We related our woes; we got our tickets signed and our baggage checked; had all our questions answered—and they were not few—and the following morning ate our breakfast at our leisure and were greatly edified by our fellow-travellers' wild scramble to get their bills paid and to reach the station in time to have their baggage checked.
Photo by P. S. Hunt
Valdez
CHAPTER XIV
Sailing down Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait, and the narrow, winding Peril Strait, the sapphire-watered and exquisitely islanded Bay of Sitka is entered from the north. Six miles above the Sitka of to-day a large wooden cross marks the site of the first settlement, the scene of the great massacre.
On one side are the heavily and richly wooded slopes of Baranoff Island, crested by many snow-covered peaks which float in the higher primrose mist around the bay; on the other, water avenues—growing to paler, silvery blue in the distance—wind in and out among the green islands to the far sea, glimpses of which may be had; while over all, and from all points for many miles, the round, deeply cratered dome of Edgecumbe shines white and glistening in the sunlight. It is the superb feature of the landscape; the crowning glory of a scene that would charm even without it.
Mount Edgecumbe is the home of Indian myth and legend—as is Nass River to the southeastward. In appearance, it is like no other mountain. It is only eight thousand feet in height, but it is so round and symmetrical, it is so white and sparkling, seen either from the ocean or from the inner channels, and its crest is sunken so evenly into an unforgettable crater, that it instantly impresses upon the beholder a kind of personality among mountains.
In beauty, in majesty, in sublimity, it neither approaches nor compares with twenty other Alaskan mountains which I have seen; but, like the peerless Shishaldin, to the far westward, it stands alone, distinguished by its unique features from all its sister peaks.