All, all, greeted the eye of the worn voyager most restfully.
Clusters of quaint red buildings were soon seen nestling under the mountain—that was Dutch Harbor, and a mile farther on we arrived at the dock at Unalaska. We would be here twenty-four hours taking on fresh water, coal, and food, they told us, and we all ran out like sheep from a pen, or school children at intermission. We drank fresh water from the spring under the green hillside; we bought apples and oranges at the store, and furs of the furrier; we rowed in a skiff and scampered over the hills to Dutch Harbor; we watched jelly-fish and pink star-fish in the water; we saw white reindeer apparently as tame as cows browsing on the slopes; we visited an old Greek church, and were kept from the very holiest place where only men were allowed to go, retaliating when we came to the cash box at the door—we dropped nothing in; we climbed the highest mountain near by, and staked imaginary gold claims after drinking in the beauties of the views which encompassed us; we snapped our kodaks repeatedly, and then, having reached the limit of our time and strength, wended our way back to the steamer now ready to sail.
Leaving the harbor, we all stayed on deck as long as possible trying to fix the grandeur of the scenery in our minds so it could not slip away, and then Priest Rock was passed, we had turned about eastward, and were in Unimak Pass. Here the wind blew a gale from the west, on account of which we were obliged to go below to our staterooms after watching the sailors lash everything on the hurricane deck well down in case of storm. After a few hours we left the Pass, with its precipitous cliffs, its barren and rocky slopes, its cones of extinct volcanoes, its rough and deep water, and headed due southeast for "Frisco."
Many unpleasant people and things we found on board as we proceeded, for not all of these had been left at Nome; but with a philosopher's fortitude we studied to overlook everything disagreeable, and partly succeeded. That our efforts were not a complete success was due partly, at least, to our early education and large stock of ideality, and we were really not so much to blame.
The remainder of our journey was somewhat monotonous, broken only by drunken brawls at midnight on deck, waking us from sound slumbers; or the sight of a whale spouting during the day. Sometimes a breeze would spring up from the wrong direction, rolling us for a few hours, causing us to prefer a reclining posture instead of an upright one, and giving our complexions a still deeper lemonish cast; sometimes we were well inclined to feed the fishes in the sea, and did not; but at all times we were thankful that matters were no worse.
Then, after many days out from Unalaska we began to look for land. Seagulls and goonies had followed in the wake of our ship, and rested themselves each day aloft in the rigging. Sails were now and then seen in the distance, like the spreading white wings of enormous swans gliding quietly over the bosom of the deep, and we realized that we were nearing land. In the darkness one night there came to us a little white boat containing three men,—one was a pilot to guide us safely through the beautiful Golden Gate; the light on Point Bonita was sighted—we were almost home.
We were now six weeks out from Dawson and twenty-one days from Nome; we had no storms, accidents or deaths on board, and carried five hundred passengers, as well as three million dollars in gold. I had been away from home four months without a day's illness, and during my trip through Alaska had traveled seventy-five hundred miles, nearly one-half of this distance alone.
