Travels in Alaska 



at the head of which lie the Hoona sealing-grounds, 

 and the great glacier now called the Pacific, and 

 another called the Hoona. The fiord is about five 

 miles long, and two miles wide at the mouth. Here 

 our Hoona guide had a store of dry wood, which we 

 took aboard. Then, setting sail, we were driven 

 wildly up the fiord, as if the storm-wind were saying, 

 "Go, then, if you will, into my icy chamber; but you 

 shall stay in until I am ready to let you out." All this 

 time sleety rain was falling on the bay, and snow on 

 the mountains; but soon after we landed the sky be- 

 gan to open. The camp was made on a rocky bench 

 near the front of the Pacific Glacier, and the canoe 

 was carried beyond the reach of the bergs and berg- 

 waves. The bergs were now crowded in a dense pack 

 against the discharging front, as if the storm-wind 

 had determined to make the glacier take back her 

 crystal offspring and keep them at home. 



While camp affairs were being attended to, I set 

 out to climb a mountain for comprehensive views ; and 

 before I had reached a height of a thousand feet the 

 rain ceased, and the clouds began to rise from the 

 lower altitudes, slowly lifting their white skirts, and 

 lingering in majestic, wing-shaped masses about the 

 mountains that rise out of the broad, icy sea, the high- 

 est of all the white mountains, and the greatest of all 

 the glaciers I had yet seen. Climbing higher for a 

 still broader outlook, I made notes and sketched, im- 

 proving the precious time while sunshine streamed 

 through the luminous fringes of the clouds and fell on 

 the green waters of the fiord, the glittering bergs, the 



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