FAR AND NEAR 



heart, — homely, slow, deliberate men, but evidcntty 

 made of the real stuff. These stranded men were 

 penniless, and were depending upon the charity, or 

 the willingness to trust, of the steamboat company 

 to take them home to San Francisco. I was glad 

 when I saw them depart on the steamer the next day. 

 Alaska is full of such adventurers ransacking the 

 land. We heard of them at several other points : men 

 looking for new Klondikes, exploring remote corners, 

 going eagerly and quietly into the wilderness, cross- 

 ing glaciers, rivers, and mountains, hoping to be the 

 first in new and rich fields. 



Sunday the 25th was another day of great beauty. 

 We spent the main part of it steaming across the 

 sound toward some of the more remote inlets. It 

 was an ideal day, an ideal sail ; a day to bask in the 

 sunshine upon the upper deck and leisurely contem- 

 plate the vast shifting panorama of sea and islands 

 and wooded shores and towering peaks spread be- 

 fore us on every hand ; a day that gave us another 

 feast of beauty and sublimity, and that stands out in 

 the memory unforgettable ! We were afloat in an 

 enchanted circle ; we sailed over magic seas under 

 magic skies ; we played hide and seek with winter 

 in lucid sunshine over blue and emerald waters, — 

 all the conditions, around, above, below us were 

 most fortunate. 



Prince William Sound is shaped like a great spi- 

 der: an open, irregular body of water eighty miles 



70 



