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 WORKS, iq vols., uniform, i6mo, with frontispiece, gi-l 
 top. 
 
 Wakh-Robin. 
 
 Winter Sunshine. 
 
 Locusts and Wild Honhv. 
 
 Fresh Fields. 
 
 Indoor Studies. 
 
 Birds and Poets, with Other Papers. 
 
 Phpacton, and Other Sketches. 
 
 Signs and Seasons. 
 
 RlVBRBY. 
 
 Whitman : A Study. 
 
 The Light of Day. 
 
 Literary Values. 
 
 Far and Near. 
 
 Ways of Nature, 
 
 Leaf and Tkndril. 
 
 Time and Change. 
 
 The Summit of the Years. 
 
 The Breath of Life. 
 
 Under the Apple-Trees. 
 
 Field and S'tudy. 
 
 FIELD AND STUDY. Riverside Edition. 
 
 UNDER THE APPLE-TREES. Riverside Edition. 
 
 THE BREATH OF LIFE. Riverside Edition. 
 
 THE SUMMITOFTHE YEARS. Riverside Edition. 
 
 TIME AND CHANGE. Riverside Edition. 
 
 LEAF AND TENDRIL. R iverside Edition . 
 
 WAYS OF NATURE. Riverside Edition. 
 
 FAR AND NEAR. Riverside Edition. 
 
 LITERARY VALUES. Riverside Edition. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF DAY. Riverside Edition. 
 
 WHITMAN: A Study. Riverside Edition. 
 
 A YEAR IN THE FIELDS. Selections appropriate 
 to each season of the year, from the writings of John 
 Burroughs. Illustrated from Photographs by Clif- 
 ton Johnson. 
 
 IN THE CAT SKILLS. Illustrated from Photographs 
 by Clifton Johnson. 
 
 CAMPING AND TRAMP. JG WITH ROOSEVELT 
 Illustrated from Photographs. 
 
 BIRD AND BOUGH. Poems. 
 
 WINTER SUNSHINE. Ca mbridge Classics Series. 
 
 WAKE- ROBIN. Riverside A Idine Series. 
 
 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS. Illus- 
 trated. 
 
 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS. Illustrated. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 Boston and New York 
 
JOHN BURROUGHS IN HIS STUDY 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN BURROUGHS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT 190I BY EDWARD H. HARRIMAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1904 BY JOHN BURROUGHS 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October iQ04 
 
Af 
 
 Ss ^- 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In the preface to " Riverby " I told my readers 
 that that was probably my last out-door book. But 
 my life has gone on, my love of nature has con- 
 tinued, my habit of observation has been kept up, 
 and the combined result is another collection of 
 papers dealing with the old, inexhaustible, open- 
 air themes. There may even be another volume in 
 the course of the following year. 
 
 The only part of the present collection that has 
 not been in print before is the chapter on Jamaica. 
 The account of the trip to Alaska originally ap- 
 peared in the first volume of the " Harriman Alaska 
 Expedition," published by Messrs. Doubleday, Page 
 & Co. in 1901, where it was profusely illustrated 
 by text cuts, full-page photogravures, and colored 
 plates. I am indebted to Mr. Harriman and to the 
 publishers named for permission to use it in this 
 collection. 
 
 August 1, 1904:. 
 
 12695 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAOB 
 
 I. In Green Alaska : 
 
 CROSSING THE CONTINENT 1 
 
 SHOSHONE FALLS AND CANYON ... 9 
 
 MULTNOMAH FALLS 18 
 
 THE INLAND PASSAGE 20 
 
 METLAKAHTLA 29 
 
 WRANGELL AND JUNEAU .... 32 
 
 LYNN CANAL AND SKAGWAY .... 35 
 
 WHITE PASS 36 
 
 SITKA ^3 
 
 IN YAKUTAT BAY 56 
 
 PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND 66 
 
 HARRIMAN FIORD 75 
 
 KADIAK 81 
 
 TO THE OREGON ROBIN IN ALASKA (verse) 89 
 
 TO THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR (verse) . . 99 
 
 THE SEAL ISLANDS 1^3 
 
 SIBERIA 1^' 
 
 PORT CLARENCE . . . • • • H^ 
 
 ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND H* 
 
 HALL AND ST. MATTHEW ISLANDS . US 
 
 THE RETURN TRIP . . • • • . l-^; 
 
 ST. ELIAS AND THE FAIRWEATHER RANGE . 125 
 
 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 II. Wild Life about my Cabin . . . 131 
 
 III. New Gleanings in Old Fields . . . 157 
 
 IV. Bird Life in Winter . . . . 173 
 V. A Birds' Free Lunch 183 
 
 VI. Two Birds'-Nests 191 
 
 VIL August Days 201 
 
 VIII. Babes in the Woods .... 215 
 
 IX. A Lost February 223 
 
 Index ....,..• 279 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 CROSSING THE CONTINENT 
 
 IT was my good fortune during the summer of 
 1899 to be one of a party of upwards of forty 
 persons whom E. H. Harriman of New York invited 
 to be his guests on a trip to Alaska. The expedition 
 was known as the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 
 and its object was to combine pleasure with scien- 
 tific research and exploration. The party embraced 
 a number of college professors, several specialists 
 from the biological and geological surveys of the 
 Government at Washington, two or three well- 
 known artists, as many literary men, a mining 
 expert, and several friends and relatives of Mr. 
 Harriman. 
 
 We left New York on the afternoon of May 23, 
 in a special train of palace cars, and took ship at 
 Seattle the last day of the month. All west of the 
 Mississippi was new land to me, and there was a 
 good deal of it. Throughout the prairie region, as 
 
 I 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 O farmer, I rejoiced in the endless vistas of beauti- 
 ful fertile farms, all busy with the spring planting, 
 and reaching from horizon to horizon of our flying 
 train. As a home-body and lover of the cosy and 
 I)ictures(|ue, I recoiled from the bald native farm- 
 houses with their unkempt surroundings, their rude 
 sheds and black muddy barnyards. As one goes 
 West, nature is more and more, and man less and 
 less. In New England one is surprised to see 
 such busy, thriving towns and such inviting coun- 
 try homes amid a landscape so bleak and barren. 
 In the West, on the contrary, his surprise is that such 
 oj)ulence of nature should be attended by such 
 sfjualor and makeshift in the farm buildings and 
 rural villages. Of course the picturesque is not an 
 element of the Western landscape as it is of the East- 
 ern. The predominant impression is that of utility. 
 Its beauty is the beauty of utility. One does not 
 say, what a beautiful view, but, what beautiful 
 farms ; not, what an attractive home, but, what 
 a superb field of corn, or wheat, or oats, or barley. 
 The crops and the herds suggest a bounty and a 
 fertility that are marvelous, but the habitations 
 for the most part look starved and impoverished. 
 The country roads are either merely dusty or black 
 muddy bands, stretching across the open land with- 
 out variety and without interest. As one's eye grows 
 fatigued with the monotony, the thought comes to 
 him of what terrible homesickness the first settlers 
 
 2 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 on the prairies from New England, New York, or 
 Pennsylvania must have suffered. Their hearts did 
 not take root here. They did not build them- 
 selves homes, they built themselves shelters. Their 
 descendants are trying here and there to build 
 homes, trying by tree planting and other devices 
 to give an air of seclusion and domesticity to their 
 dwellings. But the problem is a hard one. Nature 
 here seems to covet the utmost publicity. The farm- 
 ers must build lower and more rambling houses, 
 cultivate more grassy lanes, plant longer avenues of 
 trees, and not let the disheveled straw-stacks dom- 
 inate the scene. As children we loved to sit on the 
 laps of our fathers and mothers, and as children of 
 a larger and older growth we love the lap of mother 
 earth, some secluded nook, some cosy corner, where 
 we can nestle and feel the sheltering arm of the near 
 horizon about us. 
 
 After one reaches the more arid regions beyond 
 the Rockies, what pitiful farm homes he sees here 
 and there, — a low one-room building made of 
 hewn logs, the joints plastered with mud, a flat 
 mud roof, a forlorn-looking woman with children 
 about her standing in the doorway, a rude canopy 
 of brush or cornstalks upheld by poles for shed and 
 outbuildings ; not a tree, not a shrub near ; a few 
 acres of green irrigated land not far off, but the hills 
 and mountains around bare, brown, and forbid- 
 ding. We saw hundreds of such homes in Utah, 
 
 3 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Idaho, and Oregon, and they afTected me Hke a 
 niirhtniare. 
 
 A night's run west of Omaha a change comes 
 over the spirit of nature's dream. We have entered 
 upon that sea of vast rolhng phuns; agriculture is 
 left behind ; these gentle slopes and dimpled valleys 
 are innocent of the plow; herds of grazing cattle 
 and horses are seen here and there; now and then a 
 coyote trots away with feigned indifference from the 
 train, looking like a gray, homeless, sheep-killing 
 shepherd dog ; at long intervals a low hut or cabin, 
 looking very forlorn; sometimes a wagon- track leads 
 away and disappears over the treeless hills. How 
 I wanted to stop the train and run out over those 
 vast grassy billows and touch and taste this un- 
 familiar nature! Here in the early morning I heard 
 my first western meadowlark. The liquid, gurgling 
 song filtered in through the roar of the rushing train. 
 It was very sweet and novel, and made me wish 
 more than ever to call a halt and gain the wild still- 
 ness of the hills and plains, but it contained no sug- 
 gestion of the meadowlark I knew. I saw also the 
 horned lark and the black and white lark bunting 
 from the car window. 
 
 Presently another change comes over the scene: 
 we see the Rockies faint and shadowv in the far 
 distance, their snow-clad summits ghostly and dim; 
 the traveler crosses them on the Union Pacific al- 
 most before he is aware of it. He expects a nearer 
 
 4 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 view, but does not get it. Their distant snow-capped 
 peaks rise up, or bow down, or ride slowly along the 
 horizon afar off. They seem to elude him; he can- 
 not get near them ; they flee away or cautiously 
 work around him. At one point we seemed for hours 
 approaching the Elk Mountains, which stood up 
 sharp and white against the horizon; but a spell 
 was upon us, or upon them, for we circled and 
 circled till we left them behind. A vast treeless 
 country is a strange spectacle to Eastern eyes. This 
 absence of trees seems in some way to add to the 
 youthfulness of the landscape; it is like the face 
 of a beardless boy. Trees and forests make the 
 earth look as if it had attained its majority; they 
 give a touch like that of the mane to the lion or 
 the beard to the man. 
 
 In crossing the continent this youthfulness of the 
 land, or even its femininity, is at times a marked 
 feature. The face of the plains in Wyoming sug- 
 gests our Eastern meadows in early spring, — the 
 light gray of the stubble, with a tinge of green be- 
 neath. All the lines are gentle, all the tints are soft 
 The land looks as if it must have fattened innu- 
 merable herds. Probably the myriads of buffaloes 
 grazing here for centuries have left their mark upon 
 it. The hills are almost as plump and muttony in 
 places as the South Downs of England. 
 
 I recall a fine spectacle on the Laramie plains : a 
 vast green area, miles and miles in extent, dotted 
 
 5 
 
FAR AKD near 
 
 with thousands of cattle, one of the finest rural pic- 
 lures I ever saw. It looked like an olive green velvet 
 carpet, so soft and pleasing was it to the eye, and 
 the cattle were disposed singly or in groups as an 
 artist would have placed them. Rising up behind it 
 and finishing the picture was a jagged line of snow- 
 covered mountains. Presently the sagebrush took 
 the place of grass and another change occurred ; still 
 the lines of the landscape were flowing and the tints 
 soft. The sagebrush is like the sage of the garden 
 grown woody and aspiring to be a bush three or 
 four feet hiffh. It is the nearest that nature comes 
 to the arboreal beard on these great elevated plains. 
 Shave it away, and the earth beneath is as smooth 
 as a bov's cheek. 
 
 Before we get out of Wyoming this youthfulness 
 of nature gives place to mere newness, — raw, tur- 
 bulent, forbidding, almost chaotic. The landscape 
 suggests the dumping-ground of creation, where all 
 the refuse has been gathered. What one sees at 
 home in a clay-bank by the roadside on a scale of 
 a few feet, he sees here on a scale of hundreds and 
 thousands of feet, — the erosions and the sculptur- 
 ing of a continent, vast, titanic ; mountain ranges, 
 like newly piled earth from some globe-piercing 
 mine shaft, all furrowed and carved by the elements, 
 as if in yesterday's rainfall. It all has a new, transi- 
 tory look. Buttes or table mountains stand up here 
 and there like huge earth stumps. 
 
 6 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 Along Green River one sees where Nature begins 
 to dream of the great canyon of the Colorado. 
 Throughout a vast stretch of country here her one 
 thought seems to be of canyons. You see them 
 on every hand, little and big, — deep, rectangular 
 grooves sunk in the plain, sides perpendicular, 
 bottom level, all the lines sharp and abrupt. All 
 the little dry water-courses are canyons, the depth 
 and breadth being about equal ; the streams have 
 no banks, only perpendicular walls. Southward 
 these features become more and more pronounced 
 till the stupendous canyon of the Colorado in Ari- 
 zona is reached. 
 
 On our return in August we struck this formation 
 in the Bad Lands of Utah, where our train was 
 stalled a day and a half by a washout. In the Bad 
 Lands the earth seems to have been flayed alive, 
 — no skin or turf of verdure or vegetable mould any- 
 where, — all raw and quivering. The country looks 
 as if it might have been the site of enormous brick- 
 yards ; over hundreds of square miles the clay seems 
 to have been used up to the depth of fifty or a hun- 
 dred feet, leaving a floor much worn and grooved by 
 the elements. The mountains have been carved 
 and sliced but yesterday, showing enormous trans- 
 verse sections. Indeed, never before have I seen 
 the earth so vivisected, anatomized, gashed, — the 
 cuts all fresh, the hills looking as new and red as 
 butcher's meat, the strata almost bleeding. The 
 
 7 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 red and angry torrent of Price River, a mountain 
 brook of licjuid mud near which we lay, was quite 
 in keeping with the scene. How staid and settled 
 and old Nature looks in the Atlantic States, with 
 her clear streams, her rounded hills, her forests, her 
 lichen-covered rocks, her neutral tints, in contrast 
 with large sections of the Rocky Mountain region. 
 In the East the great god Erosion has almost done 
 his w^ork, — the grading and shaping of the land- 
 scape has long since been finished, the seeding and 
 planting are things of the remote past, — but in this 
 part of the West it is still the heat of the day with 
 him; we surprise his forces with shovels and piclvs 
 yet in hand, as it were, and the spectacle is strange 
 indeed and in many ways repellent. In places, the 
 country looks as if all the railroad forces of the 
 world might have been turned loose to delve and 
 rend and pile in some mad, insane carnival and 
 debauch. 
 
 In crossing the Rockies I had my first ride upon 
 the cowcatcher, or rather upon the bench of the 
 engine immediately above it. In this position one 
 gets a much more vivid sense of the perils that en- 
 compass the flying train than he does from the car 
 window. The book of fate is rapidly laid bare be- 
 fore him and he can scan every line, while from 
 his comfortable seat in the car he sees little more 
 than the margin of the page. From the engine he 
 reads the future and the immediate. From the cai 
 
 8 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 window he is more occupied with the distant and 
 the past. How rapidly those two slender steel rails 
 do spin beneath us, and how inadequate they 
 seem to sustain and guide this enormous throbbing 
 and roaring monster which we feel laboring and 
 panting at our backs. The rails seem ridiculously 
 small and slender for such a task ; surely, they 
 will bend and crumple up or be torn from the ties. 
 The peril seems imminent, and it is some time be- 
 fore one gets over the feeling. During this ride of 
 twenty-five miles we struck two birds — horned 
 larks — and barely missed several mourning doves. 
 A big hawk sat on the ground near the track eating 
 some small animal, probably a ground squirrel. 
 He was startled by our sudden approach, and in 
 flying across the track came so near being hit by 
 the engine that he was frightened into dropping his 
 quarry. Later in the day others of the party rode 
 upon the front of the engine, and each saw birds 
 struck and killed by it. The one ever-present bird 
 across the continent, even in the most desolate places, 
 is the mourning dove. From Indiana to Oregon, 
 at almost any moment, these doves may be seen fly- 
 ing away from the train. 
 
 SHOSHONE FALLS AND CANYON 
 
 The fourth day from home we reached the great 
 plains of the Snake River in southern Idaho, and 
 stopped at Shoshone to visit the Shoshone Falls. 
 
 9 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Mr. Ilarriman had telegraphed ahead to have 
 means of transportation in reachness to take us to 
 the falls, twenty-five miles to the south across the 
 sagebrush plains. Hence when we awoke at Sho- 
 shone in the early morning, we found a nondescript 
 collection of horses and vehicles awaiting us, — 
 buggies, buckboards, market wagons, and one old 
 Concord four-horse stage, besides a group of saddle- 
 horses for those who were equal to this mode of 
 travel. The day was clear and cool, and the spirits 
 of the party ran high. That ride over the vast sage- 
 brush plain in the exhilarating air, under the novel 
 conditions and in the early honeymoon of our 
 journey, — who of us can ever forget it ? My seat 
 happened to be beside the driver on top of the old 
 stage-coach, and we went swinging and rocking over 
 the plain in the style in w^hich I made my first 
 journey amid the Catskills in my youth. But how 
 tame were the Catskills of memory in comparison 
 with the snow-capped ranges that bounded our hori- 
 zon fifty or a hundred miles away : to the north 
 the Saw Tooth Range and " Old Soldier," wdiite as 
 a snow-bank ; to the southeast the Goose Creek 
 Range; and to the south the Humboldts, far away 
 in Nevada. Our course lay across w^hat was once a 
 sea of molten lava. Our geologists said that some 
 time in the remote past the crust of the earth here 
 had probably cracked over a wude area, allowing 
 the molten lava to flow up through it, like water 
 
 10 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 through rents in the ice, and inundate thousands of 
 square miles of surface, extending even to the Co- 
 lumbia, three hundred miles distant. This old lava 
 bed is now an undulating sagebrush plain, appear- 
 ing here and there in broken, jagged outcroppings, 
 or in broad, flat plates like a dark, cracked pave- 
 ment still in place, though partly hidden under a 
 yellowish brown soil. The road was a crooked one, 
 but fairly good. Its course far ahead was often 
 marked to us by a red line visible here and there 
 upon the dull green plain. Flowers, flowers every- 
 where under the sagebrush, covered the ground. 
 The effect was as of a rough garment with a thin, 
 many-colored silk lining. Great patches of lupine, 
 then the delicate fresh bloom of a species of phlox, 
 then larkspur, then areas of white, yellow, and 
 purple flowers of many kinds. It is a surprise to 
 Eastern eyes to see a land without turf, yet so dotted 
 with vegetation. It is as if all these things grew in a 
 plowed field, or in the open road ; the bare soil is 
 everywhere visible around them. The bunch grass 
 does not make a turf, but grows in scattered tufts 
 like bunches of green bristles. Nothing is crowded. 
 Every shrub and flower has a free space about it. 
 The horsemen and horsewomen careered gayly 
 ahead, or lingered behind, resting and botanizing 
 amid the brush. The dust from the leading vehicles 
 was seen rising up miles in advance. We saw an 
 occasional coyote slink away amid the sagebruish. 
 
 11 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Dark-cared and dark-tailed gray hares l)oiinded 
 away or eyed us from cover. Horned larks were 
 common, and the sage s})arrow, the meadowlark, 
 and other birds were seen and heard. 
 
 Shoshone Falls are in Snake River, which later on 
 becomes the Columbia. The river does not flow in 
 a valley like our Eastern rivers, but in walled can- 
 yons which it has cut into the lava plain to the depth 
 of nearly a thousand feet. The only sign we could 
 see of it, when ten miles away, was a dark heavy 
 line here and there on the green purple plain, the 
 opposite rim of the great gorge. 
 
