230 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



The mail-boat, the Excelsior, came up the har- 

 bor at last. I was watching for her. That was 

 coal-smoke, I was sure, rising behind the moun- 

 tains. "No, it is old Shishaldon smoking his pipe," 

 said one. Volcano smoke is mostly steam and 

 white. This was black. As soon as she rounded 

 "the Priest," though she was a mere speck on the 

 water, Captain Nice said, "That is the Excelsior." 

 These seamen know every boat on the Pacific. I 

 asked him what he could see from the distant, 

 almost invisible, ship that made him so sure. He 

 said that every boat had its features as men have. 

 The mark of the Excelsior which he immediately 

 recognized is the way she wears her main spar 

 across her mainmast. The Roanoke, a vessel over 

 three hundred feet long, came in swarming with 

 prospectors bound for Cape Nome. When we left 

 I had to cross two ships to get to the Excelsior. 

 That beautiful, but usually solitary, harbor had 

 suddenly become a crowded seaport. Adventurers 

 swarm up that way toward the gold-fields. One 

 meets more ships than he would on the highway 

 between New York and Liverpool. 



I left that flowery island, with its smooth, round 

 mountains, its encompassing volcanoes, its springs 

 and waterfalls, and its snowy peaks, with regret. 

 Those few delightful days will be one of my pleas- 

 ant memories. 



