This river steamer, the "Yukon," was daily expected by "Jo" Ladue, and upon it he intended to return to Nuklakayet, his winter station. I also hoped to fall in with it during the next week, as our civilized provisions were at a very low ebb and I wished to replenish them. During a great part of our drift on the 24th, we were accompanied by Jo and his three Indian allies, in their scow, who said they would keep us company until we met the "Yukon" steamer. While we were leisurely floating along, "Jo" saw a "short cut" in the river's bend, into which we could not row our ponderous craft, and down this he quickly disappeared, remarking that he would pick out a good camping place for us for the night.
Although we were well out of the high mountainous country, we could see the chain through which we had passed still bearing off to the left, the summits in many places covered with snow, long fingers of which extended down such mountain gullies as had a northern exposure. As we emerged from the hilly country the soil, for the first time, seemed to be thick and black wherever it was exposed to our eye by the caving in of the banks; and grass, always good, now became really luxuriant for any climate. In many places we saw grass ready to mow, were it not for the fact that even the largest prairies have an undergrowth of stunted brush which one might not observe at a distance in the high grass, but which is very perceptible in walking through it. The greatest obstacle to cattle raising in the Yukon valley would be the dense swarms of mosquitoes, although I understand that a couple of head of cattle were kept at old Fort Yukon for one or two summers. By burning off all timber and brush from large districts and a little judicious drainage it might be possible to encourage this industry with the hardier breeds of cattle, but at present the case is too remote to speculate upon.
I now remarked in many places along the flat river-bottoms--which had high banks, however--that the ground was covered, especially in little open prairies, with a tough sponge-like moss or peat. If the bank was at all gravelly, so as to give good drainage, and to allow of the river excavating it gradually, as is usual in temperate climes, this thick moss was so interwoven and compacted that it would not break or separate in falling with the river banks, but remained attached to the crest, forming great blankets of moss that overhung the shores a foot thick, as I have endeavored to represent on this page, _a. b._ representing the moss. Some of these banks were from fifteen to eighteen feet in height, and this overhanging moss would even then reach to the water, keeping the shores neatly sodded to the water's edge on the inclined banks, and hanging perpendicularly from those that projected over. Great jagged rents and patches were torn out of the hem of this carpet by the limbs and roots of drifting logs, thus destroying its picturesque uniformity. I suppose the reason why it was more noticeable in open spaces was that the trees and underbrush, and especially their roots, would, from the effect of undermining, carry the moss into the water with their heavy weight as they fell.