86 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



in wondrous colour tints, and softly clothe the highest 

 snow-clad peaks with a golden mantle. 



The scene is of surpassing loveliness, whilst over 

 all there hangs a death-like stillness lending weird 

 charms to this island of solitude, once so full of 

 human life, but to-day wrapped in silence. Even the 

 birds flit noiselessly amongst the luxuriant grasses, 

 seeming as if smitten with sad forebodings of winter, 

 For are not they, even as us, wanderers, in this land 

 Of short, fickle summers, and the days are not far 

 distant when perforce they needs must undertake 

 once more those long, weary flights, battling their 

 way over countless miles of watery wastes, or cross- 

 ing dark forests, in quest of warmer climes. 



If the wanderer who visits these shores explores 

 the neighbourhood his reward will be strange and 

 novel sights. If his course lies to the westward there 

 are islands innumerable, barren, desolate, inhospit- 

 able spots. The home of gigantic volcanoes, and 

 even to-day a new island has recently been bodily 

 erupted from the ocean's depths, so that where less 

 than two years since vessels sailed in deep waters, 

 now there stands a forbidding emblem of Nature's 

 handiwork, with a rocky mountain top rising sheer 

 from the sea. Volumes of steam and smoke issue 

 from its summit. 



If destiny turns the wanderer eastward his ship 

 may take him to a land of low-lying shores which 

 during winter months lie fast locked in the chill 

 grip of ice and snow. Here, on isolated sandbanks, 

 are the haunts of countless sea-birds, whose weird 



