FEATURES OF THE SITKAN REGION. 35 



clear June day, a pre-Raphaelitic drawing of it,* as his vessel swung 

 at anchor under its shadows ; in it the reader will observe that the 

 rocky eminence which it crowns is covered to the very foundations 

 and to the promenade cribbing that surrounds them, with a thick 

 growth of alders, stunted spruces, and other indigenous vegeta- 

 tion. That walk around the castle, which was artificially reared 

 thereon, gives a most commanding view of everything, over all 

 objects in the town and Indian village, and sweeps the landscape 

 and the sound. Another picture from the promenade walk under 

 the flagstaff is also given, in order that a faint effect may be con- 

 veyed to the reader of the exceeding beauty of the island-studded 

 Bay of Sitka. Descending and standing immediately under the 

 castle on the beach, to the right you have a perfect Alpine scene 

 as you look east along the pebbly shore to the living green flanks 

 of Mount Verstova, which carry your gaze up quickly over rolling 

 purplish curtains of fog to the snowy crest of it, and other lofty 

 crests ad inftrritum, over far beyond. The little trading stores on 

 the left in this view hide the track so well known in Sitka as the 

 " Governor's Walk," for this is the only direction out to the saw- 

 mill in the middle distance, in which the earth lies smooth and 

 dry enough in all this archipelago for a clean mile-jaunt. These 

 still blue and green waters are alive with food-fishes, while the 

 dense coverts on the mountains harbor grouse and venison in 

 lavish supply ; the oyster and the lobster you have not, but the 

 clam and the crab are here in overwhelming abundance and excel- 

 lence. "Ah! " you exclaim, "if it were not for this eternal rain, 

 this everlasting damp precipitation, how delightful this place would 

 be to live in ! " 



* This building, as it stands upon its foundations, is 140 feet in length by 

 70 feet in width two stories with lofts, capped with the light-house cupola ; 

 these foundations rest upon the summit of the rock, 60 feet above tide-water. 



