It has been kept undefiled. There is not a sign, nor a painted seat, nor a little stiff flower bed in it. There is not a striped paper bag, nor a peanut shell, nor the peel of an orange anywhere.
It must be that only those people who live on beauty, instead of food, haunt this beautiful spot.
The spruce, the cedar, and the pine grow gracefully and luxuriantly, their lacy branches spreading out flat and motionless upon the still air, tapering from the ground to a fine point. The hard road, velvet-napped with the spicy needles of centuries, winds through them and under them, the branches often touching the wayfarer's bared head.
The devil's-club grows tall and large; there are thickets of salmon-berry and thimbleberry; there are banks of velvety green, and others blue with violets; there are hedges of wild roses, the bloom looking in the distance like an amethyst cloud floating upon the green.
The Alaskan thimbleberry is the most delicious berry that grows. Large, scarlet, velvety, yet evanescent, it scarcely touches the tongue ere its ravishing flavor has become a memory.
The vegetation is all of tropical luxuriance, and, owing to its constant dew and mist baths, it is of an intense and vivid green that is fairly dazzling where the sun touches it. One of the chief charms of the wooded reserve is its stillness—broken only by the musical rush of waters and the lyrical notes of birds. A kind of lavender twilight abides beneath the trees, and, with the narrow, spruce-aisled vistas that open at every turn, gives one a sensation as of being in some dim and scented cathedral.
Enticing paths lead away from the main road to the river, where the voices of rapids and cataracts call; but at last one comes to an open space, so closely walled round on all sides by the forest that it may easily be passed without being seen—and to which one makes his way with difficulty, pushing aside branches of trees and tall ferns as he proceeds.
Here, producing an effect that is positively uncanny, are several great totems, shining out brilliantly from their dark green setting.
One experiences that solemn feeling which every one has known, as of standing among the dead; the shades of Baranoff, Behring, Lisiansky, Veniaminoff, Chirikoff,—all the unknown murdered ones, too,—go drifting noiselessly, with reproachful faces, through the dim wood.
It was on the beach near this grove of totems that Lisiansky's men were murdered by Koloshians in 1804, while obtaining water for the ship.