At 9 P.M. on the 5th instant we went on board the steamer _Queen_, which, as there are no hotels in Alaska, is to be our home for two weeks. The steamer is a fine, large vessel, with ample accommodations for two hundred or more passengers. I had secured and paid for two first-class staterooms two months in advance, but found, the first night, that the ones given us were the worst on the ship, being directly over the boiler, and consequently so hot that it was impossible to live in them unless the doors were open. In addition to this annoyance, when the watch was changed at 9 P.M., and at 1, 4, and 8 A.M., the ashes were hoisted from the hold, the rough and noisy machinery used being located in the rear of our rooms, apparently within a foot or two. The iron ash-can was about eighteen inches in diameter and four feet high, and when it was rushed up by steam power, it made a tremendous noise, making sleep impossible. In the morning I called on the purser, and asked him to change the rooms. He said that he could not "change all the rooms in the ship," but on being informed that unless he gave my sister better accommodations we would abandon the trip and go ashore at the next stopping place, he changed his mind, and gave her a good room in the cabin below, but refused to change mine unless I would pay fifty dollars additional. On consultation with my roommate, Mr. Edwin S. Townsend, we concluded that the advance asked was a violation of our contract with the company, and that we would not pay it. We therefore endured the distress and annoyance of the ash-lifting machinery. I did not remove my clothing at night, but lay on the bed until the ash-can nuisance commenced, and then left the room and walked the deck until the noise stopped, in about half an hour. Being forced on deck at night had its inconveniences, but it had its compensations also, for it gave me the chance to see the magnificent scenery by moonlight; and, one night, there was a splendid display of aurora borealis, which illuminated the entire northern sky. After five nights spent in this disagreeable manner, one of our friends had a talk with the purser, and induced him to change the undesirable rooms for comfortable ones on the upper deck. We learned with much satisfaction that the steamer during the entire trip will go through a series of inland seas, and that we shall look upon the Pacific Ocean but two or three times, and then for only a few hours.