 Near noon we reached a break, a huge gateway, 
 in the basaltic rocks, and were upon the brink of the 
 canvon itself. It was a sudden vision of elemental 
 grandeur and power opening up at our feet. Our 
 eyes had been reveling in purple distances, in the 
 soft tints of the sagebrush plain, and in the flowers 
 and long, gentle, flowing hills, when suddenly the 
 earth opened and we looked into a rocky chasm 
 nearly a thousand feet deep, with the river and the 
 falls roaring at the bottom of it. The grand, the 
 terrible, the sublime were sprung upon us in a twin- 
 kling. The chasm is probably a mile or more broad, 
 with perpendicular sides of toppling columnar lava 
 eight hundred feet high. A roadway, carved out of 
 the avalanches of loose rocks that hang upon the 
 sides of the awful gulf, winds down to the river and 
 to the cable ferry above the falls. Our party, in 
 
 12 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 detached groups, made slow progress down to this 
 ferry, there was so much to arrest and fascinate the 
 attention. The new, strange birds, such as the 
 white-throated swift, the violet-backed swallow ; 
 the strange and beautiful wild flowers in the rocks ; 
 the rocks themselves in towering six-sided col- 
 umns, the spray from the falls below us rising up 
 over the chasm, — these and other features made 
 us tarry long by the way. 
 
 In order to get to the front of the falls and pluck 
 out the heart of the sublimity, the traveler must 
 cross to the south side of the river, at this point less 
 than half a mile wide. Here the shore recedes in 
 broad, irregular terraces, upon one of which stands 
 a comfortable summer hotel. Scaling slippery and 
 perilous rocky points near it, we stood on the very 
 brink of the chasm and took our fill of the awful 
 and the sublime as born of cliff and cataract. We 
 clung to stretched ropes and wires and peered down 
 into the abyss. Elemental displays on such a scale 
 crowd all trivial and personal thoughts out of the 
 mind of the beholder. It is salutary to look upon 
 them occasionally, if only to winnow out of our minds 
 the dust and chaff of the petty affairs of the day, and 
 feel the awe and hush that come over the spirit in 
 the presence of such sublimity. 
 
 Shoshone Falls are probably second only to Ni- 
 agara, — less in volume, but of greater height and 
 far more striking and picturesque in setting. In- 
 
 13 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 deed, ihey are a sort of double Nia<i;ara, one of rocks 
 and one of water, and liie beholder hardly knows 
 wliich is the more impressive. The river above the 
 main fall is split up into several strands by isolated 
 masses of towering rocks ; each of these strands 
 ends in a beautiful fall, forty or fifty feet in hei<.dit; 
 then the several currents unite for the final plunge 
 down a precipice of two hundred and fifty feet. 
 To get a different, and if possible a closer view of 
 the falls, we climbed down the side of the chasm, 
 by means of ladders and footsteps cut in the rock 
 and soil, to the margin of the river below. Here we 
 did homage at the foot of the grand spectacle and 
 gazed upward into its awful face. The canyon 
 below the falls is so broad that the river has an easy 
 egress, hence there is nothing of that terrible agony 
 upon the face of the waters that we see in the gorge 
 below Niagara. Niagara is much the more impos- 
 ing spectacle. Shoshone is the more ideal and 
 poetic. It is a fall from an abyss into a deeper abyss. 
 A few miles below the falls are still other wonders 
 in the shape of underground rivers which leap out 
 of huge openings in the side of the canyon, — a 
 subterranean water system cut across by a larger 
 river. The streams that emerge in this dramatic 
 manner arc doubtless the same that suddenly take 
 to earth far to the northward. Why they also did 
 not cut canyons in the plain is an interesting prob- 
 lem. 
 
 14 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 In the trees about the hamlet of Shoshone I first 
 made acquaintance with the house finch, a bird 
 with quivering flight and bright, cheery song. It 
 suggests our purple finch, and seems to be as much 
 of a house and home bird as is the ugly English 
 sparrow. The Arkansas flycatcher also was com- 
 mon here, taking the place of our kingbird. 
 
 In Idaho we reach a land presided over by the 
 goddess Irrigation. Here she has made the desert 
 bloom as the rose. We see her servitors even in the 
 streets of large towns, in the shape of great w^ater- 
 wheels turned by the current, out of which they 
 lift v/ater up into troughs that distribute it right 
 and left into orchards and gardens. Here may the 
 dwellers well say with the Psalmist, " I will lift up 
 mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my 
 help." 
 
 The Oregon Short Line Railroad takes the gen- 
 eral direction of the old Oregon trail along Snake 
 River through Idaho and Oregon. It is a treeless 
 country, save for the hand of man and the water 
 from the hills. Vast patches of the original sage- 
 brush alternate with vineyards and orchards, — 
 orchards of peaches, prunes, and apricots, — or 
 with meadows and grain-fields. Where the irrigat- 
 ing-ditch can be carried, there the earth is clothed 
 with grass or grain or verdure. Baptize the savage 
 sagebrush plain with w^ater and it becomes a Chris- 
 tian orchard and wheatfield. Now we begin to 
 
 15 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 see magpies from the car windows, — twinkling 
 black and white wings and a long-tailed body. 
 Lorabardy poplars stand like rows of sentinels 
 around the lonely farmhouses. These trees appear 
 to be the only ones planted in this section. The 
 near-by foothills are of a yellowish earth color, 
 speckled as a thrush's breast with sagebrush. In 
 other places lupine and wild sunflowers cover the 
 land for miles, the latter giving a touch of gold to 
 the hills. 
 
 After vSnake River escapes from the deep lava 
 canyon of Shoshone Falls, it flows for many miles 
 between level banks, with here and there a slowly 
 turning irrigating-wheel lifting the water up to be 
 emptied into troughs or ditches. Near the boundary 
 between Oregon and Idaho the Snake plunges into 
 the mountains ; plump, full-breasted, tan-colored 
 heights close about it on all sides, now dotted 
 with sagebrush, then lightly touched by the most 
 delicate green, the first tender caress of May. All 
 the lines are feminine and flowing, only here and 
 there a touch of ruggedness as the brown rock 
 crops out. Cover these mountains with turf, and 
 they are almost a copy of the sheep fells and green 
 ranges of northern England. They are marked by 
 the same fullness and softness of outline. For many 
 miles the Snake flows north, through these treeless, 
 rounded, flower-painted, green-veiled mountains, 
 until it enters the terrible canyon between the Seven 
 
 16 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 Devils and the Wallowas. Reappearing at the 
 mouth of the Clearwater, it bends westerly and cuts 
 another long canyon across the high plateau of 
 eastern Oregon and Washington. It does not trav- 
 erse any flat country until it finally emerges on the 
 sand plains near its junction with the Columbia. 
 
 Our train made a long detour through Oregon 
 and Washington, and put us down at Lewiston in 
 Idaho, that we might have a steamboat ride down 
 Snake River to its mouth in the Columbia. I had 
 somehow got the impression that we should see great 
 forests in Washington and Oregon, but we missed 
 them. They are on the moist Pacific slope west of 
 the Cascade Range. We sailed 150 miles that after- 
 noon down the Snake, amid mountains two thou- 
 sand or more feet high, as smooth and as treeless 
 as the South Downs of England; very novel, very 
 beautiful, their lower slopes pink in places with a 
 delicate flower called Clarkia, in others blue-purple 
 like the cheek of a plum. I say mountains, but they 
 are only the sides of the huge canyon through which 
 the Snake flows. How the afternoon sun brought 
 out their folds and dimples and clinging, delicate 
 tints ! The green of the higher slopes was often like 
 a veil of thin green gauze, dropped upon them. The 
 effects were all new to me, and pleasing beyond 
 words, — wild, aboriginal, yet with such beauty 
 and winsome gentleness and delicacy. The river 
 is nearly half the width of the Hudson, and much 
 
 17 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 more winding. The geologists speculated upon the 
 formation as it was laid bare in places ; the bota- 
 nists upon the wild flowers that painted the shore ; 
 the ornithologists upon the birds seen and heard. 
 Swarms of cliff swallows were observed about the 
 basaltic rocks near the water. 
 
 There were not many signs of rural life, — here 
 and there low, rude farmhouses on the deltas of 
 land at the mouths of the side gorges, and at least 
 one very large fruit farm on a low, level area on our 
 right. A novel sijjht was the Ion": wooden and wire 
 wheat chutes for running the wheat down from 
 the farms back on the high mountain tablelands to 
 the river, where the boats could pick it up. They 
 were tokens of a life and fertility quite unseen and 
 unsuspected. 
 
 MULTNOMAH FALLS 
 
 The ride in the train along the south bank of the 
 Columbia toward Portland, past The Dalles, past 
 the Cascades, past Oneonta Gorge and the Mult- 
 nomah and Latourelle Falls, is a feast of the beau- 
 tiful and the sublime, — the most delicate tints and 
 colors of moss and wild flowers setting off the most 
 rugged alpine scenery. In places the railroad em- 
 bankment is decked w^ith brilliant patches of red 
 and purple flowers, as if garlanded for a festival. 
 Presently the moss-covered rocks are white-aproned 
 with the clear mountain brooks that cascade down 
 
 18 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 their sides from the dark, mantling pines and cedars 
 above. They are the prelude of what we are pre- 
 sently to see, — the gem of all this region, and per- 
 haps the most thrillingly beautiful bit of natural 
 scenery we beheld on the whole trip, — the Mult- 
 nomah Falls. 
 
 The train gave us only five minutes to look at it, 
 but those five minutes were of the most exquisite 
 delight. There, close at hand, but withdrawn into 
 a deep recess in the face of the mountain wall, like a 
 statue in an alcove, stood this vision of beauty and 
 sublimity. How the siren mocked us, and made 
 the few minutes in which we were allowed to view 
 her so tantalizingly brief ! Not water, but the spirit 
 of water, of a snow-born mountain torrent, playing 
 and dallying there with wind and gravity, on the 
 face of a vertical, moss-covered, rocky wall six hun- 
 dred feet high. So ethereal, yet so massive; a com- 
 bination of a certain coyness and unapproachable- 
 ness with such elemental grandeur and power. It 
 left nothing to be desired but a day in which to picnic 
 upon the flower-covered carpet of moss at its feet. 
 The brief view warmed me up like a great sym- 
 phony. It was indeed to the eye what the sweetest 
 and most stirring music is to the ear, — harmony, 
 delicacy, and power. Such an air of repose and 
 completeness about it all ; yes, and of the private 
 and secluded. The nymph was withdrawn into 
 her bower, but had left the door open. This ele- 
 
 19 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 mcnt of mystery and shyness was afforded by the 
 well-hidden rocky basin into which the water fell, 
 and by the curtain of rock which shut it off from 
 our view. Out of this basin the current emerged 
 near at hand and more familiar in a fall of fifty feet 
 or more, w^hence it took its way to the river in a 
 clear, rapid stream. It was as if the goddess had re- 
 clothed herself in this hidden rock-screened pool 
 and come forth again in more palpable every-day 
 guise. I hardly expected to see anything in Alaska 
 or anywhere else that would blur or lessen the 
 impression made by those falls, and I did not, 
 and probably never shall. 
 
 We had hoped that at Portland and Seattle we 
 should get glimpses of the great mountains — 
 Hood, Baker, Rainier — but we did not ; fog and 
 cloud prevented. A lady living upon the heights at 
 Seattle told me that when a, dweller there was out 
 of humor, her neighbors usually excused her by 
 saying, "Well, she has not seen the Olympics this 
 morning." I fancy they are rarely on exhibition 
 to strangers or visitors. 
 
 THE INLAND PASSAGE 
 
 The chapters of our sea voyage and Alaskan ex- 
 periences properly opened on the afternoon of May 
 31, when we found our state-rooms in our steamer, 
 the George W. Elder, received our California con- 
 tingent, which included John Muir, and made our 
 
 20 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 final preparations for the trip. The steamer was 
 a large iron ship, specially fitted up for our party. 
 Her coal bunkers were full, and she was provisioned 
 for a two months' cruise. We had hunting parties 
 among us that expected to supply us with venison 
 and bear meat, but to be on the safe side we took 
 aboard eleven fat steers, a flock of sheep, chickens 
 and turkeys, a milch cow, and a span of horses. The 
 horses were to be used to transport the hunters and 
 their traps inland and to pack out the big game. 
 The hold of our ship looked hke a farmer's barn- 
 yard. We heard the mellow low of the red steer even 
 in the wilds of Bering Sea, but the morning crow 
 of our cockerels was hushed long before that time. 
 And I may here anticipate events so far as to say 
 that the horses proved a superfluity, their only asso- 
 ciation with game being the two foxskins for which 
 Mr. Harriman traded them at Kadiak. But this 
 was no ignoble ending, as they were choice pelts of 
 the rare and coveted black fox. Besides the live 
 stock just mentioned, an inventory of our equipment 
 would include one steam and two naphtha launches, 
 boats and folding canvas canoes, tents, sleeping- 
 bags, camp outfits, and in fact everything such an 
 expedition could possibly need. Our completed 
 party now numbered over forty persons besides 
 the crew and the officers of the ship (126 persons in 
 all), and embraced college professors from both the 
 Atlantic and Pacific coasts — botanists, zoologists, 
 
 21 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 geologists, and other specialists, besides artists, 
 photographers, two physicians, one trained nurse, 
 one doctor of divinity, and at least one dreamer. 
 
 Dr. Dall was our Alaska specialist, having pre- 
 viously visited the territory thirteen times, and hav- 
 ing spent many years there. In John INIuir we had 
 an authority on glaciers, and a thorough one; he 
 looked upon them with the affection and the air of 
 proprietorship with which a shepherd looks upon his 
 flock. The Indians used to call him the Great Ice 
 Chief. Dr. Fernow was our professor of forestry and 
 might be called the Great Tree Chief. Then what 
 Professors Emerson, Palache, and Gilbert could not 
 tell us about the geology of the country, or Brew-er 
 and Gannett about the climate and physical geo- 
 graphy, or Coville and Trelease about the plants, 
 or Ritter and Saunders about the life in the sea, or 
 Merriam about the mammals, or Ridgw^ay and Fisher 
 about the birds, or Elliot about the game-birds, or 
 Devereux about mines, or Grinnell and Dellenbauirh 
 about Indians, it could hardly be worth our while 
 to try to find out. 
 
 We were in British waters on June 1st and set 
 foot on British soil at Victoria on the Island of Van- 
 couver. Even the climate is British — mist and a 
 warm slow rain — with dense verdure and thick 
 green turf dotted with the English daisy. Indeed, 
 nature here seems quite as English as does the sober, 
 solidly built town with its fine and imposing Parlia- 
 
 22 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 ment building — all but the birds. I heard the west- 
 ern highhole calling hke ours at home; and the 
 russet-backed thrush, the yellow warbler, and the 
 white-crowned sparrow were in song along the woods 
 and brushy fields. 
 
 On June 1st, after touching at Victoria, we were 
 fairly launched upon our voyage. Before us was a 
 cruise of several thousand miles, one thousand of 
 which was through probably the finest scenery of 
 the kind in the world that can be viewed from the 
 deck of a sliip — the scenery of fiords and mountain- 
 locked bays and arms of the sea. Day after day 
 a panorama unrolls before us with features that 
 might have been gathered from the Highlands of 
 the Hudson, from Lake George, from the Thou- 
 sand Islands, the Saguenay, and the Rangeley Lakes 
 in Maine, with the addition of towering snow- 
 capped peaks thrown in for a background. The 
 edge of this part of the continent for a thousand 
 miles has been broken into fragments, small and 
 great, as by the stroke of some earth-cracking 
 hammer, and into the openings and channels thus 
 formed the sea flows freely, often at a depth of from 
 one to two thousand feet. It is along these inland 
 ocean highways, through tortuous narrows, up 
 smooth, placid inlets, across broad island-studded 
 gulfs and bays, with now and then the mighty throb 
 of the Pacific felt for an hour or two through some 
 open door in the wall of islands, that our course lay* 
 
 93 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 For two days Vancouver Island is on our left 
 with hardly a break in its dark spruce forests, cov- 
 ering mountain and vale. On our right is British 
 Columbia, presenting the same endless spruce 
 forests, with peaks of the Coast Range, eight or ten 
 thousand feet high, in the background, and only 
 an occasional sign of human life on shore. I recall 
 a lone farmhouse in a stumpy clearing that drew 
 our eyes. IIow remote and secluded it looked ! The 
 dark forests, with a fringe of dead trees where the 
 pioneer's fire had raged, encompassed it. The grass 
 and grain looked green among the stumps, and near 
 the house, which was a well-built, painted struc- 
 ture, we could see fruit-trees and a garden. There 
 was not much wild life about us; now and then a 
 duck or two, an occasional bald eagle, a small 
 flock of phalaropes, which the sailors call " sea 
 geese," as they sit on the water like miniature 
 geese. 
 
 Our first dangerous passage was SejTiiour Nar- 
 rows, which we reached at the right stage of the tide. 
 Cautiously the ship felt her way through the con- 
 torted currents that surged above the sunken rocks. 
 Fog clouds clung to the white peaks that rose above 
 the dark forests about us and partly veiled them. 
 At times we were so near them that with a glass one 
 could see where little snow-balls had detached them- 
 selves and made straight lines down the smooth 
 white surface. It was the 2d of June, but the wind 
 
 24 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 that swept down the channel was as cold as that of 
 an October morning at home. The event of this 
 day was the sunset at half-past eight o'clock. I had 
 often seen as much color and brilliancy in the sky, 
 but never before such depth and richness of blue 
 and purple upon the mountains and upon the water. 
 Where the sun went down the horizon was low, and 
 but a slender black line of forest separated the sky 
 from the water. All above was crimson and orange 
 and gold, and all below, to the right and left, purple 
 laid upon purple until the whole body of the air be- 
 tween us and the mountains in the distance seemed 
 turned to color. 
 
 As we go north the scenery becomes more and 
 more like that of the fiords on the coast of Nor- 
 way, except that the mountains there are mostly 
 deforested. Deep sea-blue water about us, dark 
 spruce and cedar clad and torrent-furrowed moun- 
 tains rising above us, touched with snow on their 
 summits. Now and then a bald eagle flaps heavily 
 along the mountain-side, or a line of black oyster- 
 catchers skim swiftly over the surface. We see 
 Mount Palmerston on our left, five thousand feet 
 high, covered with a heavy snow mantle in which 
 his rocky bones have worn many holes. The bril- 
 liant sun brings out every line and angle. J^ 
 
 At noon we stop in a deep cove with a rapid 
 stream coming into the head of it, to give some of 
 our party an hour on shore. While we are waiting 
 
 25 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 for them, two deer appear upon the beach, about a 
 mile distant. Tliey l:>rowse around awhile, then 
 disappear in the woods. To the west of us is a 
 striking picture. In the foreground is the sea with 
 a line of low, rounded, dark rocky islands; behind 
 them, far off, a range of blue mountains with a 
 broad band of dun-colored clouds resting upon 
 them; rising above the band of clouds a series of 
 snow-covered peaks, with the sun shining full 
 upon them, probably the highest peaks we have yet 
 seen. The cloud belt cuts off and isolates the peaks 
 and gives them a buoyant airy character. From 
 the dark near-by tree-tufted chain of islands to 
 the white-illuminated peaks, what a wealth of blue 
 and gray tints and tones! 
 
 Near nightfall on this second day we begin to 
 feel the great pulse of the Pacific around the head 
 of Vancouver Island, through the broad open door 
 called Queen Charlotte Sound. For three hours 
 the ship rolls as upon the open sea, and to several 
 of us the " subsequent proceedings " that night were 
 void of interest. 
 
 In the early morning we pass another open door, 
 Milbank Sound, but are soon in Graham Reach, 
 which is like a larger, wilder Hudson. When we 
 look out of our windows the sun is upon the moun- 
 tain tops, and the snow much farther down their 
 sides than \\e have yet seen it. 
 
