By Solitary Shores.
Probably no one leaves Juneau with regret. Far more enjoyable was the
day we spent in Ward's Cove, land-locked, wooded to the water's edge,
and with forty-five fathoms of water of the richest sea-green hue. Here
lay the _Pinta_ and the _Paterson_, two characteristic representatives
of the United States Navy--as it was before the war--the former a
promoted tug-boat, equipped at an expense of $100,000, and now looking
top-heavy and unseaworthy, but just the thing for a _matinee_
performance of Pinafore, if that were not out of date.
This _Pinta_, terrible as a canal-boat, armed to the teeth, drew up
under our quarter to take in coal. You see the _Ancon_ combined business
with pleasure, and distributed coal in quantities to suit throughout the
Alaskan lagoon. Now, there is not much fun in coaling, even when a
craft as funny as the _Pinta_ is snuggling up under your quarter,
looking more like the Pinafore than ever, with her skylarking sailors,
midshipmite and all; so Captain Carroll secured a jaunty little
steam-launch, and away we went on a picnic in the forest primeval. The
launch was laden to the brim; three of our biggest boats were in tow; an
abundant collation, in charge of a corps of cabin-boys, gave assurance
of success in one line at least.
We explored. Old Vancouver did the same thing long ago, and no doubt
found these shores exactly as we find them to-day. We entered a shallow
creek at the top of the cove; landed on a dreary point redolent of stale
fish, and the beach literally alive and creeping with small worms above
half an inch in length. A solitary squaw was splitting salmon for
drying. She remained absorbed in her work while we gathered about and
regarded her with impudent curiosity. Overcome by the fetid air of the
place, we re-embarked and steamed gaily miles away over the sparkling
sea.
In an undiscovered country--so it seemed to us--we came to a smooth and
sandy strip of shore and landed there. But a few paces from the
lightly-breaking ripples was the forest--and such a forest! There were
huge trees, looking centuries old, swathed in blankets of moss, and the
moss gray with age. Impenetrable depths of shadow overhead, impenetrable
depths of litter under foot. Log had fallen upon log crosswise and at
every conceivable angle.
Out of the fruitful dust of these deposed monarchs of the forest sprang
a numerous progeny--lusty claimants, every one of them,--their foliage
feathery and of the most delicate green, being fed only by the thin
sunshine that sifts through the dense canopy, supported far aloft by the
majestic columns that clustered about us. Under foot the russet moss was
of astonishing depth and softness. One walks with care upon it, for the
foot breaks through the thick matting that has in many cases spread from
log to log, hiding treacherous traps beneath. The ferns luxuriate in
this sylvan paradise; and many a beautiful shrub, new to us, bore
flowers that blushed unseen until we made our unexpected and perhaps
unwelcome appearance.
Here we camped. The cloth was spread in a temple not made with hands;
how hard it is to avoid ringing in these little old-time tags about
flowers and forests! The viands were deftly served; the merry jest went
round, and sometimes came back the same way, "returned with thanks." And
thus we revelled in the midst of a solitude that may never before have
been broken by the sound of human voice. When we held our peace--which
we did at long intervals, and for a brief moment only--we realized this
solemn fact; but it didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why,
even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings
under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy
circles, piping sharp, peevish cries.
It was a delightful day we passed together. The memory of it is one of
the most precious souvenirs of the Alaskan tour; and it was with
reluctance that we returned to the ship, after consulting our watches
with astonishment; for the late hours gave no warning, and we might have
passed the night there in the loveliest of twilights.
The _Pinta_ was about to withdraw to her anchorage as we boarded the
_Ancon_; and then, too late, I discovered among the officers of that
terror of the sea an old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon
days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S.
man-of-war, _Alaska_ of jolly memory; and he, with his companions,
constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the _Alaska_ is a sheer
hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in
the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I
thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under _Old
Glory_, then floating in the trade wind that blew over southern seas, I
should find him last in the lone land that gave name to the ship that
brought him over. Can the theosophists unravel this mystery, or see
aught in it that verges upon the mystic philosophy? As we steamed 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 discoverers. It was pretty
to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it,
searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg
is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is
rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on,
coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to
it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun
like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half
dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes,
and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season transferred
to our iceboxes.
