Fort Wrangel.—Plenty of Wild Game.—Natives do not care for Soldiers, but have a Wholesome Fear of Gunboats.—Mode of Trading.—Girls’ School and Home.—A Deadly Tragedy.—Native Jewelry and Carving.—No Totem-Poles for Sale.—Missionary Enterprises.—Progress in Educating Natives.—Various Denominations Engaged in the Missionary Work. We prefer to think it was to see the sun rise that we got up so early on arriving at Fort Wrangel, and not because of the torturing fact that our berth was too short at both ends, and kept us in a chronic state of wakefulness and cramp. The distance passed over in coming hither from Victoria was about eight hundred miles. The place, having about five hundred inhabitants, is advantageously situated on an island at the mouth of the Stickeen River, which rises in British Columbia and has a length of nearly two hundred and fifty miles. There is here an excellent and capacious harbor, surrounded by grand mountains, while lofty snow-crowned summits more inland break the sky-line in nearly all directions,—mountain towering above mountain, until the view is lost among far-away peaks, blue and indistinct. This elevated district contains wild goats, with now and then a grizzly bear, fiercest of his tribe, while in its ravines and valleys the little mule-deer, the brown bear, the fox, the land-otter, the mink, and various other animals abound. As to the small streams and river courses which thread the territory, they are, as all over this country, crowded with fish, the salmon prevailing. The inland haunts within twenty leagues of the coast are little disturbed by the natives. The abundance of halibut, cod, and salmon at their very doors, as it were, is quite sufficient to satisfy the demands of nature, and it is only when tempted by the white man’s gold that the aborigines will leave the coast to go inland in search of pelts and meat, in the form of venison, goat, or bear flesh.