Our Experienced Captain Was Indignant, As Well He Might Be,
Because We Did Not See Fit To Stop Early In The Afternoon At A Good
Camp-Ground He Had Chosen.
He seemed determined to give us enough of
night sailing as a punishment to last us for the rest
Of the voyage.
Accordingly, though the night was dark and rainy and the bay full of
icebergs, he pushed grimly on, saying that we must try to reach an
Indian village on the other side of the bay or an old Indian fort on
an island in the middle of it. We made slow, weary, anxious progress
while Toyatte, who was well acquainted with every feature of this
part of the coast and could find his way in the dark, only laughed at
our misery. After a mile or two of this dismal night work we struck
across toward the island, now invisible, and came near being wrecked
on a rock which showed a smooth round back over which the waves were
breaking. In the hurried Indian shouts that followed and while we
were close against the rock, Mr. Young shouted, as he leaned over
against me, "It's a whale, a whale!" evidently fearing its tail,
several specimens of these animals, which were probably still on his
mind, having been seen in the forenoon. While we were passing along
the east shore of the island we saw a light on the opposite shore, a
joyful sight, which Toyatte took for a fire in the Indian village,
and steered for it. John stood in the bow, as guide through the
bergs. Suddenly, we ran aground on a sand bar. Clearing this, and
running back half a mile or so, we again stood for the light, which
now shone brightly. I thought it strange that Indians should have so
large a fire. A broad white mass dimly visible back of the fire Mr.
Young took for the glow of the fire on the clouds. This proved to be
the front of a glacier. After we had effected a landing and stumbled
up toward the fire over a ledge of slippery, algae-covered rocks, and
through the ordinary tangle of shore grass, we were astonished to
find white men instead of Indians, the first we had seen for a month.
They proved to be a party of seven gold-seekers from Fort Wrangell.
It was now about eight o'clock and they were in bed, but a jolly
Irishman got up to make coffee for us and find out who we were, where
we had come from, where going, and the objects of our travels. We
unrolled our chart and asked for information as to the extent and
features of the bay. But our benevolent friend took great pains to
pull wool over our eyes, and made haste to say that if "ice and
sceneries" were what we were looking for, this was a very poor, dull
place. There were "big rocks, gulches, and sceneries" of a far better
quality down the coast on the way to Wrangell. He and his party were
prospecting, he said, but thus far they had found only a few colors
and they proposed going over to Admiralty Island in the morning to
try their luck.
In the morning, however, when the prospectors were to have gone over
to the island, we noticed a smoke half a mile back on a large stream,
the outlet of the glacier we had seen the night before, and an Indian
told us that the white men were building a big log house up there. It
appeared that they had found a promising placer mine in the moraine
and feared we might find it and spread the news. Daylight revealed a
magnificent fiord that brought Glacier Bay to mind. Miles of bergs
lay stranded on the shores, and the waters of the branch fiords, not
on Vancouver's chart, were crowded with them as far as the eye could
reach. After breakfast we set out to explore an arm of the bay that
trends southeastward, and managed to force a way through the bergs
about ten miles. Farther we could not go. The pack was so close no
open water was in sight, and, convinced at last that this part of my
work would have to be left for another year, we struggled across to
the west side of the fiord and camped.
I climbed a mountain next morning, hoping to gain a view of the great
fruitful glaciers at the head of the fiord or, at least, of their
snowy fountains. But in this also I failed; for at a distance of
about sixteen miles from the mouth of the fiord a change to the
northward in its general trend cut off all its upper course from
sight.
Returning to camp baffled and weary, I ordered all hands to pack up
and get out of the ice as soon as possible. And how gladly was that
order obeyed! Toyatte's grand countenance glowed like a sun-filled
glacier, as he joyfully and teasingly remarked that "the big Sum Dum
ice-mountain had hidden his face from me and refused to let me pay
him a visit." All the crew worked hard boring a way down the west
side of the fiord, and early in the afternoon we reached
comparatively open water near the mouth of the bay. Resting a few
minutes among the drifting bergs, taking last lingering looks at the
wonderful place I might never see again, and feeling sad over my
weary failure to explore it, I was cheered by a friend I little
expected to meet here. Suddenly, I heard the familiar whir of an
ousel's wings, and, looking up, saw my little comforter coming
straight from the shore. In a second or two he was with me, and flew
three times around my head with a happy salute, as if saying, "Cheer
up, old friend, you see I am here and all's well." He then flew back
to the shore, alighted on the topmost jag of a stranded iceberg, and
began to nod and bow as though he were on one of his favorite rocks
in the middle of a sunny California mountain cataract.
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