236 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



a distance of fifty miles, but at last the poor otter 

 can dive no more, and amid great shouts and slap- 

 ping of paddles he is slain. 



We glided along between the islands and the 

 shore — Deer Island, Dolgoi Island, Gold Bay, with 

 innumerable rocks standing like pillars high out of 

 the water — and reached Unga on Unga Island. 

 Here is another low-grade-ore gold mine like the 

 Treadwell. The approach was higher, picturesque 

 — on either hand high cliffs surmounted with light 

 green verdure, the cliffs themselves so swarming 

 with millions of birds that in the distance, in moun- 

 tain-climbing in Unalaska, I was always looking at 

 cliffs and mountains to see where I could best climb 

 them. There was one near the entrance of the 

 harbor of Unga that particularly interested me. It 

 was three or four hundred feet high, its flat top 

 about an acre in extent, deep with verdure, and it 

 overhung its base on all sides like a mushroom, 

 under which the white wings of the kittiwakes 

 flash like fire-flies. How could anybody ever get 

 to the mossy top of that rock? There were two 

 ladies on board, besides Major Clarke, of the United 

 States seal island service, and they found rich spoils 

 of milk and cream for their children. I was inter- 

 ested in the cattle and asked the store-keeper about 

 them. They live well in winter, but with little 

 feed-bran to enrich the milk. I asked him why he 

 did not go into cattle-raising for a business. Surely 

 it would be highly profitable with competition fif- 



