of islets, serrated walls of
rocks, coves and island-mounds, wherein nested shadows of amethyst or
indigo.

The flow of life in some of these coves and estuary-like indentations is
marvellous, the fish coming in egg-laden, and looking for streams of
fresh water in which to deposit their ova. We anchored in one of these
inlets, and found on the land luxuriant ferns and splendid clumps of
yellow cedar and hemlock, with snow-banks behind. Half a dozen little
bucks and half-breeds were tumbling about in the water through the
long afternoon light, which seemed to have an amaranthine quality
and to be unfading. The sun did not set till after eight o'clock, and
there was cold, ghostly, green light up in the north till nearly
midnight. When darkness did come, it was of the genuine cuttle-fish
kind,--inky,--splashed with stars. There was now and then a delicate
shell of a moon incising the sky against a mountain-side and lending
the most fragile transfiguration to its top.

As we approached Fort Wrangel, the ship's company turned out in the
sweet evening sunshine and found a glorious panorama awaiting them. The
sheen of a mighty mass of embattled peaks and pinnacles and feathery
floating snow-points shone high up in the evening air, just mellowing
under a magnificent sunset. These mountains guard the entrance to the
Stickeen River and mount up the horizon after the Duke of Clarence
Strait has been traversed.

Wrangel itself is most memorably situated just on one side of these
sheeny peaks and glaciers, almost in the shadow of the Devil's Thumb,
which rises about four hundred feet above its own mountain-cluster and
forms one of a throng of confused and radiant _aiguilles_ overlooking
the Stickeen. The sunset had not entirely faded at nine o'clock, when we
touched shore and rejoiced our eyes with a series of wonderful
semi-arctic color-pictures,--coal-black islands, purple islands, lilac
islands, islands in india-ink and amber, lying in glacier-water of pale
green, and above and beyond all the glorious flush of the sun stealing
in between the white snow-needles and throwing them out and up into
luminous relief.

Opposite the town is an island shaped like the cocked hat of a gendarme,
where it was said that the curious polygonal garnets embedded in schist
and peculiar to this region are found. There were plenty of them as
large as walnuts for sale at twenty-five cents a dozen. Odd carved
boxes, too, made of an unknown wood and