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REPORT     OF THE    COMMISSIONER       OF INDIAN     AFFAIRS.     331 
6. Number of white persons on reservation: 
Agent, wife,daughter, and son ...................................................
 4 
Blacksmith, wife, and daughter......................................... -
    3 
Carpenter, wife, two sons, and four daughters. .    .      ..---------------------------------8
Farjner, wife, and three children .................................................
 5 
Physician, (unmarried)..   .      .     .       .       .     ..--------------------------------------------------
I 
Interpreter, (unmarried) .........................................................
 1 
Trader, wife, and two children-----------------------------------     .....-4
Inspector of customs, (unmarried)................................................
1 
Total ...................................................................
 27 
7. Number of school-buildings.-The building formerly occupied as a school-building
and 
place of public gatherings, is still used on Sundays as a meeting-house.
It is also the house 
and headquarters of the physician, where he is daily consulted, and where
hospital accom- 
modations are offered to any of the sick who will accept them. The Indians
are, however, 
very superstitious about the management of their sick, and it is with the
greatest difficulty 
they are persuaded to leave their cabins to accept attendance in a hospital.
If one should 
chance to die in a hospital, (an event which has not yet occurred,) that
fact would so inten- 
sify their superstitious fear that I doubt if another would consent to enter
it. Still the offer 
of the best care is made them, and there can no longer be any complaint of
want of hospital 
accommodations at Neah Bay. The building now fitted up for the reservation-school
is the 
former trading-house of H. A. Webster, at Bahada Point, two miles distant
from the Indian 
camps, to which reference is made below. 
8 to 14 inclusive, referred to hereafter. 
15. Number of Indians who have received medical treatment during the year,
births and 
deaths.-I have no data relative to these inquiries until since the present
physician entered 
on duty, the 1st of July last, since which time all desired information will
be found inhis 
monthly reports. 
16. To the care of what religious body the agency is assigned.-The agent
is a minister of 
the Congregational Church, and is assigned to duty here by the recommendation
of both the 
Congregational and the Methodist missionary committees. The employes are
of different 
churches. One is a Lutheran, one a Baptist, two are Congregationalists, one
a member of 
no church, but a man of pure Christian character. 
17. Number of missionaries, 6rc.-This inquiry, and alr below to the twenty-sixth,
inclu- 
sive, are answered by saying none. No. 19, referring to church-buildings,
has been an- 
swered above under No. 7. 
27. Number of acres in the reservation.-As the reservation has never been
surveyed, the 
answers under this head must be a rough estimate, without any exact data.
The boundary 
of the reservation begins at a point some ten miles up the straits from Cape
Flattery; runs 
thence south six miles, and thence west to the Pacific Ocean, embracing a
tract of country 
some ten miles by six, or sixty square miles. The reservation farm is situated
upon the 
ocean beach, south of the cape, upon a tract of prairie land, where I judge
some sixty acres 
are inclosed in fence, about one-half of which is plowed, and the balance
is in meadow and 
pasture. Here, at Neah Bay, we have a field of probably twenty-five acres
of arable land 
under fence. The intervals of the Wa-ach and Suez Rivers are rich in the
production of grass, 
but are subject to overflow by the tides, and hence without diking unfit
for cultivation. In 
regard to the Wa-ach prairie, I made a report on the 6th of August. To this
I beg leave 
again to call your special attention as a matter of immense importance to
the agricultural 
interests of the agency. All the land now under cultivation, both here at
Neah Bay and at 
the farm round the cape is sandy and sterile, requiring constant manuring
in order to make 
it productive. The intervals referred to, if protected from salt water, would
furnish a field 
for agriculture broad in extent and inexhaustible in quality, and with proper
management 
would make this tribe of Indians in a short time independent. 
29. Rods of fencing made during the year.-No new fences have been made, but
much 
labor expended in moving and repairing old fences. 
30. Number of Indians engaged.-Thus far I have not induced the Indians to
turn their 
attention to farming. They are a sea-going people, more fond of fishing than
of farming, 
and until a more encouraging field is provided for them than any that is
now under cultiva- 
tion, they can actually do better with the products of the sea than of the
land, and will 
continue to seek the one and neglect the other. But when farming can be shown
to pay 
better, I believe they will many of them be induced to change the habits
of their life. 
31. Products raised by Government.-We have cut and secured what is estimated
at 30 
tons of hay, one half of which, for want of barn-room, is stacked in the
meadow. This, I am 
told by those long acquainted with the reservation, is more than was ever
cut upon it before. 
The theory has always been that hay could neither be cured here nor saved
in stacks, by 
reason of the humidity of the climate; but our hay is secured in good order.
Our stacks are 
well thatched by an experienced English thatcher, after the manner in which
stacks are 
secured in England, and are thus made secure from injury by any amount of
rain. Our oat 
harvest is not yet quite complete, but we estimate the quantity of unthrashed
oats at 10 tons ;