At Orca 251 



described. The sight of it would make a poet tune 

 his lyre. First, one of those silver ribbons was 

 seen gathering up a bunch of lesser ones in the 

 snow two thousand feet above, and sliding down, 

 now a veil, now a silver wire, down the mossy cliff 

 to the sea. Next came a larger one bounding and 

 leaping like a white antlered stag and taking a 

 grand leap into the brine. But from the woods 

 beyond came the sound of a cataract. There was 

 a river zigzagging, leaping in spray which curved 

 high in the air, over huge black rocks. It came 

 down through a dense growth of trees, and looking 

 up, just as far as the eye could penetrate, it was 

 seen, now hidden, now revealed, roaring down and 

 filling the air with flying water-drops. They had 

 drawn off enough of it below to turn the machinery 

 of that huge cannery, where they take in a dozen 

 tons of salmon at a load. Remember that this 

 background of Orca is not a steep hillside, it is a 

 tremendous cliff, which you could no more scale 

 than you could a Corinthian pillar. 



The party that met regularly around the smoke- 

 stack consisted of all the passengers, namely, Mrs. 

 M. L. Claiborne, of Seattle, and two children; Mrs. 

 Charles H. Harper and her little daughter, also of 

 Seattle; Dr. and Mrs. Mulhollan; after we arrived 

 at Unga and until we arrived at Kadiak, Mr. M. L. 

 Washburn, Major Clarke, and myself. But at Orca 

 we met a disaster. The smoke-stack had been our 

 social hall. There was where Dr. Mulhollan laid 