Our iceberg was about fifty feet in length and twenty or thirty feet out
of the water. It was a glittering island, with savage peaks, deep
valleys, bluffs, and promontories. The edges were delicately frilled and
resembled silver filigree. Some of these, which were transparent and as
daintily turned as old Venetian glass, dripped continually like
rain-beaten eaves. The portion nearest the water's edge was honeycombed
by the wavelets that dashed upon it without ceasing, rushing in and out
of the small, luminous caverns in swift, sparkling rivulets. Much of the
surface was crusted with a fine frosting; it was full of wells deep
enough to sink a man in. These wells were filled with water, and with a
blue light, celestial in its loveliness,--a light ethereal and pellucid.
It was as if the whole iceberg were saturated with transfused moonbeams,
that gave forth a mellow radiance, which flashed at times like
brilliants, and burst into flame and played like lightning along the
almost invisible rims and ridges. The unspeakable, the incomprehensible
light throbbed through and through; and was sometimes bluish green and
sometimes greenish blue; but oftenest with the one was the other, both
at once, and with a perfectly bewildering tint added,--in a word, it was
frozen moonlight and no mistake. O my friend, I assure you there are
many famous sports with not half the fun in them that there is in
lassoing an iceberg!
Once more I turn to my note-books. I find that the morning had been
foggy; that we could see scarcely a ship's length ahead of us; that the
water was like oil beneath and the mists like snow above and about,
while we groped blindly. Of course we could not press forward under the
circumstances; for we were surrounded by islands great and small, and
any one of these might silently materialize at a moment's notice; but we
were not idle. Now and again our paddles beat the water impetuously, and
they hung dripping, while the sea stretched around us as we leisurely
drifted on like a larger bubble in danger of bursting upon an
unexpected rock. We sounded frequently. There was an abundance of
water--there nearly always is throughout the Alaskan archipelago; enough
and to spare; but the abrupt shore might be but a stone's-throw from us
on the one hand or the other.
What was to be done? In the vast stillness we blew a blast on our shrill
whistle, and listened for the echo. Sometimes it returned to us almost
on the instant and we cried, "Halt!" When we halted or veered off,
creeping as it were on the surface of the oily sea, sometimes a faint or
far-off whisper--"the horns of elf-land"--gave us assurance of plenty of
space and the sea-room we were sorely in need of just then. Once we saw
looming right under our prow a little islet with a tuft of fir-trees
crowning it--the whole worthy to be made the head-piece or tail-piece to
some poem on solitude. It was very picturesque; but it seemed to be
crouching there, lying in wait for us, ready to arch its back the moment
we came within reach. The rapidity with which we backed out of that
predicament left us no time for apologies.
Again we got some distance up the wrong channel. When the fog lifted for
a moment, we discovered the error, put about without more ado, and went
around the block in a hurry. Meanwhile we had schooled our ears to
detect the most delicate shades of sound; to measure or weigh each
individual echo with an accuracy that gave us the utmost
self-satisfaction. Perhaps Captain Carroll or Captain George, who was
spying out the land with his ears, would not have trusted the ship in
our keeping for five minutes--but no matter.
Presently the opaque atmosphere began to dissolve away; and as the sun
brushed the webs from his face, and darted sharp beams upon the water
all at once in a shower, the fog-banks went to pieces and rolled away in
sections out of sight, like the transformation scene in a Christmas
pantomime. And there we were in the very centre of the smiling island
world, with splendid snow peaks towering all about us; and such a flood
of blue sky and bluer water, golden sunshine and gilded fields of snow,
of jutting shores clad in perennial verdure, and eagles and sea-birds
wheeling round about us, as can be seen nowhere else in the wide world
to the same advantage.
We were entering a region of desolation. The ice was increasing, and the
water took that ghastly hue, even a glimpse of which is enough to chill
the marrow in one's bones. Vegetation was dying out. A canoe-full of
shivering Indians were stemming the icy flood in search of some chosen
fishery,--all of them blanketed, and all--squaw as well as
papooses--taking a turn at the paddle. These were the children of
Nature, whose song-birds are the screaming eagle, the croaking raven,
and the crying sea-doves blown inland by the wild westerly gales.
We were now nearly within sound of the booming glaciers; and as we drew
nearer and nearer I could but brood over the oft imagined picture of
that vast territory--our Alaska,--where, beyond that mountain range, the
almost interminable winter is scarcely habitable, and the summers so
brief it takes about six of them to make a swallow.