 As we progress, many deep ravines are noted in 
 
 26 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 vast recesses in the mountains, scooped out by the 
 old glaciers. They are enormous rocky bowls 
 which we imagine hold crystal lakes; foaming 
 streams pour out of them into the channel. Far up, 
 silver threads of water, born of the melting snows, 
 are seen upon the vast faces of the rocks. Some 
 of them course down the tracks of old landslides ; 
 others are seen only as they emerge from dark 
 spruces. 
 
 The snow upon the mountain tops looks new 
 fallen; our glasses bring out the sharp curling edges 
 of the drifts. Here and there along the shore below 
 are seen the rude huts of trappers and hunters. 
 The eternal spruce and hemlock forests grow 
 monotonous. The many dry, white trunks of dead 
 trees, scattered evenly through the forest, make 
 the mountains look as if a shower of gigantic arrow^s 
 had fallen upon them from the sky. Gulls, loons, 
 and scoters are seen at long intervals. 
 
 Snow avalanches have swept innumerable paths, 
 broad and narrow, down through the spruce forest 
 Those great glacier basins on our left invite inspec- 
 tion, so we send a party ashore to examine one of 
 them. They do not find the expected lake, but in 
 its stead a sphagnum bog, through which the creek 
 winds its way. Fresh tracks and other signs of deer 
 are seen. 
 
 In mid-afternoon we turn into Lowe Inlet, a 
 deep, narrow, mountain-locked arm of the sea on 
 
 27 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 our right, with a salmon cannery at the head of it, 
 and a large, rapid trout stream making a fine water- 
 fall. Here, among the employees of the cannery, we 
 see our first Alaskan Indians and note their large, 
 round, stolid, innocent faces. Here also some of us 
 get our first taste of Alaska woods. In trying to 
 make our way to the falls we are soon up to our 
 necks amid moss, fallen timber, and devil's club. 
 Progress is all but impossil^le, and those who finally 
 reach the falls do so by withdrawing from the woods 
 and taking to boats. Traversing Alaskan forests 
 must be a trying task even to deer and bears. They 
 have apparently never been purged or thinned by 
 fire — too damp for that — and they are choked 
 with the accumulation of ages. Two or three gen- 
 erations of fallen trees cross one another in all 
 directions amid the rocks, with moss over all like a 
 deep fall of snow, and worse still, thickly planted 
 with devil's club. This is a shrub as high as your 
 head, covered with long sharp spines and with 
 large thorny leaves. It is like a blackberry bush 
 with thorns ten times multiplied. It hedges about 
 these mossy cushions as with the fangs of serpents. 
 One can hardly touch it without being stung. The 
 falls are the outlet of a deep, hidden, enticing valley, 
 with a chain of beautiful lakes, we were told, but 
 our time was too brief to explore it. The winter 
 wren was found here, and the raven, and a species 
 of woodpecker. 
 
 28 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 METLAKAHTLA 
 
 We were not really in iVlaskan waters until the next 
 day, June 4th. This was Sunday, and we spent most 
 of the day visiting Metlakahtla, the Indian Mission 
 settlement on Annette Island, where we saw one of 
 the best object lessons to be found on the coast, 
 showing what can be done with the Alaska Indians. 
 Here were a hundred or more comfortable frame 
 houses, some of them of two stories, many of them 
 painted, all of them substantial and in good taste, 
 a large and imposing wooden church, a large school- 
 house, a town hall, and extensive canning estab- 
 lishments, all owned and occupied by seven or 
 eight hundred Tlinkit Indians, who, under the won- 
 derful tutelage of William Duncan, a Scotch mis- 
 sionary, had been brought from a low state of 
 savagery to a really fair state of industrial civiliza- 
 tion. The town is only twelve years old, and is 
 situated on a broad expanse of nearly level land 
 at the foot of the mountains. The large stumps 
 and logs on the surface between the houses show 
 how recently the land has been cleared. The earth 
 was covered with a coat of peat, the accumulation 
 of ages of a thick growth of moss. Beneath this 
 the soil was red and friable. We strolled about 
 the numerous streets on broad plank walks that 
 reached from side to side above the rocks and 
 stumps. Many of the houses had gardens where were 
 
 29 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 grown potatoes, turnips, onions, strawberries, rasp- 
 berries, and currants. The people were clad as well 
 and in much the same way as those of rural villages 
 in New York and New England. A large number 
 of them were gathered upon the wharf when we 
 landed, their big round faces and black eyes showing 
 only a quiet, respectful curiosity. We called upon 
 Mr. Duncan at his house and listened to his racy 
 and entertaining conversation. His story was full of 
 interest. At eleven o'clock the church bell was ring- 
 ing, and the people — men, women, and children, all 
 neatly and tastefully clad — began to assemble foi 
 their Sunday devotions. Some of the hats of the 
 younger women looked as if fresh from the hands of 
 a fashionable city milliner. Many of the older ma- 
 trons wore silk handkerchiefs of various colors on 
 their heads. Mr. Duncan preached to his people in 
 their native tongue, a vague, guttural, featureless 
 sort of language, it seemed. The organ music and 
 the singing were quite equal to what one would hear 
 in any rural church at home. The church was built 
 by native carpenters out of native woods, and its 
 large audience room, capable of seating eight or 
 nine hundred people, was truly rich and beautiful. 
 Mr. Duncan is really the father of his people. He 
 stands to them not only for the gospel, but for the 
 civil law as well. He supervises their business enter- 
 prises and composes their family quarrels. 
 
 The Alaskan Indian is of quite a different race 
 
 30 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 from the red man as we know him. lie is smaller 
 in stature and lighter in color, and has none of that 
 look as of rocks and mountains, austere and relent- 
 less, that our Indians have. He also takes more 
 kindly to our ways and customs and to our various 
 manual industries. 
 
 In reaching the land of the Indian we had reached 
 the land of the raven also — few crows, but many 
 ravens. We saw them upon the beach and around 
 the wharf long before we landed. In the village they 
 were everywhere — on the roofs of the houses, 
 and on the stumps and dooryard fences. Six were 
 perched upon one of the towers of the church as I 
 approached. Their calls and croakings and jabber- 
 ings were in the ear at all times. The raven is a 
 much more loquacious bird than the crow. His 
 tongue is seldom still. When he has no fellow to talk 
 to he talks to himself, and his soliloquy is often full 
 of really musical notes. In these Alaskan settlements 
 they appear to act as scavengers, like the buzzards 
 in the South. Other birds that attracted my atten- 
 tion were the song sparrow, a nest of which with 
 young I found amid some bushes near one of the 
 houses, and the russet-backed thrush, which was 
 flitting about the streets and gardens. 
 
 In the afternoon we were steaming over a vast 
 irregular-shaped body of water — Clarence Straits. 
 On one side the sky and water met in a long hori- 
 
 31 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 zontal line. The sun was shiningbrightly,andthe far- 
 off snow-capped mountains rolled up against the sky 
 like thunder-heads. Nearer by were small spruce- 
 tufted islands, and low dark shores. Etolin Island 
 was ahead of us, and Prince of Wales Island on the 
 west. In the evening we saw the most striking sun- 
 set of the voyage. We were in just the right place at 
 just the right time. All the conditions and relations 
 of sun, air, water, and jnountain were as we would 
 have had them — a scene such as artists try in vain 
 to paint and travelers to describe: towering snow- 
 clad peaks far ahead of us, rising behind dark blue 
 and purple ranges, fold on fold, and all aflame with 
 the setting sun. We looked upon the spectacle through 
 a huge gateway in our front which formed a dark 
 rugged frame to the picture. The solid earth be- 
 came spiritual and transcendent. Presently another 
 dark gateway opened in the mountains on our right 
 and other transfigured summits — Black Crag, Mt. 
 W^hipple, the Pinnacles — came into view, riding 
 slowly along above and behind other blue purple 
 ranges — such depth and softness of tint and shadow 
 below, such glory of flame and gold above ! The 
 ship crept along in the deepening twilight and slowly 
 the flaming peaks turned to neutral gray. 
 
 WRANGELL AND JUNEAU 
 
 The morning of the 5th dawned clear and cold, 
 like a winter morning in Florida. It found us at Fort 
 
 32 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 Wrangell, where we spent a few hours on shore 
 looking at totem poles and viewing the shabby old 
 town, while we kept an eye open to the botany and 
 natural history of the place. Our collectors brought 
 in a Steller's jay, a russet-back'od thrush, an Ore- 
 gon junco, a gray fox sparrow, a lutescent warbler, 
 a rufous-backed chickadee with nest and eggs, and 
 a Harris's woodpecker. 
 
 At eight o'clock we were off again toward Wrangell 
 Narrows, across the superb Wrangell Bay. At noon 
 we saw Devil's Thumb on our right, a naked shaft 
 over sixteen hundred feet high, rising from a moun- 
 tain which is over seven thousand feet. It is a thumb 
 of goodly dimensions. 
 
 The next day we saw our first glacier, the Patter- 
 son, a small affair compared with those we were soon 
 to behold ; indeed about the smallest lamb of the flock 
 of Muir's mountain sheep, but interesting to novice 
 eyes. It lies there low in the lap or apron of the 
 mountain, and suggests the fragment of an arrested 
 or congealed river. All the afternoon we sailed 
 under cloudless skies along Frederick Sound, feasting 
 our eyes upon the vast panorama of the encircling 
 mountains. When we tired of this there were the low 
 curving shores and nearer-by heights and the numer- 
 ous tree-capped islands that seemed floating upon the 
 blue expanse of water. Many whales were seen blow- 
 ing, their glistening backs emerging from the water, 
 turning slowly like the periphery of a huge wheel. 
 
 33 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 We had reached the land of eagles as well as of 
 ravens. On a low rocky point seven eagles sat in 
 a row on the rocks near the water's edge and re- 
 garded us with the indifference of Indian chiefs. 
 
 We stopped a day at Juneau, from which point 
 we visited the famous Treadwell mines on Douglas 
 Island. Nearly two thousand tons of quartz rock 
 are crushed daily at these mills, and the roar made 
 by the eight hundred or more stamps, all under one 
 roof, in pulverizing this rock, dwarfs all other rackets 
 I ever heard. Niagara is a soft hum beside it. Never 
 before have I been where the air was torn to tatters 
 and the ear so stunned and overwhelmed as in this 
 jaill. If the heavens ever should fall and one were 
 under a roof strong enough to stand the shock, I 
 think the uproar might be something like what we 
 experienced that day. It was not a grand reverber- 
 ating sound like the sounds of nature, it was simply 
 the most ear-paralyzing noise ever heard within four 
 walls. Heard, I say, though in truth we did not hear 
 it. To hear a thing, there must be some silence ; this 
 hubbub was so great and all-pervasive that the audi- 
 tory nerve was simply bruised into insensibility. The 
 remarkable thing about this mine is the enormous 
 extent of the gold-bearing quartz and its low grade 
 — three or four dollars a ton of rock. And yet the 
 process of extracting the gold has been so cheap- 
 ened by improved methods and machinery that the 
 investment yields a good profit. 
 
 34 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 LYNN CANAL AND SKAGWAY 
 
 All the afternoon we steamed up Lynn Canal over 
 broad, placid waters, shut in by dark smooth-based 
 mountains that end in bare serrated peaks. Glaciers 
 became more and more numerous ; one on our right 
 hung high on the brink of a sheer, naked precipice, 
 as if drawing back from the fearful plunge. But 
 plunge it did not and probably never will. 
 
 We were soon in sight of a much larger glacier, the 
 Davidson, on our left. It flows out of a deep gorge 
 and almost reaches the inlet. Seen from afar it sug- 
 gests the side view of a huge white foot with its toe 
 pressing a dark line of forest into the sea. 
 
 Before sunset we : cached Skagway and landed at 
 the long, liigh pier (the tides here are sixteen or eigh- 
 teen feet). The pier was swarming with people. Such 
 a gathering and such curiosity and alertness we had 
 not before seen. Hotel runners flourished their cards 
 and called out the names of their various hostelries 
 before we had touched the dock. Boys greeted us 
 with shouts and comments; women and girls, some 
 of them in bicycle suits, pushed to the front and 
 gazed intently at the strangers. All seemed to be ex- 
 pecting something, friends or news, or some sensa- 
 tional occurrence. No sooner had we touched than 
 the boys swarmed in upon us like ants and began to 
 explore the ship, and were as promptly swept ashore 
 again. Skagway is barely two years old. Born of the 
 
 <^ri 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 gold fever, it is still feverish and excitable. It is on 
 a broad delta of land made by the Skagway River 
 between the mountains, and, it seems to me, is likely 
 at any time by a great flood in the river to be swept 
 into the sea. It began at the stump and probably is 
 still the stumpiest town in the country. Many of the 
 houses stand upon stumps; there are stumps in 
 nearly every dooryard, but the people already speak 
 of the " early times," three years ago. 
 
 On the steep, bushy mountain-side near the wharf 
 I heard the melodious note of my first Alaska her- 
 mit thrush. It was sweet and pleasing, but not so 
 prolonged and powerful as the song of our hermit. 
 
 WHITE PASS 
 
 The next day the officials of the Yukon and White 
 Pass Railroad took our party on an excursion to the 
 top of the famous White Pass, twenty-one miles dis- 
 tant. The grade up the mountain is in places over 
 two hundred feet to the mile, and in making the 
 ascent the train climbs about twentv-nine hundred 
 feet. After the road leaves Skagway River its course 
 is along the face of precipitous granite peaks and 
 domes, with long loops around the heads of gorges 
 and chasms; occasionally on trestles over yawning 
 gulfs, but for the most part on a shelf of rock blasted 
 out of the side of the mountain. The train stopped 
 from time to time and allowed us to walk ahead and 
 coma face to face with the scene. The terrible and 
 
 36 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 the sublime were on every hand. It was as appalling 
 to look up as to look down ; chaos and death below 
 us, impending avalanches of hanging rocks above 
 us. How elemental and cataclysmal it all looked ! I 
 felt as if I were seeing for the first time the real 
 granite ribs of the earth; they had been cut into and 
 slivered, and there was no mistake about them. All 
 I had seen before were but scales and warts on the 
 surface by comparison ; here were the primal rocks 
 that held the planet together, sweeping up into the 
 clouds and plunging down into the abyss. Over 
 against us on the other side of the chasm we caught 
 glimpses here and there of the " Dead Horse Trail." 
 Among the spruces and along the rocky terraces are 
 said to have perished several thousand horses on this 
 terrible trail. The poor beasts became so weak from 
 lack of food that they slipped on the steep places 
 and plunged over the precipices in sheer despera- 
 tion, and thus ended their misery. 
 
 On the summit we found typical March weather: 
 snow, ice, water, mud, slush, fog, and chill. The fog 
 prevented us from getting a view down toward the 
 Klondike country, six hundred miles away. The 
 British flag and the Stars and Stripes were floating 
 side by side on the provisional boundary line be- 
 tween Alaska and British Columbia, and several 
 Canadian police were on duty there. Even in this 
 bleak spot we found birds nesting or preparing tc 
 nest : the pipit, the golden-crowned sparrow, and the 
 
 37 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 rosy finch. The vegetation was mostly moss and 
 hc'licns and low stunted spruce, the latter so tlat- 
 tened by the snow that one could walk over them- 
 
 In keeping with the snow and desolation and 
 general dissolution was the group of hasty, ragged 
 canvas buildings and tents at the railroad ter- 
 minus, the larger ones belonging to the company, 
 the others for the accommodation of traveling gold- 
 seekers. In one of the larger tents a really good 
 dinner was served our party, through the courtesy 
 of the railroad officials. We saw on the trail a few 
 gold-seekers with their heavy packs: they paused 
 and looked up wistfully at our train. 
 
 In ascending the Pass v/e met a small party of 
 naturalists from the U. S. Biological Survey on their 
 way to the Yukon, the entire length of which they 
 intended traversing in a small boat. We stopped 
 long enough to visit their tent and take a hasty look 
 at the interesting collection of birds and mammals 
 they had already secured here. They have since 
 returned and published a report on the results of 
 their labors. 
 
 At the time of our visit the railroad terminus was 
 at the summit of the pass, from which point pas- 
 sengers bound for the Klondike were transported to 
 Lake Bennett by sleighs. The deep snow w^as 
 melling so rapidly and slumping so badly that the 
 sled-loads of people and grain we saw depart for the 
 Upper Yukon were, we were told, the last to go 
 
 38 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 through before the completion of the railroad to 
 Bennett. 
 
 The next day found us in Glacier Bay on our way 
 to the Muir Glacier. Our course was up an arm of the 
 sea, dotted with masses of floating ice, till in the dis- 
 tance we saw the great glacier itself. Its front looked 
 gray and dim there twenty miles away, but in the 
 background the mountains that feed it lifted up vast 
 masses of snow in the afternoon sun. At five o'clock 
 we dropped anchor about two miles from its front, in 
 eighty fathoms of water, abreast of the little cabin on 
 the east shore built by John Muir some years ago. 
 Not till after repeated soundings did we find bottom 
 within reach of our anchor cables. Could the inlet 
 have been emptied of its water for a moment, we 
 should have seen before us a palisade of ice nearly 
 one thousand feet higher and over two miles long, 
 with a turbid river, possibly half a mile wide, boiling 
 up from beneath it. Could we have been here many 
 centuries ago, we should have seen, much farther 
 down the valley, a palisade of ice two or three thou- 
 sand feet high. Many of these Alaskan glaciers are 
 rapidly melting and are now but the fragments of 
 their former selves. From observations made here 
 twenty years ago by John Muir, it is known that the 
 position of the front of the Muir Glacier at that time 
 was about tv/o miles below its present position, which 
 would indicate a rate 3f recession of about one mile 
 in ten years. 
 
 39 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 What we saw on that June afternoon was a broken 
 and crumbling wall of ice two hundred and fifty 
 feet high in our front, stretching across the inlet 
 and running down to a low, dirty, crumbling line 
 where it ended on the shore on our left, and where 
 it disappeared behind high gray gravelly banks on 
 our right. The inlet near the glacier was choked 
 with icebergs. 
 
 What is that roar or explosion that salutes our ears 
 before our anchor has found bottom ? It is the down- 
 pour of an enormous mass of ice from the gla- 
 cier's front, making it for the moment as active as 
 Niagara. Other and still other downpours follow 
 at intervals of a few minutes, with deep explosive 
 sounds and the rising up of great clouds of spray, 
 and we quickly reahze that here is indeed a new 
 kind of Niagara, a cataract the like of which we 
 have not before seen, a mighty congealed river that 
 discharges into the bay intermittently in ice ava- 
 lanches that shoot down its own precipitous front 
 The mass of ice below the water line is vastly 
 greater than that above, and when the upper por- 
 tions fall away, enormous bergs are liberated and 
 rise up from the bottom. They rise slowly and 
 majestically, like huge monsters of the deep, lifting 
 themselves up to a height of fifty or a hundred feet, 
 the water pouring off them in white sheets. Then 
 they subside again and float away with a huge wave 
 in front. Nothing we had read or heard had pre- 
 
 4>0 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 pared us for the color of the ice, especially of the 
 newly exposed parts and of the bergs that rose from 
 beneath the water — its deep, almost indigo blue. 
 Huge bergs were floating about that suggested 
 masses of blue vitriol. 
 
 As soon as practicable, many of us went ashore in 
 the naphtha launches, and were soon hurrying over 
 the great plateau of sand, gravel, and boulders 
 which the retreating glacier had left, and which 
 forms its vast terminal moraine. 
 
