Travels in Alaska 



sive a manner I thought I would try the queer mount, 

 the only one of the kind I had enjoyed since boyhood 

 days in playing leapfrog. Away staggered my per- 

 pendicular mule over the boulders into the brawling 

 torrent, and in spite of top-heavy predictions to the 

 contrary, crossed without a fall. After being ferried 

 in this way over several more of these glacial streams, 

 we at length reached the foot of the glacier wall. The 

 doctor simply played tag on it, touched it gently as if 

 it were a dangerous wild beast, and hurried back to 

 the boat, taking the portage Indian with him for 

 safety, little knowing what he was missing. Mr. 

 Young and I traced the glorious crystal wall, admir- 

 ing its wonderful architecture, the play of light in the 

 rifts and caverns, and the structure of the ice as dis- 

 played in the less fractured sections, finding fresh 

 beauty everywhere and facts for study. We then 

 tried to climb it, and by dint of patient zigzagging 

 and doubling among the crevasses, and cutting steps 

 here and there, we made our way up over the brow 

 and back a mile or two to a height of about seven 

 hundred feet. The whole front of the glacier is gashed 

 and sculptured into a maze of shallow caves and 

 crevasses, and a bewildering variety of novel archi- 

 tectural forms, clusters of glittering lance-tipped 

 spires, gables, and obelisks, bold outstanding bastions 

 and plain mural cliffs, adorned along the top with 

 fretted cornice and battlement, while every gorge and 

 crevasse, groove and hollow, was filled with light, 

 shimmering and throbbing in pale-blue tones of in- 

 effable tenderness and beauty. The day was warm, 



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