Juneau, located one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Sitka, and about three hundred north of Fort Wrangel, is already a considerable mining centre, with a population of about four thousand, situated not far from Takou district, and is the depot for the rich quartz and placer mines which are located in the region back of it. The site of the town is picturesque, being at the base of an abrupt mountain cliff which is decked with sparkling cascades. We were told that there is a rise and fall of twenty-four feet in the tide at the wharf of Juneau, but think perhaps eighteen feet would be nearer correct. The winter population is swelled by the influx of miners when the placers are not worked owing to snow and ice. Truth compels us to say that the residents here, of both sexes, are far from being of a desirable class. The Indians of this vicinity are of the Auk and Takou tribes; good traders and good hunters, but enemies of each other, though not given to open hostility. The native women, as if not content with the natural ugliness which has been liberally bestowed upon them by Providence, besmear their faces with a compound of seal-oil and lampblack, but for what possible reason, except that it is aboriginal Alaska fashion, one cannot divine. It is said that this is a sort of mourning for departed relations or friends; but the hilarity of those thus marked was anything but an indication of sorrow. We can well remember Yokohama wives, with blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows, who looked, if possible, a degree worse than these Alaskan women. In the latter case, however, the wives confessedly sought to make themselves hideous to prevent jealousy on the part of their husbands; but the native women here do not assign any plausible reason for smooching themselves in this offensive manner. When their faces are washed, a circumstance of rare occurrence, they are as white as the average of white people who are exposed to an out-of-door life. It is not the practice of the aborigines of either sex to wash themselves with water. They are sometimes seen to besmear their faces and hands with oil, which they carefully wipe off with a wisp of dry grass, or other substitute for the towel of civilization. The effect is to make the features shine like varnished mahogany; but as to cleanliness obtained by such a process, that does not follow. If it were possible to discover a soap mine here there might be some hopes of introducing among the natives that condition which common acceptation places next to godliness. A traveling companion remarked that although milk and honey could not be said to flow in this neighborhood, oil does.