"Travels in Alaska 



smothered in dull-colored mist and fog, the great 

 glacier looming through the gloomy gray fog fringes 

 with wonderful effect. The thunder of bergs booms 

 and rumbles through the foggy atmosphere. It is 

 bad weather for exploring but delightful neverthe- 

 less, making all the strange, mysterious region yet 

 stranger and more mysterious. 



June 28. A light rain. We were visited by two 

 parties of Indians. A man from each canoe came 

 ashore, leaving the women in the canoe to guard 

 against the berg-waves. I tried my Chinook and 

 made out to say that I wanted to hire two of them in 

 a few days to go a little way back on the glacier and 

 around the bay. They are seal-hunters and prom- 

 ised to come again with "Charley," who "hi yu 

 kumtux wawa Boston " — knew well how to speak 

 English. 



I saw three huge bergs born. Spray rose about 

 two hundred feet. Lovely reflections showed of the 

 pale-blue tones of the ice-wall and mountains in 

 the calm water. Mirages are common, making the 

 stranded bergs along the shore look like the sheer 

 frontal wall of the glacier from which they were dis- 

 charged. 



I am watching the ice-wall, berg life and behavior, 

 etc. Yesterday and to-day a solitary small flycatcher 

 was feeding about camp. A sandpiper on the shore, 

 loons, ducks, gulls, and crows, a few of each, and a 

 bald eagle are all the birds I have noticed thus far. 

 The glacier is thundering gloriously. 



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