'Travels in Alaska 



to the great glaciers and near enough to see the birth 

 of the icebergs and the wonderful commotion they 

 make, and hear their wild, roaring rejoicing. The 

 sunset sky seemed to have been painted for this one 

 mountain mansion, fitting it like a ceiling. After the 

 fiord was in shadow the level sunbeams continued to 

 pour through the miles of bergs with ravishing beauty, 

 reflecting and refracting the purple light like cut 

 crystal. Then all save the tips of the highest became 

 dead white. These, too, were speedily quenched, the 

 glowing points vanishing like stars sinking beneath 

 the horizon. And after the shadows had crept higher, 

 submerging the glaciers and the ridges between them, 

 the divine alpenglow still lingered on their highest 

 fountain peaks as they stood transfigured in glorious 

 array. Now the last of the twilight purple has van- 

 ished, the stars begin to shine, and all trace of the 

 day is gone. Looking across the fiord the water seems 

 perfectly black, and the two great glaciers are seen 

 stretching dim and ghostly into the shadowy moun- 

 tains now darkly massed against the starry sky. 



Next morning it was raining hard, everything 

 looked dismal, and on the way down the fiord a 

 growling head wind battered the rain in our faces, but 

 we held doggedly on and by 10 A.M. got out of the 

 fiord into Stephens Passage. A breeze sprung up in 

 our favor that swept us bravely on across the passage 

 and around the end of Admiralty Island by dark. We 

 camped in a boggy hollow on a bluff among scraggy, 

 usnea-bearded spruces. The rain, bitterly cold and 

 driven by a stormy wind, thrashed us well while we 



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