The women cut their hair short on the forehead, nearly even with the eyebrows, causing one to surmise that these Thlinkits—a generic name given to the tribes in this vicinity—must have set the fashion of “banging” the hair, which is so popular among civilized belles. Just so the Japanese women originated the hideous fashion of the “bustle.” The author saw this awkward and unbecoming appendage worn upon the backs of the women of Yokohama, Tokio, and Nagasaki three years before it appeared upon the streets of Boston and New York. And now we hear of the “clinging” style of drapery, in which underskirts even are discarded, called the Grecian or classic style. Alas! will nothing but extremes satisfy the importunate demands of fashion? Heaven send that we do not import another fashion from Alaska or the South Seas, namely tattooing. It is quite common here, among young girls of about twelve years of age, whose cheeks and chins are often thus disfigured by irregular lines. The more the natives associate with the whites, however, the more rarely this tattooing is resorted to, and it may be said, as a fashion, to be going out in Alaska, though it is undoubtedly one of the most widely diffused practices of savage life, from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. The Alaskans have an original way of producing this indelible marking, the color being fixed by drawing a thread under the skin, whereas the usual mode among various savages is by pricking it in with a needle. The favorite colors are red and blue. We were told that common women were permitted to adorn their chins with but one vertical line in the centre, and one parallel to it on either side, while a woman of the better or wealthier class is allowed two vertical lines from each corner of the mouth. The New Zealand Maori women tattoo their chins in a very similar manner, keeping the rest of the face in a natural condition. We had threaded the intricate labyrinth of islands, bays, and channels, guarded by miles upon miles of sentinel peaks, nearly all day, on one occasion, under a depressing fog and rain, when suddenly a bold headland was rounded, which had seemed for hours to completely bar our way, and we passed out from under the shadow of the frowning cliffs and the gloom of the dark fathomless waters just as the sun burst forth, warm, bright, and resistless, while the view expanded before us nearly to the horizon. The mist, like shrouded ghosts, stole silently away, vanishing behind the rocks and cliffs. Every dewy drop of moisture, on ship and shore, glittered like diamonds in the dazzling rays of the new-born light, changing the verdant islands into a glory of color, and the whole view to one of majestic loveliness, through which we glided as smoothly as though in a gondola upon the Grand Canal at Venice.