 Many of the rocks and stones on the surface were 
 sharp and angular, others were smooth and rounded. 
 These latter had evidently passed as it were through 
 the gizzard of the huge monster, while the others 
 had been carried on its back. A walk of a mile or 
 more brought us much nearer the glacier's front, 
 and standing high on the bank of the moraine we 
 could observe it at our leisure. The roar that fol- 
 lowed the discharge of ice from its front constantly 
 suggested the blasting in mines or in railroad cuts. 
 The spray often rose nearly to the top of the glacier. 
 Night and day, summer and winter, this intermit- 
 tent and explosive discharge of the ice into the inlet 
 goes on and has gone on for centuries. When w^e 
 awoke in the night we heard its muffled thunder, 
 sometimes so loud as to jar the windows in our state- 
 rooms, while the swells caused by the falling and 
 rising masses rocked the ship. Probably few more 
 strange and impressive spectacles than this glacier 
 
 41 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 affords can be found on the continent. It has a cu- 
 rious fascination. Impending .ataclysms are in its 
 look. In a moment or two one knows some part of 
 it will topple or slide into the sea. One afternoon 
 during our stay about half a mile of the front fell at 
 once. The swell which it caused brouo;ht jrrief to our 
 photographers who had ventured too near it. Their 
 boat was filled and their plates were destroyed. The 
 downfall from the front is usually a torrent of shat- 
 tered ice which pours down, simulating water, but 
 at longer intervals enormous solid masses like rocks, 
 topple and plunge. It is then that the great blue 
 bergs rise up from below — born of the depths. 
 The enormous pressure to which their particles 
 have been subjected for many centuries seems to 
 have intensified their color. They have a pristine, 
 elemental look. Their crystals have not seen the 
 light since they fell in snowflakes back amid the 
 mountains generations ago. All this time impris- 
 oned, traveling in darkness, carving the valleys, 
 polishing the rocks, under a weight as of mountains, 
 till at last their deliverance comes with crash and 
 roar, and they are once more free to career in the air 
 and light as dew or rain or cloud, and then again 
 to be drawn into that cycle of transformation and 
 caught and bound once more in glacier chains for 
 another century. 
 
 We lingered by the Muir and in adjacent waters 
 five or six days, sending out botanical, zoological, 
 
 42 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 and glacial expeditions in various directions; yes 
 and one hunting party to stir up the bears in Howl- 
 ing Valley. Howling Valley, so named by Muir, is a 
 sort of coat-tail pocket of the great glacier. It lies 
 twenty or more miles from the front, behind the 
 mountains. The hunters started off eagerly on the 
 first afternoon of our arrival, with packers and glis- 
 tening Winchesters and boxes of ammunition, and 
 we had little doubt that the genius loci of How ling 
 Valley would soon change its tune. 
 
 While some of us the next afternoon were explor- 
 ing the eastern half of the glacier, w^hich is a vast 
 prairie-like plain of ice, we saw far off across the 
 dim surface to the north tw^o black specks, then two 
 other black specks, and in due time still other black 
 specks, and the conjecture passed that the hunters 
 were returning, and that the heart of the mystery 
 of Howling Valley had not been plucked out. Our 
 reluctant conjectures proved too true. Just at night- 
 fall the hunters came straggling in, footsore and 
 w^eary and innocent of blood — soberer if not sad- 
 der, hardier if not wiser men. The undertaking 
 involved more than they liad bargained for. Their 
 outward course that afternoon lay for a dozen miles 
 or more across the glacier. They had traveled till 
 near midnight and then rested a few hours in their 
 sleeping-bags upon the ice. One may sleep upon the 
 snow in a sleeping-bag, but ice soon makes itself felt 
 in more ways than one. W^hen the cold began to 
 
 43 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 strike up through, the party resumed its march. 
 Very soon tliey got into snow, which l)ecame deeper 
 and deeper as they proceeded. Hidden crevasses 
 made it necessary to rope themselves together, the 
 new hunting-shoes pinched aiid rubbed, the packs 
 grew heavy, the snow grew deeper, the miles grew 
 longer, and there might not be any bears in Howling 
 Valley after all, — ]\Iuir's imagination may have 
 done all the howling, — so, after due deliberation by 
 all hands, it was voted to turn back. 
 
 It is much easier in Alaska to bag a glacier than 
 a bear; hence our glacial party, made up of John 
 Muir, Gilbert, and Palache, who set out to explore 
 the head of Glacier Bay, was more successful than 
 the hunters. They found more glaciers than they 
 were looking for. One large glacier of twenty years 
 ago had now become two, not by increasing but 
 by diminishing; the main trunk had disappeared, 
 leaving the two branches in separate valleys. All the 
 glaciers of this bay, four or five in number, were 
 found to have retreated many hundred feet since 
 Muir's first visit, two decades earlier. The explorers 
 were absent from the ship three days on a cruise 
 attended with no little peril. 
 
 During the same time an ornithological and bo- 
 tanical party of six or eight men was in camp on 
 Gustavus Peninsula, a long, low, w^ooded stretch of 
 land twenty miles below Muir Glacier. Here over 
 forty species of birds, including sea birds, were 
 
 44 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 observed and collected. The varied thrush or Ore- 
 gon robin was common, and its peculiar song or 
 plaint, a long, tapering whistle with a sort of burr 
 in it, led Ridgway a long chase through the woods 
 before he could identify the singer. Other song-birds 
 found were the western robin, the two kinglets, a 
 song sparrow, the Alaska hermit and russet-backed 
 thrushes, the lutescent warbler, the redstart, the 
 Oregon junco, and a western form of the savanna 
 sparrow. 
 
 Gustavus Peninsula seems to be a recent deposit 
 of the glaciers, and our experts thought it not much 
 over a century old. The botanists here found a good 
 illustration of the successive steps Nature takes in 
 foresting or reforesting the land, — how she creeps 
 before she walks. The first shrub is a small creeping 
 willow that looks like a kind of "pusley." Then 
 comes a larger willow, less creeping ; then two or 
 more other species that become quite large upright 
 bushes; then follow the alders, and with them vari- 
 ous herbaceous plants and grasses, till finally the 
 spruce comes in and takes possession of the land. 
 Our collectors found the first generation of trees, 
 none of them over forty years old. Far up the moun- 
 tain-side, at a height of about two thousand feet, they 
 came to the limit of the younger growth, and 
 found a well-defined line of much older trees, show- 
 ing that within probably a hundred years an ice 
 sheet two thousand or more feet thick, an older and 
 
 45 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 larger Miiir, had swept down the valley and de« 
 stroyed the forests. 
 
 In the mean time the rest of us spent the days on 
 the glacier and in the vicinity, walking, sketching, 
 painting, photographing, dredging, mountain climb- 
 ing, as our several tastes prompted. 
 
 AVe were in the midst of strange scenes, hard to 
 render in words : the miles upon miles of moraines 
 upon either hand, gray, loosely piled, scooped, 
 plowed, channeled, sifted, from fifty to two hundred 
 feet high; the sparkling sea water dotted with bluo 
 bergs and loose drift ice ; the towering masses of 
 almost naked rock, smoothed, carved, rounded, 
 granite-ribbed, and snow-crowned, that looked dow^n 
 upon us from both sides of the inlet ; and the cleft, 
 toppling, staggering front of the great glacier in its 
 terrible labor-throes stretching before us from shore 
 to shore. 
 
 We saw the world-shaping forces at work ; we 
 scrambled over plains they had built but yesterday. 
 We saw them transport enormous rocks and tons 
 on tons of soil and debris from the distant moun- 
 tains; we saw the remains of extensive forests they 
 had engulfed probably within the century, and were 
 now uncovering again; we saw their turbid rushing 
 streams loaded with newly ground rocks and soil- 
 making material; we saw the beginnings of vegeta- 
 tion in tlie tracks of the retreatin<{ Hacier ; our 
 dredgers brought up the first forms of sea life along 
 
 4G 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 the shore; we witnessed the formation of the low 
 mounds and ridges and bowl-shaped depressions 
 that so often diversify our landscapes, — all the 
 while with the muffled thunder of the falling bergs 
 in our ears. 
 
 We were really in one of the workshops and 
 laboratories of the elder gods, but only in the gla- 
 cier's front was there present evidence that they were 
 still at work. I wanted to see them opening crevasses 
 in the ice, dropping the soil and rocks they had 
 transported, polishing the mountains, or blocking 
 the streams, but I could not. They seemed to knock 
 off work when VvC were watching them. One day I 
 climbed up to the shoulder of a huge granite ridge 
 on the west, against which the glacier pressed and 
 over which it broke. Huge masses of ice had re- 
 cently toppled over, a great fragment of rock hung 
 on the very edge, ready to be deposited upon the 
 ridge, windrows of soil and gravel and boulders 
 were clinging to the margin of the ice, but while I 
 stayed not a pebble moved, all was silence and 
 inertia. And I could look down between the glacier 
 and the polished mountain-side; they were not in 
 contact ; the hand of the sculptor was raised, as it 
 were, but he did not strike while I was around. In 
 front of me upon the glacier for many miles was a 
 perfect wilderness of crevasses, the ice was ridged 
 and contorted like an angry sea, but not a sound, 
 not a movement anywhere. 
 
 47 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Go out on the eastern rim of the glacier, wherg 
 for a dozen miles or more one walks upon a nearly 
 level plain of ice, and if one did not know to the con- 
 trary, he would be sure he saw the agency of man all 
 about him. It is so rare to find Nature working with 
 such measure and precision. Here, for instance, is a 
 railroad embankment stretching off across this ice 
 prairie, — a line of soil, gravel, and boulders, as uni- 
 form in width and thickness as if every inch of it had 
 been carefully measured, — straight, level, three 
 feet high, and about the width of a single-track road. 
 The eye follows it till it fades away in the distance. 
 Parallel with it a few yards away is another line of 
 soil and gravel more suggestive of a wagon-road, 
 but with what marvelous evenness is the material 
 distributed ; it could not have been dumped there 
 from carts ; it must have been sifted out from some 
 moving vehicle. 
 
 Then one comes upon a broad band of rocks and 
 boulders, several rods in width, the margins per- 
 fectly straight and even, pointing away to the dis- 
 tant mountains. All these are medial moraines, — 
 material irathered from the mountains aojainst which 
 the ice has ground as it slowly passed, and brought 
 hither by its resistless onward flow. Some time it 
 will all be dumped at the end of the glacier, adding 
 to those vast terminal moraines which form the 
 gravel plains that flank each side of the inlet. In 
 looking at these plains and ridges and catching 
 
 48 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 glimpses of the engulfed forests beneath them, one 
 feels as if the mountains must all have been ground 
 down and used up in supplying this world of ma- 
 terial. But they have not. Peak after peak many 
 thousand feet high still notches the sky there in the 
 north. 
 
 The western part of the Muir Glacier is dead, that 
 is, it is apparently motionless, and no longer dis- 
 charges bergs from its end. This end, covered with 
 soil and boulders, tapers down to the ground and 
 is easily accessible. Only the larger, more central 
 portion flows and drops bergs into the sea, present- 
 ing the phenomenon of a current flowing through 
 a pond, while on each side the water is all but mo^ 
 tionless. 
 
 Not very long ago the Muir had a large tribu- 
 tary on the west, but owing to its retreating front 
 this limb appears to be cut off and separated from 
 the main ice sheet by a boulder and gravel-strewn 
 ice plain a mile wide. One day three of us spent 
 several hours upon the detached portion which is 
 called the Morse. It is a mighty ice sheet in itself, 
 nearly or quite a mile wide. It is dead or motionless, 
 and is therefore free from crevasses. Its rim comes 
 down to the gravel like a huge turtle shell, and we 
 stepped on it without difficulty. At first it was very 
 steep, but a few minutes' climbing brought us upon 
 its broad, smooth, gently sloping back. The exposed 
 ice weathers rough, and travehng over it is easy. 
 
 49 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 We found a few old crevcasses, many deep depres- 
 sions or valleys, and several little creeks singing along 
 deep down between blue, vitreous walls; also wells 
 of unknown depth and of strange and wonderful 
 beauty. AVe came upon a moraine that suggested a 
 tumble-down stone wall, quite as straight and uni- 
 form. It soon disappeared beneath the ice, show- 
 ing what a depth of snow had fallen upon it since 
 it started upon its slow journey from the distant 
 mountains. We pushed up the gentle slope for sev- 
 eral miles until the snow began to be over our shoes, 
 when we turned back. I had climbed hills all my 
 life, but never before had I v/aiked upon a hill of 
 ice and stopped to drink at springs that were deep 
 crystal goblets. 
 
 The waste of the Morse Glacier is carried off by 
 two large, turbid streams that rush from beneath it, 
 and on their way to the inlet uncover a portion of a 
 buried forest. About this buried forest our doctors 
 did not agree. The timber, mostly spruce, was yet 
 hard and sound, a fact that might almost bring the 
 event within the century. A sheet of gravel nearly 
 two hundred feet thick seems to have been depos- 
 ited upon it suddenly. The trees, so far as exposed, 
 had all been broken off ten or twelve feet from the 
 ground, by some force coming from the west. In 
 3ome places the original forest floor was laid bare by 
 the water ; the black vegetable mould and decayed 
 moss had a fresh, undisturbed look. Evidently no 
 
 50 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 force had plowed or rubbed over the surface of this 
 ground. 
 
 While at the Muir we had some cloud and fog, but 
 no storms, and we had one ideal day. That was 
 Sunday, the 1 1th of June, a day all sun and sky, — 
 not a cloud or film to dim the vast blue vault, — 
 and warm, even hot, on shore; a day memorable to 
 all of us for its wonderful beauty, and especially so 
 to two of us who spent it on the top of Mt. Wright, 
 nearly three thousand feet above the glacier. It was 
 indeed a day with the gods ; strange gods, the gods 
 of the foreworld, but they had great power over us. 
 The scene we looked upon was for the most part 
 one of desolation, — snow, ice, jagged peaks, naked 
 granite, gray moraines, — but the bright sun and 
 sky over all, the genial warmth and the novelty of 
 the situation, were ample to invest it with a fasci- 
 nating interest. There was fatigue in crossing the 
 miles of moraine ; there was difficulty in making 
 our way along the sharp crests of high gravel-banks ; 
 there was peril in climbing the steep bculder-strevv^n 
 side of the mountain, but there was exhilaration in 
 every step, and there was glory and inspiration at the 
 top. Under a summer sun, with birds singing and 
 flowers blooming, we looked into the face of winter 
 and set our feet upon the edge of his skirts. But the 
 largeness of the view, the elemental ruggedness, and 
 the solitude as of interstellar space were perhaps 
 Vv^hat took the deepest hold. It seemed as if the old 
 
 61 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 glacier had been there but yesterday. Granite 
 boulders, round and smooth hke enormous eggs, sat 
 poised on tlie rocks or lay scattered about. A child's 
 hand could have started some of them thundering 
 down the awful precipices. When the IMuir Glacier 
 rose to that height, which of course it did in no very 
 remote past, what an engine for carving and polish- 
 ine: the mountains it must have been ! Its moraines 
 of that period — where are they ? Probably along the 
 Pacific coast under hundreds of fathoms of water. 
 
 Back upon the summit the snow lay deep, and 
 swept up in a wide sheet to a sharp, inaccessible 
 peak far beyond and above us. The sweet bird 
 voices in this primal solitude were such a surprise 
 and so welcome. There was the piercing plaint 
 of the golden-crow ned sparrow, the rich warble of 
 Townsend's fox sparrow, and the sweet strain of 
 the small hermit thrush. The rosy finch was there 
 also, hopping upon the snow, and the pipit or titlark 
 soared and sang in the warm, lucid air above us. 
 This last song was not much for music, but the 
 hovering flight of the bird above these dizzy heights 
 drew the eye strongly. It circled about joyously, 
 calling chip, chip, chip, chip, without change of 
 time or tune. Below it a white ptarmigan rose up 
 and wheeled about, uttering a curious hoarse, croak- 
 ing sound, and dropped back to his mate on the 
 rocks. In keeping with these delicate signs of bird 
 life were the little pink flowers, a species of moss 
 
 52 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 campion, blooming here and there just below the 
 snow-line, and looking to unbotanical eyes like 
 blossoming moss. From the height, Muir Glacier 
 stretched away to the north and soon became a sheet 
 of snow, which swept up to the tops of the chain of 
 mountains that hemmed it in. The eastern half of 
 it, with its earth tinge, looked like a prairie newly 
 plowed and sown and rolled. The seed had been 
 drilled in, and the regular, uniform, straight lines 
 were distinctly visible. Along the western horizon, 
 looking down on the Pacific, the Fairweather Range 
 of mountains stood up clear and sharp, Fairweather 
 itself over fifteen thousand feet high. The snow 
 upon these mountains doubtless in places lay over 
 one hundred feet deep. 
 
 Glaciers are formed wherever more snow falls 
 in winter than can melt in summer, and this seems 
 to be the case on all these Alaskan mountains on 
 the Pacific coast. If by a change of climate more 
 snow should fall in the Hudson River valley than 
 could melt in summer, our landscapes would soon 
 be invaded by glaciers from the Catskills. Farther 
 north in Alaska, beyond the reach of the moisture- 
 loaded Pacific air currents, the precipitation is less 
 and there are no glaciers. 
 
 SITKA 
 
 On the 13th of June we weighed anchor, and after 
 picking up our camping and exploring parties, 
 
 53 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 steamed away toward Sitka, where we arrived 
 under dripping skies the next morning. We had 
 come from air and water streaked with icy currents, 
 to much warmer and to much moister conditions. 
 Sitka is said to be one of the rainiest spots on the 
 coast, but the four days we passed there were not 
 so bad : sun and cloud and spurts of rain each day, 
 but no considerable downpour. We came into the 
 island-studded and mountain-locked harbor from 
 the north, and saw the town, with its quaint old 
 government buildings and its line of Indian houses 
 close to the beach, outlined against a near-by back- 
 ground of steep, high, spruce-covered and snow- 
 capped mountains, with the white volcanic cone of 
 Edgecumbe three thousand feet high toward the 
 open ocean on our right. 
 
 People actually live in Sitka from choice, and 
 seem to find life sweet. There are homes of culture 
 and refinement there. Governor Brady is a Yale 
 graduate, and his accomplished wife would shine 
 in any society. At a reception given us by the 
 governor, we met teachers from New England and 
 people who keep in touch with current literature. 
 A retired naval officer told us he liked the Sitka 
 climate and life the best of any he had found. He 
 and his family throve the best there. We spent 
 the time after the usual manner of tourists : walk- 
 ing about the town, visiting the Indian village, 
 the museum, the Greek church, going to the Hot 
 
 54 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 Springs, a few hours' sail to the south, exploring 
 Indian River, a large, ideal trout stream in appear- 
 ance, making a trip to some near-by mines, and 
 climbing the mountains. It was not a good place 
 for our collectors; there were but few birds, and 
 they were very wild. Our mammal collectors put 
 out one hundred small traps and caught only two 
 mice. I was fortunate enough to see and hear the 
 water ouzel along Indian River, a bird like a big 
 water-colored pebble, with a hquid, bubbling song, 
 caught from the currents about it. Here also I 
 saw the golden-crowned kinglet, the varied thrush, 
 the russet-backed thrush, and the rufous chickadee. 
 Ravens were very common everywhere in the town 
 and about it, and were talking and croaking all 
 the time. Often a solitary bird seemed to be so- 
 liloquizing and repeating over to himself every 
 note he knew. One day a hunting party, with In- 
 dian guides and dogs, visited one of the islands in 
 quest of deer; the only deer that fell to their rifles 
 was killed by Mr. Harriman's eldest daughter, 
 Mary. 
 
 It was a surprise to see the vast spruce forests 
 about Sitka almost untouched by the axe, except on 
 a small area behind the town. In the forest near the 
 mouth of Indian River I noticed a few huge si^umps 
 twelve feet high, as if the axe that felled the trees had 
 been wielded by giants. The cutting had probably 
 been done from raised platforms. Some of the stumps 
 
 65 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 were ver}' old, doubtless the work of the Russians. 
 Sitka is ver}^ prettily situated ; a rin^]; of high, dark, 
 snow-topped mountains just behind it, and a spar- 
 kling bay, dotted with islands, rock-based and tree- 
 crowned, in its front, with white volcanic cones in 
 the distance. About the only bit of smooth dirt-road 
 we saw in Alaska, we walked on here for the distance 
 of a mile, in going from the town to the park. 
 
