Travels in Alaska 



two, and climbed to the top of a rock through the 

 common underbrush, whence I had a good general 

 view. The front of the main glacier is not far 

 distant from the fiord, and sends off small bergs into 

 a lake. The walls of its tributary canons are re- 

 markably jagged and high, cut in a red variegated 

 rock, probably slate. On the way back to the canoe I 

 gathered ripe salmon-berries an inch and a half in 

 diameter, ripe huckleberries, too, in great abundance, 

 and several interesting plants I had not before met in 

 the territory. 



About noon, when the tide was in our favor, we set 

 out on the return trip to the gold-mine camp. The 

 sun shone free and warm. No wind stirred. The 

 water spaces between the bergs were as smooth as 

 glass, reflecting the unclouded sky, and doubling the 

 ravishing beauty of the bergs as the sunlight streamed 

 through their innumerable angles in rainbow colors. 



Soon a light breeze sprang up, and dancing lily 

 spangles on the water mingled their glory of light 

 with that burning on the angles of the ice. 



On days like this, true sun-days, some of the bergs 

 show a purplish tinge, though most are white from 

 the disintegrating of their weathered surfaces. Now 

 and then a new-born one is met that is pure blue 

 crystal throughout, freshly broken from the fountain 

 or recently exposed to the air by turning over. But 

 in all of them, old and new, there are azure caves and 

 rifts of ineffable beauty, in which the purest tones of 

 light pulse and shimmer, lovely and untainted as any- 

 thing on earth or in the sky. 



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