Page:Alaska days with John Muir.djvu/219

Rh Alaska at that time had no vestige of civil government, no means of punishing crime, no civil officers except the customs collectors, no magistrate or police,—everyone was a law to himself. The only sign of authority was this cumbersome sailing vessel with its marines and sailors. It could not move out of Sitka harbor without first sending by the monthly mail steamer to San Francisco for a tug to come and tow it through these intricate channels to the sea where the sails could be spread. Of course, it was not of much use to this vast territory. The officers of the Jamestown were supposed to be doing some surveying, but, lacking the means of travel, what they did amounted to very little. They were interested at once in our account of the discovery of Glacier Bay and of the other unmapped