While the most impressive feature of the Sitkan archipelago is unquestionably that of the awe-inspiring solemnity and grand beauty of its strange wilderness, yet the most interesting single idea is the Indian and the life he leads therein; with the single exception of the substitution of a woollen blanket and a cotton shirt for his primitive skin garments, he is living here to-day just as he has lived away back to the time when his legends fail to recite, and centuries before the bold voyages of Cook and Vancouver, and the savage sea-otter fleet of Baranov, first discovered him and then made his existence known to the civilized world. True, some of the young fellows who have labored upon vessels and in the fish-canneries wear an every-day workingman’s shirt and trousers, and speak a few words of English, understanding much more, yet the primeval simplicity of all Indian life in this district is substantially preserved. These savages are fish-eaters, and as such they have a common bond of abrupt contrast in physique with their meat-eating brethren of the Rocky Mountains and the great plains; but the traits of natural disposition are the same, the heart and impulse of the Haidah or the Tongass, are the heart and the impulse of the Sioux or the Cheyenne—the former moves nowhere except squatted in his shapely canoe, the other always bestrides a pony or mustang. This wide divergence in every-day action gives alone to these savages their strongly marked bodily separation; the fish-eater is stooping as he stands, and though he has a deep chest and sinewy arms, yet his lower limbs are bowed, sprung at the knees, and imperfectly muscled; while the meat-eater is erect and symmetrical, in fine physical outline from the crown of his head to his heels. The various divisions or bands of the Indian population of the Sitkan archipelago and mainland[18] differ but little in their manner of life and customs, and speak closely related dialects of the same language. The Haidahs are the best dispositioned and behaved. They have been from the earliest times constantly in the habit of making long and incessant canoe voyages; and, taking into account the ease with which all parts of this region can be reached on water, it is rather surprising that any marked difference in language should be found at all; still, when we recall the knowledge which we have of their fierce inter-tribal wars, it is not so strange; this warfare, however, was of the same barbarous character as that recognized in all other American savages—it was the surprise and massacre of helpless parties, never sparing old women, children or decrepit men. These internecine family wars have undoubtedly been the sole cause of the present subdivisions of the savages as we note them to-day.