Travels in Alaska 



four thousand feet high. It shows grandly from where 

 it broke on our sight, sweeping boldly forward and 

 downward in its majestic channel, swaying from side 

 to side in graceful fluent lines around stern unflinch- 

 ing rocks. While I stood in the canoe making a sketch 

 of it, several bergs came off" with tremendous dashing 

 and thunder, raising a cloud of ice-dust and spray to 

 a height of a hundred feet or more. 



"The ice-mountain is well disposed toward you," 

 said Tyeen. "He is firing his big guns to welcome you." 



After completing my sketch and entering a few 

 notes, I directed the crew to pull around a lofty bur- 

 nished rock on the west side of the channel, where, as 

 I knew from the trend of the canon, a large glacier 

 once came in; and what was my delight to discover 

 that the glacier was still there and still pouring its ice 

 into a branch of the fiord. Even the Indians shared 

 my joy and shouted with me. I expected only one 

 first-class glacier here, and found two. They are only 

 about two miles apart. How glorious a mansion that 

 precious pair dwell in! After sunset we made haste 

 to seek a camp-ground. I would fain have shared 

 these upper chambers with the two glaciers, but there 

 was no landing-place in sight, and we had to make 

 our way back a few miles in the twilight to the mouth 

 of a side canon where we had seen timber on the way 

 up. There seemed to be a good landing as we ap- 

 proached the shore, but, coming nearer, we found that 

 the granite fell directly into deep water without lead- 

 ing any level margin, though the slope a short dis- 

 tance back was not very steep. 



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