"Travels in Alaska 



the west, all save a few that settled down in narrow 

 level bars near the horizon. The evening was calm and 

 the sunset colors came on gradually, increasing in ex- 

 tent and richness of tone by slow degrees as if requir- 

 ing more time than usual to ripen. At a height of 

 about thirty degrees there was a heavy cloud-bank, 

 deeply reddened on its lower edge and the project- 

 ing parts of its face. Below this were three horizontal 

 belts of purple edged with gold, while a vividly de- 

 fined, spreading fan of flame streamed upward across 

 the purple bars and faded in a feather edge of dull red. 

 But beautiful and impressive as was this painting on 

 the sky, the most novel and exciting effect was in the 

 body of the atmosphere itself, which, laden with 

 moisture, became one mass of color — a fine trans- 

 lucent purple haze in which the islands with softened 

 outlines seemed to float, while a dense red ring lay 

 around the base of each of them as a fitting border. 

 The peaks, too, in the distance, and the snow-fields 

 and glaciers and fleecy rolls of mist that lay in the 

 hollows, were flushed with a deep, rosy alpenglow of 

 ineffable loveliness. Everything near and far, even 

 the ship, was comprehended in the glorious picture 

 and the general color effect. The mission divines we 

 had aboard seemed then to be truly divine as they 

 gazed transfigured in the celestial glory. So also 

 seemed our bluff, storm-fighting old captain, and his 

 tarry sailors and all. 



About one third of the summer days I spent in 

 the Wrangell region were cloudy with very little or 

 no rain, one third decidedly rainy, and one third 



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