The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-09-13

On the 14th of July we got to cape
Blossom In Kotzebue Sound. There we
found the Guardian, Northern Light,
Leslie D. and several little schooners,
apparently hardly large enough TO
navigate San Francisco Bay. Yet these
little fellows had the cheek to start
from California and Washington ports
to come away up here. And they got
here, too, which makes their preSump-
ton still worse.
These vesse, had been here since the
Fourth of July and many men had
gone I'm the river But the main body
of miners was waiting for the river
steamers, four in number, that were to
be towed up by sailing vessels. Every
body was jubilant and hopeful. There
b been no gold in evidence. The ma
tives had no nuggets, no gold dust. The
missionaries had not seen any, but the
miners were confident of success just
the sam. The Lord is said to pay par
ticular attention to people like these,
who will start out on such an expedi-
ton with nothing to go on but the
shadow Of a rumor
Before leaving Seattle one man,
doctor Of medicine wrote asking me
about the truth of the stories regarding
Kotzebue Sound and the probability of
success there. 1 answered that every
story ! had heard so far and had been
able to sift down was false; that the
officers of the Bear had not located
claims there and Captain Tuttle had
not grub staked a native to hunt for
gold. l told him that the rumors of
gold emanated from the whalers. l
suppose he was not acquainted with
any whalers, because he came up here
in spite of that statement of mine.
Going into Cap Blossom we passed
the Leslie D. and Willard Ainsworth.
We left that night and found the Cath
crime Sudden and Jane Falkinberg, each
With a little sternwheel steamer in tow,
anchored under Cape Kruzensterne.
They hal been carried by the current
to the northward, past the entrance to
the sound.
At Cape Blossom we found Mr.. TIL
ton, who brought the first news down
from Point Barrow last winter He is
chief mate of the Northern Light. We
had on board the Bear Hickey and his
wife, the Point Hope natives who
guided him to ST. Michael. Tilton came
over to see his natives and thev went
almost wild in their delight at seeing
him again.
We picked up these natives from the
Bonanza at Port Clarence. They had
come from San Francisco on her. They
declared that they would not dare tell
the folks at home all they had seen,
because the Point Hope natives can
stand only a reasonable amount of ro-
mancing What struck them more for
chilly than anything else was shooting |
the chutes.' They were strutting |
around on the ship in San Francisco |
clothes until we neared Point Hope. |
when they began to "shuck" them and |
come out in their skin clothing. We |
reached Point Hope on the evening of |
the 18th and the two natives went |
ashore. 1t transpired later that some
body at Point Clarence had given them |
bottle of whisky with instructions |
not to drink it while on the Bear, but |
the moment they touched the beach |
Mr. and Mrs. Hickey got gloriously |
drunk to the envy Of their admiring
neighbors.
Here Lieutenant E. P. Bertholf came
on board. He was in excellent health |
and declared that he had passed
pleasant winter. The only thing that
troubled him seriously In his long
sled trip was the poor fare that he had
in many places. The extreme cold was
not so disagreeable, because it was al
ways calm when the thermometer
went away down. But the bliZzards,
with their moderately low tempera
ture, were decidedly uncomfortable.
Bertholf has made more progress in
learning the language than anybody 1
have ever seen who has spent such a
short time in the country. He was
just beginning to get at the true
language of the natives. He says they
talk to the white man in language
like our pigeon English. He mastered
that all right and was beginning to get
at some of the moods and lenses when
we arrived. Mr.. Lopp at Cape Prince
of Wales speaks the language of the
natives. Scarcely any other white
man in the country does that. Charley
Peterson, an old employee Of the Alaska
Commercial Company on the Yukon
River, talks like native. but he is no
grammarian and cannot explain the
language to the other whites
Father Barnum is the man
VINO Will nnally codffy the
language. He has worked like
the men who decipher hieroglyphic in
scriptions. He has in his manuscript
enough of the language to give it to
the civilized world and hopes to COM
plete his work and publish it before
many years.
According to Father Barnum, the
language is exceptionally rich, like the
Greek. Its action expresses itself in
examinations. There are no detached
adjectives or adverbs. The whole thing
appears to go into the verb. To every
verb there are 3537 forms, while the
Greek verbs run up to about 14OO only.
Father Barnum says the language is