the caÑon was pretty thoroughly covered with small pines and spruce, and all along the portage trail some miners who had been over it had cut these down near the path and felled them across it, and had then barked them on their upper sides, forming stationary skids along which they could drag their whip-sawed boats. Two large logs placed together on the steep declivity, and well trimmed of their limbs and bark, made good inclines on which the boat or boats could be lowered into the valley below. Here they had floated their boats by towlines down to the cascades, around which point they had again dragged them. It may readily be imagined that such a chaparral of felled brush and poles across our path did not improve the walking in the least. It was a continued case of hurdle walking the whole distance. The day we walked over the trail on the eastern side of the caÑon and rapids was one of the hottest and most insufferable I ever experienced, and every time we sat down it was only to have "a regular down-east fog" of mosquitoes come buzzing around, and the steady swaying of arms and the constant slapping of the face was an exercise fully as vigorous as that of traveling. Our only safe plan was to walk along brandishing a great handful of evergreens from shoulder to shoulder. As we advanced the mosquitoes invariably kept the same distance ahead, as if they had not the remotest idea we were coming toward them. An occasional vicious reach forward through the mass with the evergreens would have about as much effect in removing them as it would in dispersing the same amount of fog, for it seemed as if they could dodge a streak of lightning. Nothing was better than a good strong wind in one's face, and as one emerged from the brush or timber it was simply delicious to feel the cool breeze on one's peppered face and to see the rascals disappear. Our backs, however, were even then spotted with them, still crawling along and testing every thread in one's coat to see if they could not find a thin hole where they might bore through. Once in the breeze, it was comical to turn around slowly and see their efforts to keep under the lee of one's hunting shirt, as one by one they lose their hold and are wafted away in the wind. If these pests had been almost unbearable before, they now became simply fiendish while we were repairing our raft; nothing could be done unless a wind was blowing or unless we stood in a smoke from the resinous pine or spruce so thick that the eyes remained in an acute state of inflammation. Mosquito netting over the hat was not an infallible remedy and was greatly in the way when at work.

A fair wind one day made me think it possible to take a hunt inland, but, to my disgust, it died down after I had proceeded two or three miles, and my fight back to camp with the mosquitoes I shall always remember as one of the salient points of my life. It seemed as if there was an upward rain of insects from the grass that became a deluge over marshy tracts, and more than half the ground was marshy. Of course not a sign of any game was seen except a few old tracks; and the tracks of an animal are about the only part of it that could exist here in the mosquito season, which lasts from the time the snow is half off the ground until the first severe frost, a period of some three or four months. During that time every living creature that can leave the valleys ascends the mountains, closely following the snow-line, and even there peace is not completely attained, the exposure to the winds being of far more benefit than the coolness due to the altitude, while the mosquitoes are left undisputed masters of the valleys, except for a few straggling animals on their way from one range of mountains to the other. Had there been any game, and had I obtained a fair shot, I honestly doubt if I could have secured it owing to these pests, not altogether on account of their ravenous attacks upon my face, and especially the eyes, but for the reason that they were absolutely so dense that it was impossible to see clearly through the mass in taking aim. When I got back to camp I was thoroughly exhausted with my incessant fight and completely out of breath, which I had to regain as best I could in a stifling smoke from dry resinous pine knots. A traveler who had spent a summer on the Lower Yukon, where I did not find the pests so bad on my journey as on the upper river, was of opinion that a nervous person without a mask would soon be killed by nervous prostration, unless he were to take refuge in mid-stream. I know that the native dogs are killed by the mosquitoes under certain circumstances, and I heard reports, which I believe to be well founded, both from Indians and trustworthy white persons, that the great brown bear—erroneously but commonly called the grizzly—of these regions is at times compelled to succumb to these insects. The statement seems almost preposterous, but the explanation is comparatively simple. Bruin having exhausted all the roots and berries on one mountain, or finding them scarce, thinks he will cross the valley to another range, or perhaps it is the odor of salmon washed up along the river's banks that attracts him. Covered with a heavy fur on his body, his eyes, nose and ears are the vulnerable points for mosquitoes, and here of course they congregate in the greatest numbers. At last when he reaches a swampy stretch they rise in myriads until his forepaws are kept so busy as he strives to keep his eyes clear of them that he can not walk, whereupon he becomes enraged, and bear-like, rises on his haunches to fight. It is now a mere question of time until the bear's eyes become so swollen from innumerable bites as to render him perfectly blind, when he wanders helplessly about until he gets mired in the marsh, and so starves to death.