tively nothing to do but have a good time for three solid weeks in
the wilderness. The pestiferous telephone can not play the earwig on
board this ship; the telegraph, with metallic tick, can not once startle
us by precipitating town tattle; the postal service is cut off; wars and
rumors of wars, the annihilation of a nation, even the swallowing up of
a whole continent, are now of less consequence to us than the
possibility of a rain-shower this afternoon, or the solution of the
vexed question, "Will the aurora dazzle us before dawn?" We do not
propose to wait upon the aurora: for days and days and days we are going
to climb up the globe due North, getting nearer and nearer to it all the
while. Now, inasmuch as everything is new to us, we can easily content
ourselves for hours by lounging in the easy-chairs, and looking off upon
the placid sea, and at the perennial verdure that springs out of it and
mantles a lovely but lonely land.

Only think of it for a moment! Here on the northwest coast there are
islands sown so thickly that many of the sea-passages, though deep
enough for a three-decker to swim in, are so narrow that one might
easily skim his hat across them. There are thousands of these
islands--yea, tens of thousands,--I don't know just how many, and
perhaps no man does. They are of all shapes and sizes, and the majority
of them are handsomely wooded. The sombre green of the woods, stretching
between the sombre blue-green of the water and the opaline sheen of the
sky, forms a picture--a momentary picture,--the chief features of which
change almost as suddenly and quite as completely as the transformations
in a kaleidoscope. We are forever turning corners; and no sooner are we
around one corner than three others elbow us just ahead. Now, toward
which of the three are we bound, and will our good ship run to larboard
or to starboard? This is a turn one might bet on all day long--and lose
nearly every time.

A bewildering cruise! Vastly finer than river sailing is this Alaskan
expedition. Here is a whole tangle of rivers full of strange tides,
mysterious currents, and sweet surprises. Moreover, we can get lost if
we want to--no one can get lost in a river. We can rush in where pilots
fear to tread, strike sunken rocks, toss among dismal eddies, or plunge
into whirlpools. We can rake overhanging boughs with our yard-arms if
we want to--but we don't want to. In 1875 the United States steamer
_Saranac_ went down in Se