 IN YAKUTAT BAY 
 
 After four warm, humid days at Sitka we turned 
 our faces for the first time toward the open ocean, 
 our objective point being Yakutat Bay, a day's run 
 farther north. The usual Alaska excursion ends at 
 Sitka, but ours was now only fairly begun. The 
 Pacific was very good to us, and used us as gently as 
 an inland lake, there being only a long, low, sleepy 
 swell that did not disturb the most sensitive. The 
 next day, Sunday the 18th, was mild and placid. 
 Far at sea on our left we looked into a world of sun- 
 shine, but above us and on our right lay a heavy 
 blanket of clouds, enveloping and blotting out all 
 the upper portions of the great Fairweather Range. 
 We steamed all day a few miles offshore, hoping 
 that the great peaks, some of them fifteen thousand 
 to sixteen thousand feet high, would reveal them- 
 selves, but they did not. We saw them only from 
 the waist down, as it were, with their glaciers like 
 vast white aprons flanked by skirts of spruce forests. 
 
 56 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 One of these glaciers, La Perouse, came quite down 
 to the sea, with a front a mile or more long and two 
 hundred feet high. At one point it had cut into the 
 edge of the forest, and shoved and piled up the trees 
 and soil as a heavy vehicle shoves and folds up the 
 turf. This, of course, showed that quite recently 
 the glacier had had a period of advance or augmen- 
 tation, and had encroached upon its banks. We 
 stopped an hour in front of it and put a party ashore, 
 but they learned little that could not be divined 
 from the ship. They found a heavy surf running, 
 and did not get through it on their return without an 
 acquaintance with the Pacific more intimate than 
 agreeable. All day long we were in sight of glaciers, 
 usually two or three at a time, some of them im- 
 mense, all the offspring of the great Fairweather 
 Range. Now and then the back of one some miles 
 inland would show above a low wooded ridire, a line 
 of white above an expanse of black, like the crest of 
 a river about to overflow its banks. One broad ice 
 slope I recall which, with its dark, straight lines of 
 moraine dividing it into three equal portions, sug- 
 gested a side-hill farm in winter with the tops of the 
 stone walls showing above the snow. It had a 
 friendly, home look to me. 
 
 On the morning of the 19th we were at anchor 
 in front of the Indian village in Yakutat Bay. This 
 bay is literally like an arm, a huge arm of the sea, 
 very broad and heavy at the shoulder, much flexed 
 
 57 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 at the elbow, where it breaks into the St. EHas 
 Range, and long and slender in the forearm, whieh 
 is thrust through the mountains till it nearly reaches 
 the sea again. Eight or ten comfortable frame 
 houses, with a store and post-office, made up the 
 Indian village known on the map as Yakutat. It sat 
 low on a wooded point just to one side of the broad 
 entrance to the bay. There were upwards of a hun- 
 dred people there, looked after by a Swedish mis- 
 sionary. We soon proceeded up the bay, with the 
 great Malaspina Glacier on our left, and put off 
 three hunting and collecting parties, to be absent 
 from the ship till Thursday. The event of this day 
 was the view of Mt. St. Elias that was vouchsafed 
 us for half an hour in the afternoon. The base and 
 lower ranges had been visi'nle for some time, bathed 
 in clear sunshine, but a heavy canopy of dun-colored 
 clouds hung above us, and stretched av»'ay toward 
 the mountain, dropping down there in many cur- 
 tain-like folds, hiding the peak. But the scene- 
 shifters were at work ; slowly the heavy folds of 
 clouds that limited our view yielded and were spun 
 off by the air currents, till at last the veil was com- 
 pletely rent, and there, in the depths of clear air and 
 sunshine, the huge mass soared to heaven. 
 
 There is sublimity in the sight of a summer 
 thunder-head with its great white and dun convolu- 
 tions rising up for miles against the sky, but there is 
 more in the vision of a j nidged mountain crest pier- 
 
 6S 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 cing the blue at even a lesser height. This is partly 
 because it is a much rarer spectacle, but mainly 
 because it is a display of power that takes greater 
 hold of the imagination. That hft heavenward of 
 the solid crust of the earth, that aspiration of the 
 insensate rocks, that effort of the whole range, as it 
 were, to carry one peak into heights where all may 
 not go, — every lower summit seeming to second 
 it and shoulder it forward till it stands there in a 
 kind of serene astronomic solitude and remote- 
 ness, — is a vision that always shakes the heart of 
 the beholder. 
 
 Later in the day we continued our course up the 
 bay through much drift ice, and were soon in sight 
 of two large glaciers, the Turner and the Hubbard. 
 Both presented long, high palisades of ice to the 
 water, like the Muir, but were far less active and 
 explosive. The Hubbard Glacier is just at the sharp 
 bend of the elbow, a regular "fiddler's" elbow, 
 where the bay, much narrowed, turns abruptly from 
 northeast to south. Here, with a Yakutat Indian for 
 pilot, we entered upon the strange and weird scen- 
 ery of Russell Fiord, and into waters that no ship as 
 large as ours had before navigated. This part of the 
 bay is in size like the Hudson and about sixty miles 
 in length, but how wild and savage! A succession of 
 mountains of almost naked rock, now scored and 
 scalloped and polished by the old glaciers, now with 
 vast moraines upon their sides or heaped at their 
 
 59 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 feet, which the rains and melting snows have plowed 
 and ribbed and carved into many fantastic forms. 
 There was an air of seclusion and remoteness about 
 it all, as if this had been a special playground of the 
 early ice gods, a nook or alley set apart for them in 
 which to indulge every whim and fancy. And what 
 could be more whimsical or fantastic than yonder 
 glacier playing the mountain goat, clinging to the 
 steep sides of the mountain or breaking over its 
 cliffs and yet falling not, hanging there Hke a con^ 
 gealed torrent, a silent and motionless shadow. The 
 eye seems baffled. Surely the ice is plunging or will 
 plunge the next second: but no, there it is fixed; it 
 bends over the brink, it foams below, but no sound 
 is heard and no movement is apparent. You see the 
 corrugated surface where it emerges from its great 
 snow reservoir on the mountain summit; it shows 
 deep crevasses where it sweeps down a steep incline, 
 then curves across a terrace, then leaps in solid, 
 fixed foam down the face of the clifi, to which it 
 seems bound as by some magic. 
 
 These precipice glaciers apparently move no faster 
 than those in the valley. It is in all cases a subtle, 
 invisible movement, like that of the astronomic 
 bodies. It would seem as if gravity had little to do 
 with it. They do not gain momentum like an ava- 
 lanche of snow or earth, but creep so slowly that to 
 the lookers-on they are as motionless as the rocks 
 themselves. The grade, the obstacles in the way, 
 
 CO 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 ieem to make no difference. One would think that 
 if a mass of ice, weighing many thousand tons, 
 hanging upon the face of a mountain-wall steeper 
 than a house roof, detached itself from the rest at all 
 and began to move, it would gain momentum and 
 presently shoot down, as the loosened ice and snow 
 do from our slate roofs. But it does not. If the tem- 
 perature of the rocks were suddenly raised as in the 
 case of the roof, no doubt the glacier would shoot, 
 but it is not. The under surface of the ice is prob- 
 ably perpetually congealed and perpetually loos- 
 ened, and the crystallization is constantly broken 
 and constantly reformed, so that the glacier's motion 
 is more a creeping than a sliding. The carving and 
 sculpturing of the rocks is of course done by the 
 pebbles and boulders beneath the ice, and these 
 must slide or roll. 
 
 We followed the bay or inlet to its head, and 
 anchored for the night in the large oval that marks 
 its termination. We were about fifteen miles from 
 the Pacific, being separated from it by a low, level 
 moraine of the old glaciers. We were now sur- 
 rounded by low wooded shores, from which in the 
 long twilight came the sweet vespers of the little 
 hermit thrush. 
 
 On the 20th another hunting party went out 
 from the ship, and with an Indian guide climbed 
 and threaded the snow-covered mountains nearly 
 all day in quest of bears, but came back as empty 
 
 61 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 handed as it had set out. The ship in the mean 
 time steamed back ten miles to a side arm of the bay, 
 at tlie head of which is Hidden Glacier, so called 
 because hidden from view behind a shoulder of the 
 mountain. A broad gravel-bed with a stream wind- 
 ing through it, which the retreating glacier had 
 uncovered, was alone visible from the ship. While 
 Gannett and Gilbert proceeded to survey and map 
 the glacier, many of us wandered on shore amid 
 a world of moraines and gravel-banks. In the after- 
 noon we moved to the vicinity of the Hubbard Gla- 
 cier, where the ship took a fresh supply of water 
 from a mountain torrent, while the glacier hunters 
 viewed the Nunatak Glacier, and the mineralogists 
 with their hammers prowled upon the shore. My 
 own diversion that afternoon was to climb one of 
 the near mountains to an altitude of about twenty- 
 five hundred feet, where I looked dov/n at a fearful 
 angle into the sea, and where I found my first tit- 
 lark's nest. The bird with her shining eyes looked 
 out upon me, and upon the sublime scene, from a 
 little cavity in a mossy bank near the snow^-line. Her 
 nest held six dark-brown eggs. Some pussy willows 
 near by were just starting. I thought to reach the 
 peak of the mountain up a broad and very steep 
 band of snow, but I looked back once too often. The 
 descent to the sea was too easy and too fearful for 
 my imagination, so I cautiously turned back. In a 
 large patch of alders at the foot of the mountain four 
 
 G'2 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 or five species of birds were nesting and in song. 
 The most welcome sight to me was a soHtary barn 
 swallow skimming along as one might have seen it 
 at home, — no barns within hundreds of miles, yet 
 the little swallow seemed quite at her ease. 
 
 While we were anchored here, we had another 
 brief vision of surpassing mountain grandeur. The 
 fair weather divinities brushed aside the veil of 
 clouds, and one of the lofty peaks to the north, 
 probably Vancouver, stood revealed to us. We 
 yielded to its mighty spell for a few moments, and 
 then the cloud curtain again dropped. 
 
 The next day we left Russell Fiord, and anchored 
 before an Indian encampment below Haenke Is- 
 land, on the south side of the head of Yakutat Bay. 
 The Indians had come up from their village below, 
 ■ — some of them, w^e w^ere told, from as far away 
 as Sitka. They were living here in tents and bark 
 huts, and hunting the hair seal amid the drifting ice- 
 bergs that the Turner and the Hubbard cast off. 
 This was their summer camp; they were laying in 
 a supply of skins and oil against their winter needs. 
 In July they go to the salmon streams and secure 
 their stores of salmon. During these excursions 
 their village at Yakutat is nearly deserted. The 
 encampment we visited was upon the beach of a 
 broad, gravelly delta flanked by high mountains. It 
 was redolent of seal oil. The dead carcasses of the 
 seals lay in rows upon the pebbles in front of the 
 
 63 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 tents and huts. The women and girls were skin- 
 ning them, and cutting out the blubber and tr}dng 
 it out in pots over smouldering fires, while the crack 
 of the men's shotguns could be heard out amid the 
 ice. Apparently their only food at such times is seal 
 meat, with parts of the leaf or stalk of a kind of cow- 
 parsnip, a coarse, rank plant that grows all about. 
 The Indian women frowned upon our photogra- 
 phers, and were very averse to having the cameras 
 pointed at them. It took a good deal of watching 
 and waiting and manoeuvring to get a good shot. 
 The artists, with their brushes and canvases, were 
 regarded with less suspicion. 
 
 The state of vegetation in Yakutat Bay was like 
 that of early May in New York, though the temper- 
 ature was lower. Far up the mountain-side near the 
 line of snow the willows were just pushing out. At 
 their base the columbine, rock-loving as at home, 
 but larger and coarser-flowered, was in bloom, 
 and blue violets could be gathered by the handful. 
 Back of the encampment were acres of lupine just 
 bursting into flower. It gave a gay, festive look to 
 the place. Red-vested bumble-bees were working 
 eagerly upon it. The yellow warbler was nesting in 
 the alders near by. New birds added to our list from 
 these shores were the pine grosbeak, the Arctic tern, 
 and the robber jaeger. No large game was secured 
 by our hunters in Yakutat Bay, though Captain 
 Kelly declared he was at one time so near a beai 
 
 64 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 that he could smell him. The bear undoubtedly got 
 a smell of the ^aptain first. 
 
 Our party had now been a month together, and 
 had assumed the features of a large and happy 
 family on a summer holiday cruise. We were of 
 diverse interests and types of character, yet one in 
 the spirit of true comradeship. This fortunate con- 
 dition was due largely to the truly democratic and 
 manly character of the head of the expedition, Mr. 
 Harriman, and to the cheerful and obliging temper 
 of Captain Doran. The pleasure of the party was 
 the pleasure of our host and of the captain. The 
 ship was equally at the service of men who wanted 
 to catch mice or collect a new bird, and of those 
 who wanted to survey a glacier or inlet or to shoot 
 a bear. One day it made a voyage of sixty miles 
 to enable our collectors to take up some traps, the 
 total catch of which proved to be nine mice. The 
 next day it was as likely to go as far to enable Ritter 
 and Saunders to dredge for new forms of sea life, 
 or Devereux to inspect some outcropping of copper 
 ore. Early in the voyage our committee on enter- 
 tainment arranged a course of lectures. Nearly 
 every night at eight o'clock, on the upper deck or 
 in the Social Hall, some one of our college professors 
 or government specialists held forth. One night it 
 was Dall upon the history or geography of Alaska; 
 then Gilbert upon the agency of glaciers in shaping 
 the valleys and mountains, or upon the glaciers we 
 
 65 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 had recently visited; then Brewer upon climate and 
 ocean currents, or Covillc upon some botanical fea- 
 tures of the regions about us, or Ritter upon the 
 shore forms of sea life, or Emerson upon volcanoes 
 and lava beds, or John INluir on his experiences 
 upon the glaciers and his adventure with his dog 
 Stikeen in crossing a huge crevasse on a sliver of ice, 
 or Charles Keeler on the coloration of birds, or 
 Fuertes on bird-songs, or Grinnell on Indian tribes 
 and Indian characteristics, and so on. On Sunday 
 evenings Dr. Nelson conducted the Episcopal ser- 
 vice and preached a sermon, while at other times 
 books and music and games added to the attraction 
 of the Social Hall. 
 
 PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND 
 
 After several days in Yakutat Bay we steamed 
 northward again, bound for Prince William Sound. 
 The fog and cloud hid the St. Elias Range, but the 
 great Malaspina Glacier was visible on our right. 
 This is the largest of the Alaskan glaciers, covering 
 fifteen hundred square miles. It has a front of fifty 
 miles on the sea, and runs back thirty miles to the 
 St. Elias Range, from which it is fed. It is a vast 
 plain of ice, with lakes and rivers, and with hills of 
 rocks and gravel that have trees and alders growing 
 upon them. One of our hunting parties touched the 
 skirts of it, and saw where the earth and alders had 
 slid off over quite an area, exposing the ice. Its 
 
 66 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 Yakutat side seems stagnant ; it no longer dis- 
 charges bergs into the sea, and will in time })robal)ly 
 drop its vast burden of medial moraine upon the 
 ground beneath. We caught glimpses of its nu- 
 merous feeders below the clouds along the base 
 of St. Elias, but of the glacier itself we saw only the 
 earth-covered margin it presents to the sea. The 
 discharge of roily water from beneath it is so great 
 that it colors the sea over an area equal to its own; 
 " glacier milk," some one called it, and it gives the 
 Pacific a milky tinge for thirty miles offshore. 
 
 I must not forget the albatross that found us out 
 and followed our ship when we had been but a few 
 hours at sea, wheeling around us close to the water, 
 coming and going, now on one side, now on the 
 other, slanting and curving, and all on straight, 
 unbending wing. Its apparently toilless, effortless 
 flio^ht and its air of absolute leisure were verv curi- 
 ous and striking, — it seemed like the spirit of the 
 deep taking visible form and seeking to wxave some 
 spell upon us or lure us away to destruction. Never 
 before had I seen flying so easy and spontaneous, — 
 not an action, not a thought, not an effort, but a 
 dream. What a contrast to the flight of the Arctic 
 tern which we first saw in Yakutat Bay, a bird with 
 long, sickle-shaped wings, with which it fairly reaped 
 the air. The flight of the albatross was a series of 
 long, graceful strokes, unlike that of any other bird 
 I have ever seen. 
 
 fi7 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 About noon on the 24th, amid fog and light rain, 
 we sitdited Middleton Island on our starboard, 
 when the ship turned her head sharply northward 
 toward the entrance to the sound. In a few hours 
 we ran out of the fog into clear skies, and were soon 
 steamins: across the srreat sound in warm sunshine. 
 Our route was a devious one: past islands and 
 headlands, then over the immense expanse of the 
 open water with a circle of towering, snow-capped 
 mountains far off along 1he horizon, then wind- 
 injr throujjh arms and straits, close to tree-tufted 
 islands and steep, spruce-clad mountains, now 
 looking between near-by dark forested hills upon 
 a group of distant peaks white as midwinter, then 
 upon broad, low, wooded shores with glimpses of 
 open, meadow-like glades among the trees, suggest- 
 ing tender grass and grazing herds, till in the early 
 evening we sighted a Uttle cluster of buildings peep- 
 ing out of the forest at the base of a lofty moun- 
 tain. This was Orca, where there is a large salmon 
 cannery and a post-office. Here we anchored for the 
 night. In the long twilight some of our party climbed 
 to the top of the mountain, twenty-five hundred feet 
 in height, and brought back a native heather, — bry- 
 anthus, — in bloom. Others of us wandered upon 
 the beach, and engaged in conversation with some 
 gold-seekers just out from Copper River. They were 
 encamped here, waiting for a steamer to take \hcm 
 away and for funds from friends at home to enable 
 
 68 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 them to get away. It was a story of hardships and 
 disappointment that they had to tell us, — yes, and 
 of scurvy and death. Over three thousand men had 
 gone into the Copper River region a year or more 
 before on the wildest, vaguest rumor of gold. They 
 had gone in hurriedly and slyly, as it were, so as to 
 be ahead of the crowd. Each man had taken sup- 
 plies to last him a year, at least. Now they were 
 coming out destitute and without one cent's worth 
 of gold ; many of them had died. Scurvy had broken 
 out among them, had sv/ept away scores of them, 
 and had lamed and disabled others. Their toils and 
 privations had been terrible; snow, glaciers, moun- 
 tains, swollen rivers, had blocked their way. Most 
 of them had abandoned their unconsumed supplies 
 and extra blankets, content to get out with their 
 lives. They were from the East and from the West, 
 lumbermen from Maine and Pennsylvania and old 
 miners from California and Colorado. They were a 
 sturdy, sober-looking set of men that we saw, no 
 nonsense about them. Such hardships and disap- 
 pointments seem to sweep away everything affected 
 and meretricious in a man, and uncover and bring 
 out the bedrock of character, if there is any in him. 
 In this crowd two large, powerful men, father and 
 son, were especially noticeable. The father, a man 
 probably of sixty-five years, had nearly died with 
 scurvy and was still very lame, and the tenderness 
 and soHcitude of the son toward him warmed ray 
 
 69 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 heart, — homely, slow, deliberate men, but evidcntty 
 made of the real stuff. These stranded men were 
 penniless, and were depending upon the charity, or 
 the willingness to trust, of the steamboat company 
 to take them home to San Francisco. I was glad 
 when I saw them depart on the steamer the next day. 
 Alaska is full of such adventurers ransacking the 
 land. We heard of them at several other points : men 
 looking for new Klondikes, exploring remote corners, 
 going eagerly and quietly into the wilderness, cross- 
 ing glaciers, rivers, and mountains, hoping to be the 
 first in new and rich fields. 
 
 Sunday the 25th was another day of great beauty. 
 We spent the main part of it steaming across the 
 sound toward some of the more remote inlets. It 
 was an ideal day, an ideal sail ; a day to bask in the 
 sunshine upon the upper deck and leisurely contem- 
 plate the vast shifting panorama of sea and islands 
 and wooded shores and towering peaks spread be- 
 fore us on every hand ; a day that gave us another 
 feast of beauty and sublimity, and that stands out in 
 the memory unforgettable ! We were afloat in an 
 enchanted circle ; we sailed over magic seas under 
 magic skies ; we played hide and seek with winter 
 in lucid sunshine over blue and emerald waters, — 
 all the conditions, around, above, below us were 
 most fortunate. 
 
