d out of
Wood's Cove that night, with the echoes of a parting salute filling the
heavens to overflowing, we saw a cluster of small, dark islets in the
foreground; shining waters beyond flowed to the foot of far-away
mountains; a silvery sky melted into gold as it neared the horizon: this
picture, as delicate in tint as the most exquisite water-color, was
framed in a setting of gigantic pines; and it was by this fairy portal
we entered the sea of ice.

From solitude to solitude is the order in Alaska. The solitude of the
forest and the sea, of the mountain and ravine,--with these we had
become more or less familiar when our good ship headed for the solitude
of ice and snow. I began to feel as if we were being dragged out on the
roof of the world--as if we were swimming in the flooded eaves of a
continent. Sometimes there came over me a sense of loneliness--of the
distance that lay between us and everybody else, and of the helplessness
of our case should any serious accident befall us. It is this very
state, perhaps, that ages the hearts of the hardiest of the explorers
who seek vainly to unravel the polar mystery.

From time to time as we sailed, the sea, now a brighter blue than ever,
was strewn with fragments of ice. Very lovely they looked as they hugged
the distant shore; a ghostly and fantastical procession, borne ever
southward by the slow current; and growing more ghostly and fantastical
hour by hour, as they dwindled in the clear sunshine of the long summer
days. Anon the ice fragments increased in number and dimensions. The
whole watery expanse was covered with brash, and we were obliged to pick
our way with considerable caution. At times we narrowly escaped grazing
small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision
with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough,
being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling;
or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles
and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a
tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are decidedly limited.
Often we thought of the miserable millions away down East simmering in
the sultry summer heat, while the thermometer with us stood at 45
degrees in the sun, and the bracing salt air was impregnated with
balsamic odors.

In this delectable state we sighted a bouncing baby iceberg, and at once
made for it with the enthusiasm of veritable di