Across the end of Lake Minchúmina, across Tsórmina and Sishwóymina and a number of lesser lakes we went, following a faint show-shoe trail towards a distant mountain group to the southwest, the Talida Mountains, at the foot of which lay the Talida village. On the other hand, to the east and southeast, we had tantalising glimpses through haze and cloud of the two great mountains, and presently of the lesser peaks of the whole Alaskan range, sweeping its proud curve to the coast. For a long way on the second day we travelled on the flat top of a narrow ridge that must surely have been a lateral moraine of a glacier, what time the ice poured down from the heights and stretched far over this valley--then through scattered timber, increasing in size and thickness and already displaying character that differed somewhat from the familiar forests of the Yukon. The show-shoe trail we were following was made by a messenger despatched by the Minchúmina people to invite the Talida people to a potlatch; for the caches were filled with moose meat beyond local consumption. Early on the second day we met him returning and learned that he had gone on to yet another village a day's journey farther, still on our route. The people were all gone hunting from the tiny native hamlet of Talida, but we entered a cabin and made ourselves at home. We had passed into the region where the Greek Church holds nominal sway, of which the icons with little candles before them on the walls gave token. No priest ever visits them, but a native at a village on the south fork where is a church holds some position analogous to that of a lay reader. The nearest priest is a half-breed, ill spoken of for irregularity of life, some two hundred miles farther down the river. The Greek Church is relaxing its hold in Alaska, perhaps inevitably, and suffers sadly since the removal of the bishop from Sitka from lack of supervision. Also we had passed out of Indian country into the land of the Esquimaux, for these people, far up towards the head of the river as they were, had yet come at some period from the mouth. We were out of Walter's language range now, and were glad that the bilingual John of the march country was with us to serve as interpreter.