 Prince William Sound is shaped like a great spi- 
 der: an open, irregular body of water eighty miles 
 
 70 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 or more across, fringed with numerous arms and 
 inlets that reach far in amid the mountains. Across 
 the head of most of these arms are huge glaciers; 
 others hang upon the mountain-sides or cascade 
 down them. It was toward the head of one of these 
 inlets that we were now bound. In the afternoon we 
 reached its end, and saw another palisade of shat- 
 tered ice, about two hundred feet high and four 
 miles long, barring our way. We named this the 
 Columbia Glacier. Its front was quite as imposing 
 as that of the Muir, but it was less active; appar- 
 ently no large blue bergs are born out of its depth, 
 for the reason, doubtless, that its depth is not great. 
 On a wooded island near its front we left two of our 
 geologists to survey and report upon it. At eight 
 o'clock that Sunday evening we were at anchor in 
 Virgin Bay, with low, partly wooded islands on the 
 one hand, and sloping open shores at the foot of tall 
 mountains on the other. Two or three small houses 
 were seen scattered along the shore on the margin of 
 these broad, natural, grassy clearings. Copper ore 
 had been found here and there near the cabins of the 
 prospectors. On two of the islands near us were fox 
 farms. One of the farmers came off in his boat to 
 see us, and talked intelligently about his enterprise. 
 His foxes would swim to an adjoining island a few 
 hundred yards away, so his brother had established 
 a fox farm there. Blue foxes are the species cul- 
 tivated ; their main food in winter is dried fish 
 
 71 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 caught during the summer out of the surroun(h*ng 
 waters. Each island contained several hundred 
 acres, mostly covered with spruce. Upon the subject 
 of profits he could not yet speak, as the enterprise 
 was new. We here saw our first Eskimo. He came 
 paddling toward our ship in a double kyak, and as 
 our naphtha launch circled about him, he had an 
 amused, childish look. 
 
 We put a party ashore to spend a couple of days 
 hunting and collecting. After the Sunday evening 
 service, the sun was still glowing upon the distant 
 white peaks, and a dozen or more of us seized the 
 occasion to go ashore and walk in the long twilight 
 upon the strange land. How novel and bewitching it 
 all was! The open meadow-like expanse near the 
 beach proved to be tundra, — wet, spongy, mossy, 
 grassy, and full of wild flowers, the most conspicu- 
 ously beautiful of which was the shooting-star or 
 dodecatheon. Our collectors had pitched their tents 
 near the log cabin of two prospectors, on a point of 
 land at the mouth of a clear, rapid stream. The her- 
 mit thrush sang in the forest close by ; the stream 
 sang, and the air under the shadow of the mountain 
 was pervaded with a strange peace and charm. The 
 only singing that was not so agreeable was that of the 
 mosquitoes, but amid such scenes petty annoyances 
 are soon forgotten. One of the prospectors, a brisk 
 little man, whose clean, snug cabin we \asited, was 
 born near North Cape in Norway. He had been 
 
 72 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 here over a year, and as our ladies were the first who 
 had ever visited his camp, he took off his hat and, 
 with his hand upon his heart, made a gallant bow to 
 them in acknowledgment. He was planning to go 
 to the Paris Exposition next year, and life seemed 
 to offer him many bright outlooks. 
 
 The next day, Monday the 26th, we spent in Port 
 Wells, the extreme northeast arm of the sound, 
 taking in water from a foaming mountain torrent 
 and again coquetting with glaciers. The weather 
 was fair, but the sea air was cold. Indeed, we were 
 in another great ice chest, — glaciers to right of us, 
 glaciers to left of us, glaciers in front of us, volleyed 
 and thundered ; the mountains were ribbed with 
 them, and the head of the bay was walled with 
 them. At one time we could see five, separated by 
 intervals of a few miles, cascading down from the 
 heights, while the chief of the flock was booming in- 
 cessantly at the head of the valley. The two large 
 glaciers at the head of the fiord were named by our 
 party Harvard and Yale ; the cascading glaciers on 
 the west side, Radcliffe, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, 
 and Wellesley; and the main glacier on the east side 
 of Port Wells, Amherst. On going ashore we had a 
 chance to view, in profile, those pouring down from 
 the heights, and the effect was novel and strange. 
 We looked along the green, tender enfoliaged side of 
 the mountain and saw one of these torrents of shat- 
 tered ice rising up fifty or more feet above its banks, 
 
 73 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and as if about to topple over upon them ; but it did 
 not. To the eye it was as fixed as the rocks ; appar- 
 ently one could have leaned his back against the ice 
 with his feet upon the foliage. The channel of Port 
 Wells w^as so blocked with ice from the incessant 
 discharges of the glaciers that the ship made her 
 way with great difficulty, and was finally compelled 
 to anchor more than twenty miles from the head. 
 In the launches we managed to get about ten miles 
 nearer. This was the most active glacier we had 
 seen. The thundering of the great ice Niagara there 
 in the distance was in our ears every moment, but 
 we could not get near it; it beat us off with its ice 
 avalanches. Such piles of gravel and broken rocks 
 as I climbed and tried to cross that day at the foot 
 of one of the lesser side glaciers dwarfed anything 
 I had yet seen. They suggested the crush of moun- 
 tains and the wreck of continents. 
 
 Two things constantly baffle and mislead the eye 
 in all these Alaskan waters — size and distance. 
 Things are on a new scale. The standard one brings 
 with him will not hold. The eye says it is three 
 miles to such a point, it turns out to be six ; or that 
 the front of yonder glacier is a hundred feet high^ 
 and it is two hundred or more. For my part, I 
 never succeeded in bringing my eye up to the 
 Alaskan scale. Many a point, many a height, which 
 I marked for my own from the deck of the ship, 
 seemed to recede from me when I turned my steps 
 
 74 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 toward it. The wonderfully clear air probably 
 had something to do with the illusion. Forms were 
 so distinct that one fancied them near at hand when 
 they were not. 
 
 On shore we found gulls and Arctic terns nesting 
 on little sandy hillocks, and saw oyster-catchers, a 
 ptarmigan, and the wandering tattler. In the water 
 the marbled murrelets were common ; with their 
 short wings and plump, round bodies they looked 
 like sea quail. Our first and only mishap to the ship 
 in these waters befell us here, — the breaking of one 
 of the blades of the propeller upon a cake of ice, 
 an accident that had the effect of making our craft 
 limp a little. 
 
 HARRIMAN FIORD 
 
 Later in the afternoon we ascended an arm of 
 Port Wells more to the westward and entered upon 
 a voyage of discovery. We steamed up to a glacier 
 of prodigious size that reared its front across the 
 head of the inlet and barred further progress in that 
 direction, — the Barry Glacier. According to the 
 U. S. Coast Survey map we v/ere at the end of navi- 
 gation in these waters, but Mr. Harriman suggested 
 to the captain that he take the ship a little nearer the 
 glacier, when a way seemed open to the left. As we 
 progressed, the mountains fell apart and a passage 
 opened there around the corner, like a street coming 
 in at right angles to a main thoroughfare. 
 
 75 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 The captain naturally hesitated to enter it; it 
 was unmapped and unsounded water. 
 
 " Go ahead, Captain," said Mr. Harriman, " I 
 will take the risk." 
 
 We went on under a ojood head of steam up 
 this new inlet, where no ship had ever before passed. 
 It was one of the most exciting moments of our voy- 
 age. We could see another huge glacier about ten 
 miles ahead of us, with its front on the water barrincr 
 the way. Glaciers hung on the steep mountain-sides 
 all about us. Some of them, as Mr. Elliot said, 
 looked like the stretched skin3 of huge polar bears. 
 The scene was wild and rugged in the extreme. One 
 of the glaciers was self-named the Serpentine by 
 reason of its winding course down from its hidden 
 sources in the mountains, — a great white serpent 
 with its jaws set with glittering fangs at the sea. An- 
 other was self-named the Stairway, as it came down 
 in regular terraces or benches. A Colossus of Rhodes 
 with seven-league boots would have been an appro- 
 priate figure upon it. As we neared the front of this 
 last glacier, the mountains to the left again parted 
 and opened up another new arm of the sea, with 
 more glaciers tumbling in mute sublimity from the 
 heights, or rearing colossal palisades across our 
 front. A ten-mile course brought us to the head 
 of this inlet, which was indeed the end of naviga- 
 tion in this direction. Here we left Gannett and 
 Muir to survey and bring to map our new bit of 
 
 76 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 geography. Subsequently this inlet was fitly named 
 Harriman Fiord, and the glacier at the head of it, 
 Harriman Glacier. 
 
 In no very distant past, the various ice sheets, 
 united in one body, had filled the inlet to the moun- 
 tain's brim — a vast ice monster. Now, the body 
 of the monster is gone and his limbs lie upon the 
 mountains on either side, while his tail and rump 
 are at the head of the main valley. 
 
 Our vessel, on coming out of the inlet and turn- 
 ing almost at right angles into Port Wells, was 
 caught by the very strong ebb tide, which for a mo- 
 ment held her in its grasp. She hesitated to respond 
 to her helm, and was making direct for the face 
 of the great glacier on our port side ; but presently 
 she came about, as if aware of her danger, and went 
 on her way in less agitated waters. 
 
 This great glacier, — the Barry, — which guards 
 the entrance to Harriman Inlet, presented some 
 novel features; among others, huge archways above 
 the water-line, suggesting entrances to some walled 
 city. When masses of ice fell, I fancied I could hear 
 the reverberation in these arched caverns. 
 
 The next day, which was thick and rainy, we 
 picked up our party at Virgin Bay, and steamed 
 back to Orca to mend our broken propeller. I won- 
 dered how it could be done, as there is no dry dock 
 there, but the problem proved an easy one. The tide 
 is so great in these waters that every shelving beach 
 
 77 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 becomes a dry dock at low tide. In the morning our 
 steamer lay in shallow water on the beach at Orca. 
 A low scaffolding was built around her propeller, 
 and very soon the broken blade was replaced by a 
 new one. While this was being done, many of us 
 viewed the process of salmon canning. Some of the 
 fish lay piled up on the dock, and were being loaded 
 into wheelbarrows with a one-tined pitchfork and 
 wheeled in to the cleaners. Most of the work was 
 done by Chinamen from San Francisco. It was posi- 
 tively fascinating to see the skill and swiftness w ith 
 w^hich some of these men worked ; only two used 
 knives, — long, thin blades, which they kept very 
 sharp. They cut off the fins, severed the head and 
 tail, and did the disemboweling with lightning-like 
 rapidity. It was like the tricks of jugglers. There 
 was a gleam of steel about the fish half a moment 
 and the work was done. One had to be very intent 
 to follow the movements. The fish were then washed 
 and scraped and passed on to workmen inside, 
 where they were cut and packed by machinery. 
 Every second all day long a pound can, snugly 
 packed, drops from the ingenious mechanism. For 
 some reason the looker-on soon loses his taste for 
 salmon, there is such a world of it. It is as com- 
 mon as chips; it is kicked about under foot; it lies 
 in great sweltering heaps; many of the fish, while 
 lying upon the beach before they are brought in, are 
 pecked and bruised by gulls and ravens ; the air is 
 
 78 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 redolent of an odor far different from that of roses 
 or new-mown hay, and very shortly one turns away 
 to the woods or to the unpolluted beach. 
 
 The first tide was not high enough to lift our 
 steamer, so we passed another day at Orca, and all 
 hands went in the naphtha launches on a picnic to a 
 wild place eight or ten miles distant with the sugges- 
 tive name of Bomb Point. It was a lovely secluded 
 spot, a crescent-shaped beach half a mile long at the 
 head ®f a shallow bay, flanked by low, wooded points 
 and looked down upon by lofty mountains. Here we 
 were quickly roaming over one of those large natural 
 clearings or hyperborean meadows that we had so 
 often seen from the ship, and that had looked so 
 friendly and enticing. This one, on a nearer view, 
 proved especially alluring and delightful ; a strange 
 air of privacy and seclusion was over it all. It was 
 not merely carpeted to the foot, it was cushioned. 
 Walking over it was like walking over a feather-bed, 
 — moss and grass a foot deep or more upon a foun- 
 dation of soft peat. Wild flowers — yellow, white, 
 pink, purple — were everywhere. 
 
 Little pools or basins of brown water, their brims 
 neatly faced and rounded with moss and grass, were 
 sunk here and there into the surface. Stunted mossy 
 hemlocks and spruces dotted the landscape, and the 
 near-by woods threw out irregular lines of gray, 
 moss-draped trees, — novel, interesting. Such a look 
 of age, and yet the bloom and dimples of youth! 
 
 79 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Bearded, decrepit, dwarfed spruces above a turf 
 like a pillow decked with flowers! I walked alon^j^ a 
 margin of open Vvoods that had a singularly genial, 
 sheltered, home look, and listened to the hermit 
 tlirush. The nearer we get to the region of perpet- 
 ual snow, the more does vegetable life seem to simu- 
 late snow and cover the ground with softness, — soft- 
 ness to the foot, and dimpled surface to the eye. 
 Such handfuls of wild flowers as we all gathered! 
 The thought in every one's mind w^as. Oh, if we 
 could only place these flowers in the hands of friends 
 at home! The colors were all deep and intense. 
 
 In the afternoon the steamer picked us up. A 
 little after midnight we took aboard the party we 
 had left at Columbia Glacier, and then returned to 
 Ilarriman Fiord for Gannett and Muir. When they 
 were on board, w^e once more turned our faces to the 
 open sea, bound for Cook Inlet, the largest of the 
 Alaskan bays. It penetrates the land one hundred 
 and fifty miles, and is more than fifty miles broad at 
 its mouth. 
 
 We entered it on the 80th, under bright skies, and 
 dropped anchor behind a low sandspit in Kachemac 
 Bay, on the end of which is a group of four or five 
 buildings making up tlie hamlet of Homer. There 
 was nothing Homeric in the look of the place, but 
 grandeur looked down upon it from the mountains 
 around, especially from the great volcanic peaks, 
 Iliamna and Redoubt, sixty miles across the inlet to 
 
 80 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 the west. The former rises over twelve thousand feet 
 from the sea and, bathed in sunshine, was an impres- 
 sive spectacle. It was wrapped in a mantle of snow, 
 but it evidently was warm at heart, for we could see 
 steam issuing from two points near its summit. 
 
 Our stay in Cook Inlet was brief. Our hunters had 
 hoped to kill some big game here, but after inter- 
 viewing an experienced hunter who had a camp on 
 shore, they concluded that on our return in July the 
 prospects would be better. On the afternoon of June 
 30, therefore, we left the inlet and were off for the 
 island of Kadiak, a hundred miles to the southwest. 
 
 KADIAK 
 
 We were now about to turn over a new leaf, or 
 indeed to open a new book, and to enter upon an 
 entirely different type of scenery, — the treeless type. 
 Up to this point, or for nearly two thousand miles, 
 we had seen the mountains and vallevs covered with 
 
 ft/ 
 
 unbroken spruce forests. Now we were to have two 
 thousand miles without a tree, the valleys and moun- 
 tains green as a lawn, and to the eye as smooth, — 
 all of volcanic origin ; many of the cones ideally per- 
 fect; the valleys deepened and carved by the old gla- 
 ciers, and heights and lowlands alike covered with a 
 carpet of grass, ferns, and iflowers. 
 
 The forests begin to fail at the mouth of Cook 
 Inlet. As we came out, my eye was drawn to rolling 
 heights, where were groups and lines of trees amid 
 
 81 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 broad, green expanses. The suggestion of hill farms 
 at home with orchards and groves, and trees along 
 the fences, was very strong, but one looked in vain 
 for the houses and barns of the farmers. We were 
 going into a milder climate, too. During nearly all 
 the month of June, despite my extra winter clothing, 
 I had suffered with cold. In Prince William Sound 
 and in Yakutat Bay we were in vast refrigerating 
 chests. The air had all been on ice, and the sunshine 
 seemed only to make us feel its tooth the more 
 keenly. With benumbed fingers I wrote to a friend 
 in this strain: "Amid vour summer weather, do 
 remember us in our wanderings, a-chill on these 
 northern seas, beleaguered by icebergs, frowned upon 
 by glaciers, and held as by some enchantment in a 
 vast circle of snow-capped mountain peaks. Are 
 your hands and feet really warm ? Is it true that 
 there is no snow upon the mountains ? " 
 
 But balmier skies awaited us; the warmer cur- 
 rents of the Pacific flowing up from Japan and the 
 southern seas were soon to breathe upon us; that 
 pastoral paradise, Kadiak, was soon to greet us. 
 
 All the afternoon we steamed along the coast in 
 smooth seas, in full view of lofty, snow-covered moun- 
 tains with huge glaciers issuing from out their loins. 
 Late at night, off against Kukak Bay, we put off a 
 party of five or six men who wished to spend a week 
 collecting and botanizing on the mainland. It looked 
 like a perilous piece of business, the debarkation of 
 
 82 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 these men in the darkness, in an open boat on an un- 
 known coast many miles from shore. Might they not 
 miss the bay ? Might they not find the surf running 
 too high to land, or might not some other mishap 
 befall them ? But after a hard pull of several hours, 
 they made the shore at a suitable landing-place, and 
 their days spent there were in every way satisfactory. 
 On the morning of July 1, we woke up in Uyak 
 Ba.y on the north side of the Island of Kadiak. The 
 sky was clear and the prospect most inviting. 
 Smooth, treeless, green hills and mountains sur- 
 rounded us, pleasing to the eye and alluring to the 
 feet. Two large salmon canneries were visible on 
 shore, and presently a boat came off to us with fresh 
 salmon. Here we left a naphtha launch with a party 
 of six men, heavily armed, bent on finding and kill- 
 ing the great Kadiak bear, the largest species of 
 bear in the world, as big as an ox. They had been 
 making up their mouths for this monster bear all the 
 way, and now they were at last close to his haunts. 
 In two or three days we were to return and pick 
 them up and hoist their game aboard with the great 
 derrick. In the delicious sunshine we steamed out of 
 Uyak, bound for Kadiak village on the east end of 
 the island, one hundred miles away. Kadiak Island 
 Hes nearly south from Cook Inlet, about fifty miles 
 from the mainland. It is one hundred and fifty 
 miles long and one third as broad. It would just 
 about fill up Cook Inlet, out of which it may have 
 
 83 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 slipped some time for aught I know. It is treeless 
 except upon the east end, which faces toward the 
 great Alaskan forests, from which the tree infection 
 may have come. 
 
 How beautiful and interesting the shores we 
 passed that day ! Smooth, rounded hills, as green 
 and tender to the eye as well-kept lawns, recalling 
 the hills we saw in May upon Snake River ; natural 
 sheep ranges, such as one sees in the north of Eng- 
 land, but not a sign of life upon them. 
 
 I warn my reader here, that henceforth I shall 
 babble continually of green fields. There was no 
 end to them. We had come from an arboreal wilder- 
 ness to a grassy wilderness, from a world of spruce 
 forests to a world of emerald heights and verdant 
 slopes. Look at the map of x4.1aska, and think of all 
 the peninsulas from Cook Inlet and all the adjacent 
 islands, and the long chain of the Aleutians sweep- 
 ing nearly across to Asia, as being covered with an 
 unbroken carpet of verdure, — it must needs be the 
 main feature in my descriptions. Never had I seen 
 such beauty of greenness, because never before had 
 I seen it from such a vantage-ground of blue sea. 
 
