V* 



TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 113 



The day broke very cold, so cold that I had gone 

 back to my parka, a costume we had discarded since 

 June came in with smiling days. We were feeling our 

 way for the breeze was light, and the sea for a wonder 

 calm through a dense fog, doing our best to creep 

 into a safe anchorage in a near-by creek thoroughly 

 well known to our pilot, when suddenly, apropos of 

 nothing, with a horrible grating sound we struck a 

 submerged rock, and swung there on its table top like 

 a see-saw. The serious side of the affair was quite 

 swamped for me by the ludicrous conduct of the 

 Leader, who rushed to me in the greatest excitement, 

 and made the most embarrassingly strenuous efforts 

 to tear my parka from my back. " Get the thing off 

 at once," he said; " if the ship goes down you'll be 

 drowned like a rat in a trap," which was quite a 

 mistake, I imagine, for my parka was of caribou-skin, 

 and a caribou is an animated lifebuoy, every hair 

 being hollow, and consequently buoyant. That is 

 the reason, I think, why caribou swim so exceptionally 

 high out of the water. 



But I am digressing, and I left the Lily in a terrible 

 quandary upon a rocky pinnacle. 



We all calmed down in a moment or two, as nothing 

 more untoward appeared likely to happen, and as the 

 tide rose fortunately for us the tide was coming in 

 at the time of the disaster the ship rose also, and 

 presently got some way on, and we knew that we 

 were clear. None of the planks seemed to have 

 started or suffered from the impact so far as we could 

 judge, but the steering gear was totally disabled, and 



I 



