f vast masses of floating ice, of a
constant noise of thunder when they crashed from the glaciers into the
sea; and also of fearsome bays and passages full of evil spirits which
made them very perilous to navigate.

In one bay there was said to be a giant devil-fish with arms as long as
a tree, lurking in malignant patience, awaiting the passage that way of
an unwary canoe, when up would flash those terrible arms with their
thousand suckers and, seizing their prey, would drag down the men to the
bottom of the sea, there to be mangled and devoured by the horrid beak.
Another deep fiord was the abode of _Koosta-kah_, the Otter-man, the
mischievous Puck of Indian lore, who was waiting for voyagers to land
and camp, when he would seize their sleeping forms and transport them a
dozen miles in a moment, or cradle them on the tops of the highest
trees. Again there was a most rapacious and ferocious killer-whale in a
piece of swift water, whose delight it was to take into his great,
tooth-rimmed jaws whole canoes with their crews of men, mangling them
and gulping them down as a single mouthful. Many were these stories of
fear told us at the Hoonah village the night before we started to
explore the icy bay, and our credulous Stickeens gave us rather broad
hints that it was time to turn back.

"There are no natives up in that region; there is nothing to hunt;
there is no gold there; why do you persist in this _cultus coly_
(aimless journey)? You are likely to meet death and nothing else if you
go into that dangerous region."

All these stories made us the more eager to explore the wonders beyond,
and we hastened away from Hoonah with our guide aboard. A day's sail
brought us to a little, heavily wooded island near the mouth of Glacier
Bay. This we named Pleasant Island.

As we broke camp in the morning our guide said: "We must take on board a
supply of dry wood here, as there is none beyond."

Leaving this last green island we steered northwest into the great bay,
the country of ice and bare rocks. Muir's excitement was increasing
every moment, and as the majestic arena opened before us and the Muir,
Geicke, Pacific and other great glaciers (all nameless as yet) began to
appear, he could hardly contain himself. He was impatient of any delay,
and was constantly calling to the crew to redouble their efforts and get
close to these wonders. Now the marks of recent glaciation showed
plainly. Here was a conical island of gray gran