 We had not been many hours out of Uyak that 
 afternoon when we began to see a few scattered 
 spruce-trees, then patches of forest in the valley bot- 
 toms. At one point we passed near a large natural 
 park. It looked as if a landscape gardener might have 
 been employed to grade and shape the ground, and 
 
 84 
 
IN CxREEN ALASKA 
 
 plant it with grass and trees in just the right propor« 
 tion. Here were cattle, too, and liow good they looked, 
 grazing or reposing on those long, smooth vistas be- 
 tween the trees! To eyes sated with the wild, aus- 
 tere grandeur of Prince William Sound the change 
 was most delightful. Our course lay through narrow 
 channels and over open bays sprinkled with green 
 islands, past bold cliffs and headlands, till at three 
 o'clock we entered the narrow strait, no more than 
 twice the ship's length in width, upon which is situ- 
 ated the village of Kadiak, called by the Russians 
 St. Paul. We could see the wild flowers upon the 
 shore as we passed along, barn swallows twittered 
 by, a magpie crossed the strait from one green bank 
 to the other, and as we touched the wharf a song 
 sparrow was singing from the weather-vane of a 
 large warehouse, — a song sparrow in voice, man- 
 ners, and color, but in form twice as large as our 
 home bird. The type of song sparrow changes all 
 the way from Yakutat Bay to the Aleutian Islands, 
 till at the latter place it is nearly as large as the cat- 
 bird; but the song and general habits of the bird 
 change but very little. How welcome the warmth, 
 too ! We had stepped from April into June, vrith the 
 mercury near the seventies, and our spirits rose 
 accordingly. How we swarmed out of the ship, like 
 boys out of school, longing for a taste of grass and of 
 the rural seclusion and sweetness ! That great green 
 orb or half orb of a mountain that shone down upon 
 
 85 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 us from just back of the town, the highest point in 
 its rim at an altitude of twenty-three hundred feet, 
 • — how our legs tingled to climb it ! and the green 
 vale below, where the birds were singing and many 
 rare wild flowers blooming; and the broad, gentle 
 height to the north, threaded by a grassy lane, where 
 groves of low, fragrant spruces promised a taste 
 of the blended sylvan and pastoral ; or the smooth, 
 rounded island opposite, over which the sea threw 
 blue glances; or the curving line of water sweeping 
 away to the south toward a rugged mountain- 
 wall, streaked with snow; or the peaceful, quaint 
 old village itself, strung upon paths and grassy lanes, 
 with its chickens and geese and children, and two or 
 three cows cropping the grass or ruminating by the 
 wayside, — surely, here was a tempting field to ship- 
 bound voyagers from the chilly and savage north. 
 The town itself had a population of seven or eight 
 hundred people, Indians, half-breeds, and Russians, 
 with a sprinkling of Americans, living in comfort- 
 able frame cottages, generally with a bit of garden 
 attached. The people fish, hunt the sea-otter, and 
 work for the Alaska Commercial Company. We 
 met here an old Vermonter, a refined, scholarly 
 looking man, with a patriarchal beard, who had 
 married a native woman and had a family of young 
 children growing up around him. He Hked the cli- 
 mate better than that of New England. The winters 
 were not very cold, never below zero, and the sum- 
 
 86 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 mers were not hot, rarely up to 80° Fahrenheit. 
 There were no horses or wheeled vehicles in town, 
 and the streets were grassy lanes. Such a rural. 
 Arcadian air I had never }:)efore seen pervading a 
 town upon American soil. There is a Greek church 
 near the wharf, and its chime of bells was in our 
 ears for hours at a time. The only incongruous 
 thing I saw was a building with a big sign on its 
 ridge-board: " Chicago Store." I went in and asked 
 for some fresh eggs; they had none, but directed 
 me to a cottage near the beach. 
 
 I found here a large Russian woman, who had the 
 eggs, for which, after consulting with a younger 
 woman, she wanted " four bits." The potatoes in 
 her garden had tops a foot high, but her currant- 
 bushes were just in bloom. Our stay of five days in 
 this charming place was a dream of rural beauty and 
 repose: warm summer skies above us, green, flower- 
 strewn hills and slopes around us, — our paths were 
 indeed in green pastures and beside still waters. 
 One enticing trail left the old Russian road half a 
 mile north of the village, and led off northwest across 
 little mossy and flowery glens, through spruce 
 groves, over little runs, up a shoulder of the moun- 
 tain, and then down a few miles into a broad, 
 green, silent valley that held a fine trout brook. 
 The path was probably made by the village anglers. 
 In looking into such a peaceful, verdant sweep of 
 country, one almost instinctively looked for farm- 
 
 87 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 houses, or for flocks and herds and other signs of 
 human occupancy; but they were not there. One 
 high mountain that cut into the valley at right angles 
 had a long, easy ridge, apparently as sharp as the 
 ridge-board of a building. I marked it for my own 
 and thought to set my feet upon it, but the way was 
 too beguiling, and I did not get there. The moun- 
 tain looked as though it had just had a priming- 
 coat of delicate green paint. 
 
 But the mighty emerald billow that rose from the 
 rear of the village, — we all climbed that, some of us 
 repeatedly. From the ship it looked as smooth as a 
 meadow, but the climber soon found himself knee 
 deep in ferns, grasses, and a score of flowering 
 plants, and now and then was forced to push through 
 a patch of alders as high as his head. He could not 
 go far before his hands would be full of flowers, blue 
 predominating. The wild geranium here is light 
 blue, and tinges the slopes as daisies and buttercups 
 do at home. Near the summit w^ere patches of a most 
 exquisite forget-me-not of a pure, delicate blue with 
 yellow centre. It grew to the height of a foot, and a 
 handful of it looked like something just caught out 
 of the sky above. Here, too, was a small, delicate 
 lady's-slipper, pale yellow striped with maroon ; 
 also a dwarf rhododendron, its large purple flowers 
 sitting upon the moss and lichen. The climber 
 also waded through patches of lupine, and put his 
 feet upon bluebells, Jacob's ladder, iris, saxifrage, 
 
 88 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 cassiope, and many others. The song-birds that 
 attracted our notice were the golden-crowned spar^ 
 row and the Httle hermit thrush. The goklen-crown 
 has a strangely piercing, plaintive song, very simple, 
 but very appealing. It consists of only three notes, 
 but they come from out the depths of the bird's soul. 
 In them is all the burden of the mystery and the 
 pathos of life. 
 
 In the spruce groves to the north opened up by 
 the old grassy road, besides the birds named, one 
 heard the pine grosbeak, the gray-cheeked thrush, 
 and the weird strain of the Oregon robin. This last 
 bird was very shy and hard to get a view of. I reclined 
 for two hours one day upon the deep dry moss under 
 the spruces, waiting for the singer to reveal himself. 
 When seen he looks like our robin in a holiday suit. 
 His song is a long, tapering note or whistle, at times 
 with a peculiar tolling effect. 
 
 TO THE OREGON ROBIN IN ALASKA 
 
 Varied Thrush ! O Robin strange! 
 Behold my mute surprise. 
 
 Thy form and flight I long have known. 
 But not this new disguise. 
 
 1 do not know thy slaty coat, 
 
 Nor vest with darker zone ; 
 I 'm puzzled by thy recluse ways 
 And song in monotone. 
 89 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 I left thee *mid my orchard's bloom, 
 WTien May had crowned the year ; 
 
 Thy nest was on the apple bough, 
 Where rose thy carol clear. 
 
 Thou lurest now through fragrant shades. 
 
 Where hoary spruces grow ; 
 W^here floor of moss infolds the foot. 
 
 Like depths of fallen snow. 
 
 Loquacious ravens clack and croak 
 
 Nor hold me in my quest ; 
 The purple grosbeaks perch and sing 
 
 Upon the cedar's crest. 
 
 But thou art doomed to shun the day, 
 
 A captive of the shade ; 
 I only catch thy stealthy flight 
 
 Athwart the forest glade. 
 
 Thy voice is like a hermit's reed 
 
 That solitude beguiles ; 
 Again 't is like a silver bell 
 
 Adrift in forest aisles. 
 
 Throw off, throw off this masquerade 
 
 And don thy ruddy vest. 
 And let me find thee, as of old, 
 
 Beside thy orchard nest. 
 
 While here Mr. Harriman had the luck to kill the 
 long-expected Kadiak bear; he shot a mother and 
 
 90 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 cub. He and his guide, an old Russian named 
 Stepan Kondakoff, found her grazing near the 
 snow-hne on the mountain-side about ten miles 
 to the south. She was eating grass like a cow, Mr. 
 Harriman said. She was a large animal, but below 
 the size of the traditional Kadiak bear. Her color 
 was a faded brown. A much larger one was seen 
 far across a difficult valley. 
 
 On July 3, which was bright and warm, a num- 
 ber of us visited Wood Island, a few miles to the 
 east, where the North American Commercial Com- 
 pany has its headquarters, and where are large old 
 spruce woods and lakes of fresh water. Charles 
 Keeler and I heard, or fancied we heard, voices 
 calling us from out the depths of the w oods ; so we 
 left the party and took ourselves thither, and lounged 
 for hours in the mossy, fragrant solitudes, eating our 
 lunch by a little rill of cold water, listening to the 
 song-birds and ravens, and noting the wood flowers 
 and moss-draped trees. Here we heard the winter 
 wTcn at our leisure, a bubbling, trilling, prolonged 
 strain like that of our eastern bird, but falling far 
 short of it in melody and in wild lyrical penetra- 
 tion. In other words, it was the same song sung by 
 a far inferior voice. The elusive note of the Ore- 
 gon robin, as though the dark, motionless spruces 
 had found a voice, was also heard here and there. 
 These woods were not merely carpeted with moss, 
 they were upholstered ; the ground was padded 
 
 91 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 aiiklo-deep, and under every tree was a couch of the 
 most luxurious kind. 
 
 The 4th of July found us, as it usually finds 
 Americans, wherever they are, overflowing with 
 patriotism, bunting, and gunpowder hilarity. Our 
 huge graphophone played very well the part of a 
 brass band; Professor Brewer, upon the hurricane 
 deck, discharged admirably the duties of the orator 
 of the day; he was followed by Mr. Kceler, who 
 shaded the picture the speaker had drawn by a stir- 
 ring poem, touching upon some of the nation's short- 
 comings ; songs and music, followed by a boat race 
 and general merriment, finished the programme. 
 
 Kadiak, T think, won a place in the hearts of all of 
 us. Our spirits probably touched the highest point 
 here. If we had other days that were epic, these days 
 were lyric. To me they were certainly more exqui- 
 site and thrilling than any before or after. I feel as 
 if I wanted to go back to Kadiak, almost as if I 
 could return there to live, — so secluded, so remote, 
 so peaceful; such a mingling of the domestic, the 
 pastoral, the sylvan, w^ith the wild and the rugged; 
 such emerald heights, such flowery vales, such blue 
 arms and recesses of the sea, and such a vast green 
 solitude stretching away to the west and to the 
 north and to the south. Bewitching Kadiak! the 
 spell of thy summer freshness and placidity is still 
 upon me. 
 
 On the 5th, still under clear, warm skies, we left this 
 
 92 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 rural paradise and steamed away to Kukak Bay on 
 the mainland, to pick up the party we had left there 
 on the night of June 30. It was a relief to find they 
 had had no misadventure and were well pleased 
 with their expedition. They described one view that 
 made the listener wish he had been with them : thev 
 had climbed to the top of a long green slope behind 
 their camp, and had suddenly found themselves on 
 the brink of an almost perpendicular mountain-wall. 
 Through a deep notch in this wall they had looked 
 down two thousand feet into a valley beneath them 
 invaded by a great glacier that swept down from the 
 snow-white peaks beyond. The spectacle was so 
 unexpected and so tremendous that it fairly took 
 their breaths away. From the deck of the ship the 
 slope up which their course lay looked like a piece of 
 stretched green baize cloth. 
 
 An event of this day's cruising which I must 
 not forget was the strange effects wrought for us 
 by that magician Mirage : islands and headlands in 
 the air, long, low capes doubled, one above anotlier, 
 with a lucid space between them ; a level snowy 
 range standing up slightly above a nearer rocky 
 one, drawn out and manipulated till it suggested a 
 vast Grecian temple crowning a rocky escarpment, — 
 fantasy, illusion, enchantment, — trick played with 
 sea and shore on every hand that afternoon. 
 
 From this point we turned to the island again, and 
 in the middle of the night gathered in the bear huiit- 
 
 93 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 ers we had left at Uyak Bay. They were bearless, but 
 they had the comfort of having seen many signs of 
 bears, of having had many enjoyable tramps over 
 hill and across dale in a green, treeless country, of 
 having found a superb waterfall, and of having sur« 
 vived the hordes of mosquitoes. 
 
 We steamed all day southwestward along the 
 Alaska Peninsula, under clear skies and over smooth 
 waters, past the Semides and on to the Shuma- 
 gin Islands, where we dropped anchor about mid- 
 night. 
 
 When we put our heads out of our windows on 
 the morning of the 7th, we were at anchor off Sand 
 Point, in a bay in Popof Island, one of the Shumagin 
 group, about halfway down the Alaska Peninsula. 
 On the one hand we saw a low, green, treeless slope, 
 almost within a stone's throw, from which came 
 many musical bird voices. The lesser hermit 
 thrush, the golden-crowned sparrow, the fox spar- 
 row, the large song sparrow, the yellow warbler, the 
 rosy finch, all were distinguishable from the ship's 
 deck. It is a novel experience to wake up in the 
 morning on an ocean steamer and hear bird-songs 
 through one's open window, but this was often our 
 experience on this trip. On this grassy hill are 
 some curious volcanic Avarts or excrescences that 
 give a strange effect to the scene. On the other hand, 
 the blue waters of the harbor stretch away to low, 
 alder-clad shores, from which rise a range of bare 
 
 94 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 <rolcanic mountains, among them one perfect cone, 
 probably three thousand feet high. 
 
 In the Shumagins three men elected to leave the 
 ship to dredge the sea and study the volcanic forma- 
 tion of the land. We promised to pick them up on. 
 our return ten days hence. At ten o'clock our anchor 
 was up and we were off for Unalaska. The event of 
 this day was the view we had of the twin volcanic 
 peaks of Pavlof, rising from the shore to an altitude 
 of seven or eight thousand feet. One of them was 
 a symmetrical cone, with black converging lines of 
 rock cutting through the snow hke the ribs of an 
 umbrella; the other was more rugged and irregu- 
 lar, with many rents upon its sides and near its sum- 
 mit, from which vapors issued, staining the snow 
 like smoke from a chimney. Sheets of vapor were 
 also seen issuing from cracks at its foot near the sea 
 level. We were specially fortunate in viewing these 
 grand mountains under such favorable weather 
 conditions. 
 
 On this day also, just after passing Pavlof, we 
 were for hours in sight of the Aghileen Pinnacles, 
 which have such a strange architectural effect amid 
 the wilder and ruder forms that surround them, as 
 if some vast, many-spired cathedral of dark gray 
 stone were going to decay there in the mountain soli- 
 tude. Both in form and color they seemed alien to 
 everything about them. Now we saw them athwart 
 the crests of smooth green hills, then rising behind 
 
 95 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 naked, rocky ridges, or fretting the sky above lines 
 of snow. Their walls arc so steep that no snow lies 
 upon them, while the pinnacles are like church 
 spires. 
 
 The whole of the Alaska Peninsula, all the islands 
 off it, the islands in Bering Sea, and the Aleutian 
 group are of volcanic origin, and some of the em- 
 bers of the old fires are still alive in our day, as we 
 had proof. Since our visit there has been other proof 
 in the shape of a severe earthquake shock felt all 
 along the Alaskan coast, in some places disastrously. 
 
 Continuing to the westward, we sailed along ver- 
 dant shores and mountains without sign of human 
 habitation till we saw a cluster of buildings called 
 Belkofski, — two or three dozen brown roofs grouped 
 around a large white, green-topped building, prob- 
 ably a Greek church. The settlement seemed care- 
 fully set down there in the green solitude like a toy 
 village on a shelf. The turf had not been anywhere 
 broken ; not a mark or stain upon the treeless land- 
 scape. Above it ran a smooth, barren mountain, 
 which swept down in green slopes to a broad emer- 
 ald plain upon which the hamlet sat. Now a long 
 headland comes down to the water's edge with its 
 green carpet; then again it is cut ofl' sharply by the 
 sea, or cut in twain, showing sheer pyramidal walls 
 two hundred feet high. Then a succession of vast, 
 smooth, emerald slopes running up into high, gray, 
 desolate mountains, pointed, conical, curved; now 
 
 96 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 presenting a mighty bowl, fluted and scalloped and 
 opening on one side through a sweep of valley to the 
 sea, then a creased and wrinkled lawn at an angle of 
 forty-five degrees and miles in extent. The motion- 
 less ice sheets we had seen farther north flowing 
 down out of the mountains were here simulateil by 
 grassy billows flowing down out of the hills. Green, 
 white, and blue are the three prevailing tints all the 
 way from Cook Inlet to Unalaska ; blue of the sea 
 and sky, green of the shores and lower slopes, and 
 white of the lofty peaks and volcanic cones, — they 
 are mingled and contrasted all the way. 
 
 Was it on this day also that my eye dwelt so long 
 and so fondly upon what appeared to be another 
 architectural ruin, abutting on the sea and bathed in 
 the soft light of the late afternoon sun ? Was it some 
 old abbey, or was it some unfinished temple to the 
 gods of the mountain ? Two spires, one at either end, 
 stood up many hundred feet, one slender and taper- 
 ing to a blunt point, with the suggestion of a recess 
 for a bell, the other heavy and massive, and evidently 
 only a stump of what it had been ; the roof vast and 
 sloping, the upper story with its windows rudely 
 outlined, and the lower merged in a mass of gray, 
 un carved rock. 
 
 Before nightfall we passed two more notable vol- 
 canic peaks, Isanotski and Shishaldin, both of which 
 penetrate the clouds at an altitude of nearly nine 
 thousand feet. These are on Unimak Island at tlip 
 
 97 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 end of llic peninsula. Our first glimpse was of a 
 hlack cone ending in a point far above a heavy mass 
 of cloud. It seemed buoyed up there by the clouds. 
 Tliere was nothing visible beneath it to indicate the 
 presence of a mountain. Then the clouds blotted it 
 out; but presently the veil was brushed aside again, 
 and before Ions: w^e saw both mountains from base 
 to summit and noted the vast concave lines of Shi- 
 shaldin that sweep down to the sea, and mark the 
 typical volcanic form. 
 
 The long, graceful curves, so attractive to the eye, 
 repeat on this far-off island the profile of Fuji-Yama, 
 the sacred peak of Japan. Those of our party v.dio 
 had seen Shishaldin in previous years described it as 
 snow white from base to summit. But when we saw 
 it, the upper part, for several thousand feet, was dark, 
 — doubtless the result of heat, for it is smoking tliis 
 year. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th we w^ere tied up at the 
 pier in Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, amid a world of 
 green hills and meadow^s like those at Kadiak. It 
 was warm and cloudy, with light rain. We tarried 
 here half a day, taking in coal and water, visiting the 
 old Russian town of Iliuliuk a couple of miles away 
 at the head of another indentation in the harbor, 
 strolling through the wild meadows, or climbing the 
 enaerald heights. 
 
 One new bird, the Lapland longspur, which in 
 color, flight, and song suggested our bobolink, at- 
 
 98 
 
IN GPtEEN ALASKA 
 
 tracted our attention here. As we came " cross lots " 
 over the flower-besprinkled, undulatincr plain from 
 the old town to the new, this bird was in song all 
 about us, hovering in the air, pouring out its li(|uid, 
 bubbling song, and dropping down in the grass 
 again in a way very suggestive of the home bird, — 
 so much so that it may be fitly called the northland 
 bobolink. 
 
 TO THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR 
 
 Oh! thou northland bobolink. 
 
 Looking over summer's brink, 
 Up to winter, worn and dim. 
 
 Peering down from mountain rim, 
 Peering out on Bering Sea, 
 
 To higher lands where he may flee, — 
 Something takes me in thy note, 
 
 Quivering wing and bubbling throat. 
 Something moves me in thy ways, — 
 
 Bird, rejoicing in thy days. 
 In thy upward hovering flight. 
 
 In thy suit of black and white, 
 Chestnut cape and circled crown. 
 
