FAR AND NEAR 



broad, green expanses. The suggestion of hill farms 

 at home with orchards and groves, and trees along 

 the fences, was very strong, but one looked in vain 

 for the houses and barns of the farmers. We were 

 going into a milder climate, too. During nearly all 

 the month of June, despite my extra winter clothing, 

 I had suffered with cold. In Prince William Sound 

 and in Yakutat Bay we were in vast refrigerating 

 chests. The air had all been on ice, and the sunshine 

 seemed only to make us feel its tooth the more 

 keenly. With benumbed fingers I wrote to a friend 

 in this strain: "Amid vour summer weather, do 

 remember us in our wanderings, a-chill on these 

 northern seas, beleaguered by icebergs, frowned upon 

 by glaciers, and held as by some enchantment in a 

 vast circle of snow-capped mountain peaks. Are 

 your hands and feet really warm ? Is it true that 

 there is no snow upon the mountains ? " 



But balmier skies awaited us; the warmer cur- 

 rents of the Pacific flowing up from Japan and the 

 southern seas were soon to breathe upon us; that 

 pastoral paradise, Kadiak, was soon to greet us. 



All the afternoon we steamed along the coast in 

 smooth seas, in full view of lofty, snow-covered moun- 

 tains with huge glaciers issuing from out their loins. 

 Late at night, off against Kukak Bay, we put off a 

 party of five or six men who wished to spend a week 

 collecting and botanizing on the mainland. It looked 

 like a perilous piece of business, the debarkation of 



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