September 18th

Thursday. This morning the men here gave up hopes of the steamer's arrival. It rained hard all night, this morning everything was in mist. At half-past nine someone saw the faint form of the steamer making up Glacier. We were all delighted and happy as possible. Mr. Johnston wanted the raft on which our baggage stored piled to pile his boxes of salmon and take them out to the steamer, so we went out and transferred our traps to a smaller raft. While doing this we saw the steamer coming back. She had probably met ice and would not venture further. Down she came, but did not seem to turn towards us. She could only be faintly discerned and we could not be sure at any moment that she was not turning. On, on she went and finally disappeared behind a projecting point of land. How our hearts sank and our tempers arose! This end of our trip seems to be made up of anxieties and disappointments. There is one more hope left. The Chinook is due back here by five o'clock this afternoon. I offered Mr. Johnston $75 if he would take us immediately to Juneau. The trip takes about 10 hours. He agreed to do so. The steamer will probably go first to Chilcat and then to Juneau, in which case she will not get to Juneau before tomorrow evening. If she does not go to Chilcat she will reach Juneau tonight, and will probably lie there all night; in that case we hope to catch her before she leaves in the morning. The men here do not think much of the Siwashes, nor do they think the missions inspire them. They say the missions make them more intelligent and teach them to read, but do not inspire their morals. Some of the white men here have Indian squaws, a state of thing which seems to me infinitely more barbarous and degraded than that of the Indians themselves!

Tah-kho-quette's squaw has been hanging about all morning to get the money, but I would not understand what she wanted. They can wait and have some anxiety about their money, after behaving as they have. We gave them, when we broke camp, what would cost them at least $10.