A candid verdict will result, in view of the surroundings of the Koloshian, that the only vice which can be legitimately charged up against him, or his kind, is the sin of gambling. To this dissipation the Alaskan savage is desperately prone; the monotonous chant of the stick-shuffling players is ever on the air in the villages. These worthies sit on the ground, in a circle usually, in the centre of which a mat is spread; six or seven small wooden pins about as large as the little finger of your hand, upon which various values are marked or carved, are taken into the hands of the first gambler, who thrusts them into a ball of soft teased cedar bark, or holds them under his blanket, then shuffles them rapidly, meanwhile shouting a deep guttural _hah-hah-ee-nah-hah!_ the others watch him with lynx-like eyes for a few moments, when one of the players suddenly orders the shuffler to show his hands, in which the sticks are firmly clinched, and at the same time endeavors to guess the value of these sticks in either one hand or the other, which have been held up—he pauses a moment, then makes his decision, the clinched hand designated is opened, the little sticks fall to the mat, and the caller wins or loses just as he happens to hit the value expressed by the markings on these pins: if he guesses correctly he wins everything in the pot or pool, and takes up the wooden dice in turn, to shuffle, shout, and repeat for the rest of the circle. This game is usually sustained night and day, until some one of the party remains the winner of everything that the others started in with. That wretched debauchery which an introduction of rum into the rancheries of these natives has caused, cannot be justly laid at the Indian’s door; this intense morbid craving for liquor among the Alaskan savages of this region is most likely due to the climate—it is not near so strong in the appetite of the natives who live east of the coast range. Although Congress has legislated, and our officials have endeavored to carry out the prohibition statutes, yet the matter thus far is wholly beyond control—the savage cannot only smuggle successfully within these intricate watery channels, but he now thoroughly understands the distillation of rum itself from sugar and molasses.