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e Eskimo constituents. There are a picturesque little Russian church, and the Jesse Lee Home for orphans and foundlings, endowed by a number of charitable women in Washington. It was quickly learned that a number of the more adventurous ships were frozen up in the ice. Others were not known about; perhaps they had found a lucky opening and slipped through. Several of the vessels then in the harbor, essaying to get through, had met with ice in quantity, and had discreetly returned. A photograph taken by a passenger on one of these latter ships, posted up on the _Lane_, tended to chill the ardor of some of the enthusiastic souls who were for going right through and losing no time in accumulating wealth. It is safe only for wooden vessels, specially fortified for the purpose, to "buck" the ice, such as whalers and the United States revenue cutter _Bear_, which was among the first to arrive at Nome. The _Santa Anna_ had had a fearful time of it, having been afire in the hold for four days, reaching Dutch Harbor, however, with no lives lost, but with all baggage destroyed. Naturally, every one was keen to be ashore and to stroll about the island, meeting friends who had come on other vessels. Everything was "wide open." Hastily-erected saloons and gambling devices of all kinds were doing a flourishing business, patronized indiscriminately by the sexes; and there was a large run on the stores for candies and sweets generally. I trustingly gave to one of the most intelligent-looking native women some soiled clothes to wash. When returned they were scarcely recognizable, but she insisted that they belonged to me. People were almost universally complaining about the over-crowding on their ships and the poor food, so much so that we of the _Lane_ began to believe that we were living strictly _en prince_. Some of the horses which had been taken ashore were in a pitifully cut-up condition, but nearly all that I saw at Nome were splendid-looking animals. Base-ball matches between nines picked from the various ships were held, with the usual ensuing umpire difficulties. After a while, however, the novelty of the thing wore away. Under the leadership of a certain "judge," prominent in the organization of townships in Oklahoma, a party of us from the _Lane_, half in jest and half seriously, staked out, pursuant to law, a town site to be known as "Lane City," and drew lots for our respective real-estate holdings. This move seemed to c
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