8o 



JOHN BURROUGHS 



be the main feature in my descriptions. Never had I 

 seen such beauty of greenness, because never before had 

 I seen it from such a vantage ground of blue sea. We 

 had not been many hours out of Uyak that afternoon 

 when we began to see a few scattered spruce trees, then 

 patches of forest in the valley bottoms. At one point we 

 passed near a large natural park. It looked as if a land- 

 scape gardener might have been employed to grade and 

 shape the ground and plant it with grass and trees in just 

 the right proportion. Here were cattle too, and how good 

 they looked, grazing or reposing on those smooth long vis- 

 tas between the trees. To eyes sated with the wild aus- 

 tere grandeur of Prince William Sound the change was 

 most delightful. Our course lay through narrow channels 

 and over open bays sprinkled with green islands, past bold 

 cliffs and headlands, till at three o'clock we entered the 



narrow strait, no 

 more than twice 

 the ship's length 

 in width, upon 

 which is situat- 

 ed the village of 

 Kadiak, called 



BOLD HEADLAND NEAR KADIAK. 



by the Russians 

 St. Paul. We could see the wild flowers upon the shore 

 as we passed along, barn swallows twittered by, a magpie 

 crossed the strait from one green bank to another, and as 

 we touched the wharf a song sparrow was singing from 

 the weather vane of a large warehouse — a song sparrow 

 in voice, manners, and color, but in form twice as large 

 as our home bird. The type of song sparrow changes 

 all the way from Yakutat Bay to the Aleutian Islands, 

 till at the latter place it is nearly as large as the catbird; 

 but the song and general habits of the bird change but 

 very little. How welcome the warmth too! We had 



