FAR AND NEAR 



at the elbow, where it breaks into the St. EHas 

 Range, and long and slender in the forearm, whieh 

 is thrust through the mountains till it nearly reaches 

 the sea again. Eight or ten comfortable frame 

 houses, with a store and post-office, made up the 

 Indian village known on the map as Yakutat. It sat 

 low on a wooded point just to one side of the broad 

 entrance to the bay. There were upwards of a hun- 

 dred people there, looked after by a Swedish mis- 

 sionary. We soon proceeded up the bay, with the 

 great Malaspina Glacier on our left, and put off 

 three hunting and collecting parties, to be absent 

 from the ship till Thursday. The event of this day 

 was the view of Mt. St. Elias that was vouchsafed 

 us for half an hour in the afternoon. The base and 

 lower ranges had been visi'nle for some time, bathed 

 in clear sunshine, but a heavy canopy of dun-colored 

 clouds hung above us, and stretched av»'ay toward 

 the mountain, dropping down there in many cur- 

 tain-like folds, hiding the peak. But the scene- 

 shifters were at work ; slowly the heavy folds of 

 clouds that limited our view yielded and were spun 

 off by the air currents, till at last the veil was com- 

 pletely rent, and there, in the depths of clear air and 

 sunshine, the huge mass soared to heaven. 



There is sublimity in the sight of a summer 

 thunder-head with its great white and dun convolu- 

 tions rising up for miles against the sky, but there is 

 more in the vision of a j nidged mountain crest pier- 



6S 



