IN GREEN ALASKA 



and herds and rural homes. Here again the green 

 fluid seemed to have found its way down the creases 

 and runnels and was deepest there. Everywhere 

 such a sweep of green skirts as these Alaskan hills 

 and mountains present, often traiUng to the sea! 

 I never tired of them, and if I dwell upon them 

 unduly long, let the reader remember that a thou- 

 sand miles of this kind of scenery, passing slowly 

 before one on a succession of summer days, make 

 an impression not easily thrown off. 



THE SEAL ISLANDS 



Before many hours we ran into lowering, misty 

 weather in Bering Sea, and about seven o'clock were 

 off the Bogoslof Islands, two abrupt volcanic 

 mounds, one of them thrown up in recent years. The 

 other is the breeding-ground of innumerable sea- 

 lions, yes, and of myriads of murres, a species of 

 diver. With our glasses, when we were several miles 

 away, we could see the murres making the air almost 

 thick about the rocks as with clouds of black specks. 

 We could see the sea-Uons, too, great windrows of 

 them, upon the beach. We dropped anchor about 

 two miles away, and a party of seven or eight went 

 ashore in a boat, — a hazardous proceeding, our cap- 

 tain thought, as the fog seemed hkely to drop at any 

 moment and obliterate island and ship alike; but it 

 did not drop, only the top of the island was oblit- 

 erated. We could see the sea-lions lift themselves up 

 103 



