Mr. Young, My Companion, Was An
Adventurous Evangelist, And It Was The Opportunities The Trip Might
Afford To Meet The Indians Of The Different Tribes On Our Route With
Reference To Future Missionary Work, That Induced Him To Join Us.
When at last all were aboard and we were about to cast loose from the
wharf, Kadachan's mother, a woman of great natural dignity and force
of character, came down the steps alongside the canoe oppressed with
anxious fears for the safety of her son.
Standing silent for a few
moments, she held the missionary with her dark, bodeful eyes, and
with great solemnity of speech and gesture accused him of using undue
influence in gaining her son's consent to go on a dangerous voyage
among unfriendly tribes; and like an ancient sibyl foretold a long
train of bad luck from storms and enemies, and finished by saying,
"If my son comes not back, on you will be his blood, and you shall
pay. I say it."
Mr. Young tried in vain to calm her fears, promising Heaven's care as
well as his own for her precious son, assuring her that he would
faithfully share every danger that he encountered, and if need be die
in his defense.
"We shall see whether or not you die," she said, and turned away.
Toyatte also encountered domestic difficulties. When he stepped into
the canoe I noticed a cloud of anxiety on his grand old face, as if
his doom now drawing near was already beginning to overshadow him.
When he took leave of his wife, she refused to shake hands with him,
wept bitterly, and said that his enemies, the Chilcat chiefs, would
be sure to kill him in case he reached their village. But it was not
on this trip that the old hero was to meet his fate, and when we were
fairly free in the wilderness and a gentle breeze pressed us joyfully
over the shining waters these gloomy forebodings vanished.
We first pursued a westerly course, through Sumner Strait, between
Kupreanof and Prince of Wales Islands, then, turning northward,
sailed up the Kiku Strait through the midst of innumerable
picturesque islets, across Prince Frederick's Sound, up Chatham
Strait, thence northwestward through Icy Strait and around the then
uncharted Glacier Bay. Thence returning through Icy Strait, we sailed
up the beautiful Lynn Canal to the Davidson Glacier and the lower
village of the Chilcat tribe and returned to Wrangell along the coast
of the mainland, visiting the icy Sum Dum Bay and the Wrangell
Glacier on our route. Thus we made a journey more than eight hundred
miles long, and though hardships and perhaps dangers were
encountered, the great wonderland made compensation beyond our most
extravagant hopes. Neither rain nor snow stopped us, but when the
wind was too wild, Kadachan and the old captain stayed on guard in
the camp and John and Charley went into the woods deer-hunting, while
I examined the adjacent rocks and woods.
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