Our people living now in the Sitkan district are engaged either in general trading with the Indians, in prospecting for “mineral,” or actively mining; and, also, in a small fashion, in canning salmon and rendering dog-fish and herring oil. Perhaps we can give a fair idea of the traders by introducing the reader to one of them and his establishment just as we find him at Sitka. In a small frame one-story house, not usually touched by paint, the trader shelters a general assortment of notions and groceries, but principally tobacco, molasses, blankets of all sizes and colors, cotton prints and cheap rings, beads, looking-glasses, etc.; he stands behind a rude counter, with these wares displayed to best advantage on the rough shelves at his back; a wood-burning stove diffuses a genial glow, but no chairs or benches are convenient. A “Siwash”[16] and his squaw deliberately and gravely enter. The Indian slowly looks up and down the room, and then proceeds to price every object within his vision, no matter whether he has the least idea of purchasing or not; this is the prelude and invariable habit of a Sitkan Indian, and it arouses an immense amount of suppressed profanity on the part of the outwardly courteous trader. But our savage has come in this time bent upon buying, and selling also; his female partner has a bundle carefully done up under her blanket, and which she wholly concealed when she squatted down on her haunches the moment after entering the door; she also has a number of small silver coins in her mouth, for, funny as it may seem, this worthy pair have carefully agreed upon what they shall spend in the store before coming in; so the woman has taken out from the leathern purse which hangs on her breast and under her chemise, the exact amount, and, returning the pouch to the privacy of her bosom, she places the available coin in her mouth for safe keeping _ad interim_. Finally the Indian, in the course of half an hour, or perhaps a whole half-day in preliminary skirmishing, boldly reaches down for his bundle in the squaw’s charge; then having, by so doing, given the trader to fully understand that he has something to sell, as well as desiring to buy, he reaches out for the groceries, the cloth, the tobacco, or whatever he may have fully decided to purchase; a long argument at once ensues as to the bottom cash price, and in every case of doubt the squaw decides; all the articles are done up in brown paper and neatly tied with attractive parti-colored twine. Then the dusky woman arises, with an indescribably vacant stare, bends over the counter and lets the jingling silver drop upon it, pausing just a moment until the tired but triumphant trader counts and sweeps it, still moist, into his till.