"The Stickeen Glaciers 



the flat low-toned bumps and splashes of large drops 

 from the trees on the broad horizontal leaves of 

 Echinopanax horridum, like the drumming of thunder- 

 shower drops on veratrum and palm leaves, while the 

 mosses were indescribably beautiful, so fresh, so 

 bright, so cheerily green, and all so low and calm and 

 silent, however heavy and wild the wind and the rain 

 blowing and pouring above them. Surely never a 

 particle of dust has touched leaf or crown of all these 

 blessed mosses; and how bright were the red rims of 

 the cladonia cups beside them, and the fruit of the 

 dwarf cornel! And the wet berries, Nature's precious 

 jewelry, how beautiful they were ! huckleberries with 

 pale bloom and a crystal drop on each; red and yellow 

 salmon-berries, with clusters of smaller drops; and 

 the glittering, berry-like raindrops adorning the in- 

 terlacing arches of bent grasses and sedges around the 

 edges of the pools, every drop a mirror with all the 

 landscape in it. A' that and a' that and twice as 

 muckle's a' that in this glorious Alaska day, recalling, 

 however different, George Herbert's "Sweet day, so 

 cool, so calm, so bright." 



In the gardens and forests of this wonderful moraine 

 one might spend a whole joyful life. 



When I at last reached the end of the great moraine 

 and the front of the mountain that forms the north 

 side of the glacier basin, I tried to make my way along 

 its side, but, finding the climbing tedious and difficult, 

 took to the glacier and fared well, though a good deal 

 of step-cutting was required on its ragged, crevassed 

 margin. When night was drawing nigh, I scanned the 



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