So I got no picture, save the picture indelibly impressed upon my memory, of the noblest mountain scene I had ever gazed upon which made memorable this 1st of March; perhaps one of the noblest mountain scenes in the whole world, for one does not recall another so great uplift from so low a base. The marshy, flat country that stretches from Minchúmina to the mountains cannot be much more than one thousand feet above the sea. Those awful precipices dropping thousands of feet at a leap, those peaks rising serene and everlasting into the highest heaven, the overwhelming size and strength and solidity of their rocky bulk, all this sank into my heart, and there sprang up once again the passionate desire of exploring the bowels of them, of creeping along their glaciers and up their icy ridges, of penetrating their hidden chambers, inviolate since the foundation of the world, and maybe scaling their ultimate summits and looking down upon all the earth even as they look down! Men, however, and not mountains, made the immediate demand upon one's interest and attention, and I returned to breakfast and the duties of the day. The Minchúmina people are a very feeble folk, some sixteen all told at the time of our visit, greatly reduced by the epidemics of the last decade, living remote from all others on the verge of their race's habitat. They trade chiefly at Tanana, a hundred and thirty miles or so away, walking an annual trip thither with their furs, and owning a nominal allegiance to our mission at that place. It was the first time that any clergyman had ever visited them, and the whole of the day was spent with them, discovering what they knew and trying to teach them a little more. The people sat around on the floor and hung upon the lips of the interpreter. But what a barrier a difference of language is! An interpreter is like a mountain pass, a means of access but at the cost of time and labour. He does not remove the obstruction. The Minchúmina people occupy a fine country that could amply support ten times the Indian population that now inhabits it. We were, indeed, now entering a country that has been almost depopulated by successive epidemics of contagious diseases. The measles in 1900 slew most of them, and diphtheria in 1906 destroyed all the children and many of the adults that remained. The chief of this little band wore a hat proudly adorned with ribbons and plumes, and flew a flag before his dwelling with the initials of the North American Trading and Transportation Company on it--a defunct Alaskan corporation. We could not learn the origin thereof; the flag and the letters were plainly home-made. It was probably a mere imitation of a flag he had seen years ago at Tanana, copied without knowledge of the meaning of the letters, as the Esquimaux often copy into the decoration of their clothing and equipment the legends from canned foods.