We camped at 8:30 P.M. near several Indian graves, about a mile or two above the mouth of the Whymper River, which comes in from the left, and just on the upper boundary of the conspicuous valley of that stream. There were quite a number of graves at this point, forming the first and only burying place we saw on the river that might be called a family graveyard, _i.e._, a spot where a number, say six or seven, were buried in a row within a single inclosure. From its posts at the corners and sides were the usual _totems_ and old rags flying, two of the carvings representing, I think, a duck and a bear respectively, while the others could not be made out. We had heard, in an imperfect way, on the upper river, that some disease was raging among the natives on the lower part, and that whole villages had been swept away and bodies left unburied, but this proved to be wholly sensational. A mild form of measles had indeed attacked a small town, causing one or two deaths, but this was the only foundation we could find for the report. The Yukon River, however, is a great thoroughfare for contagious disease, and maladies raging among the Chilkats have been known to travel its whole course as rapidly as we had done, and from the river as a base had spread right and left among the native tribes, until the cold weather of approaching winter subdued them, if they were amenable to the influence of temperature. I have never heard of any returning against the stream, but instances of their descending it are not infrequent. Dr. Wilson tried to get a skull out of the many we assumed were at hand, to send to the Army Museum's large craniological collection, but although several very old-looking sites were opened, the skulls were too fresh to be properly prepared in the brief time at our disposal.
The most welcome change in this hilly country is the diminishing of the gnats and mosquitoes into quite endurable numbers. We found several varieties of berries near this camp, one or two of which were quite palatable; the crisp rosebuds still continuing to appear, although perhaps they were not so large as those we found near old Fort Yukon.
These lower ramparts so closely resemble the ramparts of the Upper Yukon in many particulars that the conviction seemed irresistible that they are one and the same chain of mountains, and if I may be excused the simile, are stretched like a bow-string across the great arc of the Yukon, as it bends northward into the Arctic flat-lands, which latter beyond the timber line become the great Arctic tundra.