ave chapters of
missionary history. But the Church of England "does not advertise."
Writers about Alaska, even writers about Alaskan missions, carefully
collect all the data of the early Russian missions on the coast, but
ignore altogether the equally influential and lasting work done along
five hundred miles of what is now the American Yukon by the missionary
clergy of the English Church before and after the Purchase. Bishop
Bompas identified himself so closely with the natives as to become
almost one of them in the eyes of the white men, and many curious
stories linger amongst the old-timers as to his habits and appearance.
It is interesting to know that the bishop was a son of that Sergeant
Bompas of the English bar from whom Dickens drew the character of
Sergeant Buzfuz, counsel for the plaintiff in the famous suit of
"Bardell v. Pickwick."

But the natives have all left Fortymile, some to the large village of
Moosehide just below Dawson, some to Eagle. The town, too, like all the
upper Yukon towns, is much decayed; the custom-house, the police
barracks, the company's store, the road-house, and the little mission
embracing nearly all its activities and housing nearly all its
population.

There is always some feeling of satisfaction in reaching the broad
highway of the Yukon again, even though rough ice make bad going and one
of the most notorious, dirty road-houses in the North hold its menace
over one all day and amply fulfil it at night. There is indeed so little
travel on the river now that it does not pay any one to keep a
road-house save as incidental to a steamboat wood camp and summer
fishing station. Two short days' travel brought us across the
international boundary again to Eagle in Alaska, where at that time Fort
Egbert was garrisoned with two companies of soldiers.

[Sidenote: EAGLE]

Eagle and Fort Egbert together, for the one begins where the other ends,
have perhaps the finest and most commanding situation of any settlement
on the Yukon River. The mountains rise with dignity just across the
water and break pleasingly into the valley of Eagle Creek, a few miles
up-stream. To the rear of the town an inconsiderable flat does but give
space and setting before the mountains rise again; while just below the
military post stands the bold and lofty bluff called the Eagle Rock,
with Mission Creek winding into the Yukon at its foot. Robert Louis
Stevenson said that Edinburgh has the finest situation of any