ls were only occasional visitors on
the Alaskan cruise, though the eagles we had always with us. They soared
aloft among the pines that crowned the mountain heights; they glossed
their wings in the spray of the sky-tipped waterfalls, and looked down
upon us from serene summits with the unwinking eye of scorn. It is
awfully fine sailing all about Juneau. Superb heights, snow-capped in
many cases, forest-clad in all, and with cloud belts and sunshine
mingling in the crystalline atmosphere, form a glorious picture, which,
oddly enough, one does not view with amazement and delight, but in the
very midst of which, and a very part of which, he is; and the proud
consciousness of this marks one of the happiest moments of his life.

Steaming into a lagoon where its mountain walls are so high it seemed
like a watery way in some prodigious Venice; steaming in, stealing in
like a wraith, we were shortly saluted by the miners on Douglas Island,
who are, perhaps, the most persistent and least harmful of the
dynamiters. It was not long before we began to get used to the batteries
that are touched off every few minutes, night and day; but how strange
to find in that wild solitude a 120-stamp mill, electric lights, and all
the modern nuisances! Never was there a greater contrast than the one
presented at Douglas Island. The lagoon, with its deep, dark waters,
still as a dead river, yet mirroring the sea-bird's wing; a strip of
beach; just above it rows of cabins and tents that at once suggest the
mining camps of early California days; then the rather handsome quarters
of the directors; and then the huge mill, admirably constructed and set
so snugly among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore
mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big
game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose
themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro
between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the
opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the
explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that
prevails at Gastineaux Channel.

Soon, weary of the racket on Douglas Island, and expecting to inspect
the mine later on, we returned across the water and made fast to the
dock in the lower end of Juneau. This settlement has seen a good deal of
experience for a young one. It was first known as Pilsbury; then some
humorist dubbed