CHAPTER XI.SITKA.
SITKA, or New Archangel, situated on Baranoff Island, in the middle of the archipelagos of the western coast, is not only the capital of the island, it is likewise the capital of the whole province which had just been ceded to the Federal government. There was no city of greater importance in this region, where the traveler finds but few towns, mere villages indeed, scantily sprinkled at long intervals. It would be even more accurate to designate these villages as settlements or trading stations. For the most part they belong to American companies; a few are the property of the English Hudson Bay Company. It is then easily understood that the means of communication between these stations are very difficult, especially during the bad season, in the midst of all the hardships of the Alaskan winter.
A few years ago, Sitka was still but an unfrequented
commercial center, where the Russo-American Company kept
its stores of furs and hides.
But thanks to the discoveries made in that province, which is contiguous to the polar regions, Sitka very soon underwent a considerable development; and, under its new administration, it will become an opulent city, worthy of this new State of the Confederacy.
At this time already, Sitka possessed all those edifices
which constitute what is called a “town,” a Lutheran
church, a very simple edifice whose architectural style does
not lack grandeur; a Greek church with one of those cupolas
that are so little in harmony with a fog-laden sky, so
different from the Eastern skies; a club, the Club Gardens, a sort of Parisian Tivoli where the habitual visitor and the traveler find restaurants, cafes, bars, and amusements of all kinds; a club-house, the doors of which are open to single men only; a school, a hospital, with fine houses, villas, and cottages picturesquely grouped on the surrounding hillocks. This landscape is horizoned by a vast forest of resinous trees which encase it in their eternal verdure, and beyond, a ridge of lofty mountains, the summits of which are lost in the clouds, and, lording it over all of them, Mt. Edgecumb, the giant of Crooze Island, to the north of Baranoff Island, the peak of which rises to a height of eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.
On the whole, if the climate of Sitka is not very severe, if
the thermometer hardly ever goes below seven or eight
degrees centigrade—although the town be crossed by the
fifty-sixth parallel—it would deserve to be called the “watering
town” par excellence. In truth, on Baranoff Island, it
always rains, you may say, unless it snows. Let it surprise
no one, therefore, if after crossing the canal in a ferry with
all its household and belongings, the Fair Rambler entered
Sitka under a torrent of rain. And still Mr. Cascabel had
no thought of complaining, since he had reached the town
at the very time of a transaction which enabled him to enter
it without a passport. “Many a bit of good luck I have
had in my day, but never such luck as this!” he went on
repeating. “We were just at the gate, unable to get in, and
slambang goes the door, of itself, just in time, before us!”
The treaty of the cession of Alaska had been signed
opportunely, indeed, to enable the Fair Rambler to cross
the frontier. And on this soil, now American, none of
those unmanageable officials, none of those formalities in
regard to which the Russian administration shows such
severity.
And now it would have been the simplest thing on earth
to bring our Russian either to the Sitka hospital where all
due care would have been bestowed upon him, or to a hotel
where he might have the attendance of a doctor. Still, when Mr. Cascabel proposed the matter to him:
“I feel better, my friend,” he replied, “and if I am not
in your way—”
“In our way, sir!” exclaimed Cornelia. “And what do
you mean by being in our way?”
“You are at home here,” added Mr. Cascabel, “and if
you think—”
“Well, I think it is best for me not to leave those who
have picked me up—who have devoted themselves—”
“All right, sir, all right!” answered Cascabel. “Still
you must lose no time in seeing a medical man.”
“Might I not see him here?”
“By all means, and I am off, myself, to fetch you the
best in the town.”