r those they
love. It is my duty to present to you the better half of the glacier and
to cast away the other. Tired, footsore, and muddy, we were all early in
bed, and while dozing to sleep I was much impressed with the awful
stillness of the hour; everybody had retired, not even the tread of the
man on watch was heard, the very machinery was sleeping, but every now
and then there was a splash and a report and an echo that brought with
them the proof that the forces of nature were ever awake, and that what
was, "is, and ever shall be, world without end."

A SUMMER TRIP TO ALASKA.

JAMES A. HARRISON.

[Nature possesses no scenery more beautiful than that to be
found on the Pacific coast of Washington and in the island
region leading to north Alaska. And the description of it given
below is well worth reproduction, for its poetic appreciation
of this rich scenic route.]

The whole fourteen hundred--one might say two thousand--miles of coast
extending from Puget's Sound to Behring's Strait is a succession of
beautiful and picturesque archipelagoes, consisting of hundreds, if not
thousands, of islands, through which there are countless water-caves,
lakes, bays, inlets, as smooth as Lake George and the Hudson, and far
more lovely. The smoothness of the water is such that life on the
steamer is a luxurious rest, and the stimulating coolness of the air in
summer contributes to pleasant days and delightful nights. Our summer
trip covered about two thousand five hundred miles from Portland and
back, and we had ample opportunities to stop at the various settlements,
talk with the Indians, and collect curiosities.

On leaving Port Townsend early in August, our ship made for the Straits
of Georgia, and for a long time followed the aqueous boundary-line
between the British and American possessions. The fog dissolved, and we
caught views of Smith's Island, Bellingham Bay, and other points. The
scenery became river-like, the strait now opening into waveless lakes,
now contracting, like the neck of a bottle, into channels where there
were counter-currents and chopped seas.

At Active Bay we could not tell which way we were going, the passage
seemed closed by lofty mountains, and the sea appeared to flow against
their bases; but presently the wall of rock split into a wooded gorge,
through which we shot with a graceful curve.

The long meandering line of Vancouver Island followed for three hundre