FAR AND NEAR 



naked, rocky ridges, or fretting the sky above lines 

 of snow. Their walls arc so steep that no snow lies 

 upon them, while the pinnacles are like church 

 spires. 



The whole of the Alaska Peninsula, all the islands 

 off it, the islands in Bering Sea, and the Aleutian 

 group are of volcanic origin, and some of the em- 

 bers of the old fires are still alive in our day, as we 

 had proof. Since our visit there has been other proof 

 in the shape of a severe earthquake shock felt all 

 along the Alaskan coast, in some places disastrously. 



Continuing to the westward, we sailed along ver- 

 dant shores and mountains without sign of human 

 habitation till we saw a cluster of buildings called 

 Belkofski, — two or three dozen brown roofs grouped 

 around a large white, green-topped building, prob- 

 ably a Greek church. The settlement seemed care- 

 fully set down there in the green solitude like a toy 

 village on a shelf. The turf had not been anywhere 

 broken ; not a mark or stain upon the treeless land- 

 scape. Above it ran a smooth, barren mountain, 

 which swept down in green slopes to a broad emer- 

 ald plain upon which the hamlet sat. Now a long 

 headland comes down to the water's edge with its 

 green carpet; then again it is cut ofl' sharply by the 

 sea, or cut in twain, showing sheer pyramidal walls 

 two hundred feet high. Then a succession of vast, 

 smooth, emerald slopes running up into high, gray, 

 desolate mountains, pointed, conical, curved; now 



96 



