"Travels in Alaska 



been tossed and twisted by earthquake shocks, and 

 showing but little more relation to one another than 

 may be observed among moraine boulders, Wrangell 

 was a tranquil place. I never heard a noisy brawl in 

 the streets, or a clap of thunder, and the waves seldom 

 spoke much above a whisper along the beach. In 

 summer the rain comes straight down, steamy and 

 tepid. The clouds are usually united, filling the sky, 

 not racing along in threatening ranks suggesting 

 energy of an overbearing destructive kind, but form- 

 ing a bland, mild, laving bath. The cloudless days are 

 calm, pearl-gray, and brooding in tone, inclining to 

 rest and peace; the islands seem to drowse and float 

 on the glassy water, and in the woods scarce a leaf 

 stirs. 



The very brightest of Wrangell days are not what 

 Californians would call bright. The tempered sun- 

 shine sifting through the moist atmosphere makes no 

 dazzling glare, and the town, like the landscape, 

 rests beneath a hazy, hushing, Indian-summerish 

 spell. On the longest days the sun rises about three 

 o'clock, but it is daybreak at midnight. The cocks 

 crowed when they woke, without reference to the 

 dawn, for it is never quite dark; there were only a few 

 full-grown roosters in Wrangell, half a dozen or so, to 

 awaken the town and give it a civilized character. 

 After sunrise a few languid smoke-columns might be 

 seen, telling the first stir of the people. Soon an 

 Indian or two might be noticed here and there at the 

 doors of their barnlike cabins, and a merchant getting 

 ready for trade; but scarcely a sound was heard, only 



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