170 TEAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



came on, she was equal to doing all required of her, 

 which merely consisted in frightening the Indians 

 into a state of loyalty. Next day the last of the shel- 

 tering islands was left behind, and we enjoyed a mag- 

 nificent view of Mount Eairweather at some distance 

 from the coast, a glittering ice-pinnacle from sea to 

 summit, 15,500 feet in height. 



Early the following morning, as I stepped on deck, 

 we were steering towards the village of Yakatat 

 Indians situated at the entrance of the large bay 

 called Yakatat or Behring Bay. The atmosphere was 

 cloudless, and brilliant with the transparency of sun- 

 rise. At a distance of about sixty miles rose the 

 great snow-covered dome-like pinnacle over whose 

 praises the early navigators had grown so enthusiastic, 

 rising above a coast upon which none but an Indian had 

 ever set his foot, and which had attracted me hither 

 from the shores of England a vast mass 20,000 feet 

 high, festooned with ice, a frightful pyramid, the 

 like of which exists not elsewhere on the globe, and 

 to whose top no living man shall ever climb.* 

 Imagine that you see a mountain of ice, snow, and 

 rock twice as high as Mont Blanc as seen perhaps 

 from Chamounix, rising from the sea; that is the 



* A party, consisting of Messrs. E. H. and H. W. Topham, 

 George Broke, and William Williams, the latter an American, 

 and connected with, the Alaska Commercial Company, all of them 

 being members of the English Alpine Club, left Victoria, B.C., 

 on June 5th, 1888, to attempt Mount St. Elias, on which they 

 attained a height of 11,000 feet, and returned after a series of 

 exciting and perilous experiences. 