 In thy mate of speckled brown ; 
 Surely I may pause and think 
 
 Of my boyhood's bobolink. 
 
 Soaring over meadows wild, — 
 (Greener pastures never smiled) 
 99 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Raining music from above, — 
 
 Full of rapture, full of love ; 
 Frolic, gay, and debonair, 
 
 Yet not all exempt from care. 
 For thy nest is in the grass, 
 
 And thou worriest as I pass ; 
 But no hand nor foot of mine 
 
 Shall do harm to thee or thine ; 
 I, musing, only pause to think 
 
 Of my boyhood's bobolink. 
 
 But no bobolink of mine 
 
 Ever sang o'er mead so fine, — 
 Starred with flowers of every hue, 
 
 Gold and purple, white and blue. 
 Painted cup, anemone, 
 
 Jacob's ladder, fleur-de-lis, 
 Orchid, harebell, shooting-star. 
 
 Crane's bill, lupine, seen afar. 
 Primrose, rubus, saxifrage. 
 
 Pictured type on Nature's page, — 
 These and others, here unnamed. 
 
 In northland gardens, yet untamed. 
 Deck the fields where thou dost sing. 
 
 Mounting up on trembhng wing ; 
 Yet in wistful mood I think 
 
 Of my boyhood's bobolink. 
 
 On Unalaska's emerald lea, 
 On lonely isles in Bering Sea, 
 100 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 On far Siberia's barren shore, 
 On north Alaska's tundra floor ; 
 
 At morn, at noon, in palHd night. 
 
 We heard thy song and saw thy flight. 
 
 While I, sighing, could but think 
 Of my boyhood's bobolink. 
 
 On the higher peaks, amid lingering snow-banks, 
 Mr. Ridgway found the snow bunting and the tit- 
 lark nesting. Unalaska looked quite as interesting as 
 Kadiak, and I longed to spend some days there in 
 the privacy of its green solitudes, following its limpid 
 trout streams, climbing its lofty peaks, and listen- 
 ing to the music of the longspur. I had seen much, 
 but had been intimate with little ; now if I could 
 only have a few days of that kind of intimacy with 
 this new nature which the saunterer, the camper- 
 out, the stroller through fields in the summer twi- 
 light has, I should be more content; but in the after- 
 noon the ship was off into Bering Sea, headed for 
 the Seal Islands, and I was aboard her, but with 
 wistful and reverted eyes. 
 
 The first hour or two out from Dutch Harbor we 
 sailed past high, rolling, green hills, cut squarely off 
 by the sea, presenting cliffs seven or eight hundred 
 feet high of soft, reddish, crumbling rock, a kind of 
 clay porphyry of volcanic origin, touched here and 
 there on the face with the tenderest green. It was as 
 if some green fluid had been poured upon the tops of 
 
 101 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 the hills, antl had run down and dripped off the rock 
 eaves and been caught upon every shelf and projec- 
 tion. The color was deepest in all the wrinkles and 
 folds of the slopes and in the valley bottoms. At one 
 point we looked into a deep, smooth valley or trough 
 opening upon the sea, its shore-line a complete half- 
 circle. Its bottom was nearly at the water level, and 
 was as fresh and vivid as a lawn in spring. Some one 
 suggested that it looked like a huge dry dock, if dry 
 docks are ever carpeted with grass. The effect was 
 extremely strange and beautiful. The clouds rested 
 low across the hills, and formed a dense canopy over 
 the vast verdant cradle ; under this canopy we 
 looked along a soft green vista for miles back into 
 the hills, wdiere patches of snow were visible. At 
 another point a similar trough or cradle had been 
 carved down to w^ithin a hundred or more feet of the 
 sea, and upon its rocky face hung a beautiful water- 
 fall. Then followed other lesser valleys that did 
 not show the same glacial cross-section ; they were 
 V-shaped instead of U-shaped, each marked by a 
 waterfall into the sea. There were three of these in 
 succession cutting the rocky sea front into pyramidal 
 forms. Often the talus at the foot of the cliffs w^as 
 touched by the same magic green. Then opened 
 up larger valleys, into v/hicli Ave looked under an up- 
 rolled drop-curtain of cloud. One of them, lighted up 
 by the sun, showed us an irregularly carved valley 
 landscape, suggesting endless possil)ilities of flocks 
 
 10^ 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 and herds and rural homes. Here again the green 
 fluid seemed to have found its way down the creases 
 and runnels and was deepest there. Everywhere 
 such a sweep of green skirts as these Alaskan hills 
 and mountains present, often trailing to the sea! 
 I never tired of them, and if I dwell upon them 
 unduly long, let the reader remember that a thou- 
 sand miles of this kind of scenery, passing slowly 
 before one on a succession of summer days, make 
 an impression not easily thrown off. 
 
 THE SEAL ISLANDS 
 
 Before many hours we ran into lowering, misty 
 weather in Bering Sea, and about seven o'clock were 
 off the Bogoslof Islands, two abrupt volcanic 
 mounds, one of them thrown up in recent years. The 
 other is the breeding-ground of innumerable sea- 
 lions, yes, and of myriads of murres, a species of 
 diver. With our glasses, when we were several miles 
 away, we could see the murres making the air almost 
 thick about the rocks as with clouds of black specks. 
 We could see the sea-lions, too, great windrows of 
 them, upon the beach. We dropped anchor about 
 two miles away, and a party of seven or eight ^^'ent 
 ashore in a boat, — a hazardous proceeding, our cap- 
 tain thought, as the fog seemed likely to drop at any 
 moment and obliterate island and ship alike; but it 
 did not drop, only the top of the island was oblit- 
 erated. We could see the sea-lions lift themselves up 
 
 103 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and gather in groups as the boat approached their 
 rookerv. 
 
 Then, after the landing was effected, they disap- 
 peared, and we could see the spray rise up as the 
 monsters plunged into the water. Hundreds of them 
 were in a small lake a few rods back from the shore, 
 and the spectacle which the procession of the huge 
 creatures made rushing across the beach to the sea 
 was described as something most extraordinary. 
 Those who were so fortunate as to witness it placed 
 it among the three or four most memorable events 
 of their lives. 
 
 On the afternoon of Sunday, July 9, we dropped 
 anchor off St. Paul Island, one of the Pribilofs, the 
 famous resort of the fur seals. A special permit 
 from the Secretary of the Treasury gave us the 
 privilege. There is no harbor here, and the landing, 
 even in calm weather, requires to be carefully man- 
 aged. The island is low, with a fringe of loose boul- 
 ders around it, which in places looked almost like an 
 artificial wall. The government agent conducted us 
 a mile or more through wild meadows starred with 
 flowers and covered with grass nearly knee-high, to 
 the boulder-paved shore where the seals were con- 
 gregated. Those of our party who had been there 
 before, not many years back, were astonished at the 
 diminished numbers of the animals, — hardly one 
 tenth of the earlier myriads. We visited eight or ten 
 "harems,'* as they are called, groups of a dozen or 
 
 104 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 more females, each presided over by a male or bull 
 seal, whose position was usually upon a kind of 
 throne or higher boulder in the midst of his wives. 
 Every few minutes this male, which was much larger 
 and darker in color than the females, would lift him- 
 self up and glance around over his circle as if count- 
 ing his flock, then snarl at some rival a few yards 
 away, or turn and threaten us. We gazed upon 
 them and trained our cameras at leisure. Often a 
 young male, wifeless and crowded back by older 
 bulls, threatened us near the edge of the grass with 
 continued demonstrations of anger. These un- 
 mated males were in bad humor anyway, and our 
 appearance seemed to furnish them a good excuse 
 to give vent to their feelings. In this market the 
 females belong to the strong. We saw several for- 
 lorn old males hovering around, who had played the 
 game and lost. They looked like bankrupt gamblers 
 at a watering-place. 
 
 The females are much smaller and lighter in color 
 than their lords and masters. They lay very quietly 
 among the rocks, now and then casting uneasy 
 glances at us. Their heads are small and their jaws 
 slender; their growls and threats are not very terri- 
 fying. 
 
 Lying there in masses or wriggling about upon 
 the rocks, all their lines soft and flowing, all their 
 motions hampered, the fur seals suggest huge larva?, 
 or sometliing between the grub and tlie mature 
 
 105 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 insect. They appear to be yet in a kind of sac or 
 envelope. The males wri<r(rle about like a man in a 
 hivr; but once in the water, they are a part of the 
 wave, as fleet and nim])le as a fish, or as a bird in the 
 air. In the sounds which they continually emitted 
 they did not remind me of bulls or cows, but of 
 sheep. The hoarse staccato bleating of the males 
 was hke that of old rams, while the shriller calls of 
 the females and the fine treble of the pups were 
 equally like those of ewes and lambs. Some be- 
 lated females were still arriving while we looked on. 
 They came in timidly, lifted themselves upon the 
 edge of the rocks, and looked about as if to find a 
 vacant place, or to receive a welcome. Much spar- 
 ring and threatening were going on among the males, 
 but I saw ncne actually come to blows. By careful 
 movements and low tones we went about without 
 much exciting them. 
 
 On this island we first saw the yellow poppy. It 
 was scattered everywhere amid the grass, like the 
 scarlet poppy of Europe. A wonderful display of 
 other wild flowers was about our feet as we walked. 
 Here also the Eapland longspur was in song, and a 
 few snow buntings in white plumage drifted about 
 over the flowery meads. On a big w^indrow of boul- 
 ders along the beach near Avhere we landed w^ere 
 swarms of noisy water-birds, mainly least auklets, 
 called " choochkies " by the natives. 
 
 106 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 SIBERIA 
 
 According to our original programme our outward 
 journey should have ended at the Seal Islands, hut 
 Mrs. Harriman expressed a wish to see Siheria, and, 
 if all went well, the midnight sun. "Very well," 
 rephed Mr. Harriman, "we will go to Siberia," and 
 toward that barren shore our prow was turned. It 
 w^as about eight o'clock in the evening v/hen we left 
 St. Paul ; a dense fog prevailed, hiding the shore. 
 We had not been an hour under way when a horrible 
 raking blow from some source made the ship tremble 
 from stem to stern; then another and another, still 
 more severe. The shock came from beneath: our 
 keel was upon the rocks. Many of the company 
 w^ere at dinner; all sprang to their feet, and looked 
 the surprise and alarm they did not speak. The 
 engines were quickly reversed, a sail ^vas hoisted/, 
 in a few moments the ship's prow swung off to 
 the right, and the danger was passed, — we were 
 afloat again. The stern of the ship, which was two 
 feet deeper in the w'ater than the bow, had raked 
 across the rocks. No damage was done, and we had 
 had a novel sensation, something analogous, I fancy, 
 to the feeling one has upon land during an earth- 
 quake. 
 
 Some of us hoped this incident would en use Mr. 
 Harriman to turn back. Bering Sea is a treacherous 
 sea; it is shallow; it has many islands; and in sum- 
 
 107 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 mer it is nearly always draped in fog. Our host was 
 a man not easy to turn back, and in five minutes he 
 was romping with his children again as if nothing 
 had happened. The ship's course was changed to 
 southeast, around Walrus Island ; and it did, indeed, 
 look for a while as if we had more than half a mind 
 to turn back ; but in a couple of hours we were 
 headed toward Siberia again, and went plunging 
 through the fog and obscurity with our "ferocious 
 whistle," as Professor Emerson characterized it, 
 tearing the silence and our sleep alike to tatters. 
 The next day, the 10th, we hoped to touch at the 
 Island of St. Matthew, but we missed it in the thick 
 obscurity and searching for it was hazardous, so we 
 went again northward. 
 
 The fog continued on the 11th till nearly noon, 
 when we ran into clear air and finally into sunshine, 
 and in the early afternoon the coast of Siberia lay 
 before us like a cloud upon the horizon, — Asia at 
 last, crushed down there on the rim of the world as 
 though with the weight of her centuries and her cruel 
 Czar's iniquities. As we drew near, her gray, crum- 
 bling, decrepit granite bluffs and mountains, streaked 
 with snow, helped the illusion. This was the Old 
 World indeed. Our destination w^as Plover Bay, 
 where at six in the afternoon w^e dropped anchor 
 behind a long, crescent-shaped sandspit that put 
 out from the eastern shore. On this sandspit was an 
 Eskimo encampment of skin-covered huts, which 
 
 108 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 was soon astir with moving forms. Presently eight 
 of the figures were seen moving down to the beach. 
 A boat was launched and filled, and came rapidly to 
 the ship's side. It was made of walrus skin stretched 
 over a wooden frame, and was a strong, shapely craft. 
 Its occupants also were clad in skins. There were 
 three women and nine men in the boat, but one had 
 to look very closely to tell which was which. The 
 men's crowns were shaved, leaving a heavy fringe of 
 coarse black hair around their heads. One of them, 
 probably thirty or tliirty-five years of age, stood up 
 in the bow of the boat, and with his cloak of reddish- 
 gray fur was really a handsome man. He had a thin 
 black beard and regular, clear-cut features, and 
 looked as one fancies an old Roman of his age might 
 have looked. They were evidently drawn to us 
 partly by curiosity and partly by the hope of gifts 
 of tobacco and whiskey. The tobacco was freely 
 showered upon them by Mr. Harriman, and was 
 eagerly seized, but the whiskey was not forthcom- 
 ing. 
 
 Our own boats were rapidly lowered, and we were 
 soon upon Asiatic soil, gathering flowers, observing 
 the birds, and strolling about among the tents and 
 huts of the natives. We bought skins and curios of 
 them, or bartered knives and cloth for such things as 
 they had to dispose of. They would take our silver 
 dollars, but much preferred skinning-knivesor other 
 useful articles. They were not shy of our cameras, 
 
 109 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and freely admitted us to the f^reasy and smok}^ 
 interiors of their dwellings. As the Eskimos stood 
 regarding us, they would draw their hands into their 
 sleeves, after the manner of children on a cold morn- 
 ing. Their skin costumes gave them a singular 
 stuffed appearance. One was reminded of grotesque 
 dolls filled with bran or sawdust. This effect was 
 due in part to the awkward cut of their garments 
 and to the fact that the skins were made up hair side 
 in. Some of the natives showed a strain of Euro- 
 pean blood; whalers bound for the Arctic Ocean 
 sometimes stop here, and corrupt them with bad 
 morals and villainous vv^hiskey. 
 
 Throughout the village seals and seal oil, reindeer 
 skins, w^alrus hides, and blubber were most notice- 
 able. Behind the tent I saw a deep, partly covered 
 pit in the ground, nearly filled wath oil, and a few 
 rods farther off others were seen. The bones of 
 w hales served instead of timbers in most of the rude 
 structures. The winter houses were built by stand- 
 ing up whale ribs about two feet apart in a circle, 
 and filling up the ixiterstices with turf, making a wall 
 two feet thick. For a roof they used walrus hides, 
 resting upon poles. In my walk over this crescent of 
 land I came here and there upon the huge vertebrae 
 of whales, scattered about, and looking like the gray, 
 weather-worn granite boulders on a New England 
 farm. 
 
 Beyond the present site of the encampment I saw 
 
 110 
 
IN GREEN AEASKA 
 
 the ruins of an older or Ccarlier village, the foun- 
 dations of whale bones partly overgrown by the 
 turf. 
 
 As we came in at one end of the encampment 
 most of the dogs went out at the other end. They 
 had never before seen such looking creatures, and 
 they fled off toward the mountain, where they sat 
 down and howled their mournful protest. Some of 
 the children were frightened too ; one youngster of 
 five or six years, stuffed like a small scarecrow, riding 
 astride his mother's neck, cried and yelled vigorously 
 as we approached. The sun was bright, but the air 
 was very chilly, the mercury standing at about 38° 
 Fahrenheit. We were within one hundred and twenty 
 miles of the Arctic circle. The slender peninsula we 
 were on was a few hundred feet wide ; it was marshy 
 in some places, but for the most part dry and covered 
 with herbage. Here were yello^v poppies bloom- 
 ing, and two species of saxifrage. In my walk I 
 came upon a large patch of ground covered with a 
 small, low, pink primrose. The ground was painted 
 with it. But the prettiest flow^er we found was a 
 forget-me-not, scarcely an inch high, of deep ultra- 
 marine blue, — the deepest, most intense blue I 
 ever saw in a wild flower. Here also we saw and 
 heard the Lapland longspur and the yellow wag- 
 tail. A flock of male eider ducks was seen in the 
 bay. 
 
 Ill 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 PORT CLARENCE 
 
 We traveled two hours in Asia. I am tempted to 
 write a book on the country, but forbear. At eight 
 o'clock we steamed away along the coast toward 
 Indian Point, in an unending twilight. We arrived 
 there at midnight, l)ut the surf was running so high 
 that no landing was attempted. Then we stood off 
 across Bering Strait for Port Clarence in Alaska, 
 where we hoped to take water, passing in sight of 
 King Island and the Diomedes, and about noon 
 again dropped anchor behind a long, sickle-shaped 
 sandspit, which curves out from the southern head- 
 land, ten or twelve miles away. In the great basin 
 behind tliis sand-bar a dozen vessels of the whaling 
 fleet were anchored and making ready to enter the 
 Arctic Ocean, where some of them expected to spend 
 the winter. The presence of the fleet had drav/n to- 
 gether upon the sand-bar over two hundred Eskimos 
 for trade and barter with the whalers. Their shapely 
 skin boats, filled wdth people, — men, women, chil- 
 dren, often to the number of twenty, to say nothing 
 of the dogs, — soon swarmed about our ship. They 
 had all manner of furs, garments, baskets, ornaments, 
 and curios for sale or for barter. An animated and 
 picturesque scene they presented, and dozens of 
 cameras were leveled at them. In dress they pre- 
 sented a much more trim and shapely appearance 
 than did the people we had just left in Siberia, though 
 
 112 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 much the same in other respects. Some of the 
 younger women were fairly good-looking, and their 
 fur hoods and fur cloaks became them well. I no- 
 ticed that the babies cried very much as babies do 
 at home. Most of the women were dressed in hair 
 seal or reindeer skins, but some wore an outer gar- 
 ment of colored cotton cloth, hanging loosely to the 
 knees. It was interesting to see them tuck their 
 babies under this garment from the rear. The 
 mother would bend forw^ard very low, thrust the 
 child under the garment at her hips, and by a dexter- 
 ous wriggling movement of her body propel it for- 
 ward till its head protruded above her shoulder. 
 One marked its course along her back as he does 
 that of a big morsel down a chicken's gullet. 
 
 Some of the captains of the whalers came aboard 
 our ship to advise us about taking water. They were 
 large, powerful, resolute-looking men, quite equal, 
 one would say, to the task before them. Water was 
 to be procured from a stream that ran in from the 
 tundra on the southern shore of the bay about a 
 dozen miles distant. Leaving part of our company 
 to visit the whalers and the Eskimos, the ship steamed 
 away with the rest of us for water, and in due course 
 anchored near the mouth of the little stream. This 
 gave us an opportunity to spend several hours upon 
 the real tundra. Cape Nome was on the other side of 
 the peninsula, fifty miles away, but the fame of the 
 gold fields had not then reached us. We may have 
 
 113 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 walked ovei ground rich in gold, but our mining 
 expert failed to call our attention to the fact. As we 
 approached the land, it looked as smooth as if it had 
 just been gone over with a mowing-machine. My 
 first thought was, " Well, the people are done haying 
 here." The tundra was of a greenish brown color, 
 and rose from a long, crescent-shaped beach in a very 
 gentle ascent to low cones and l)are volcanic peaks 
 many miles away. It had the appearance of a vast 
 meadow tilted up but a few degrees from the level. 
 This, then, w^as the tundra that covers so much of 
 North America, where the ground remains per- 
 petually frozen to an unknown depth, thawing out 
 only a foot or so on the surface during the summer. 
 How eagerly we stepped upon it; how quickly we 
 dispersed in all directions, lured on by the strange- 
 ness ! In a few moments our hands were full of wild 
 flowers, which w^e kept dropping to gather others 
 more attractive, these, in turn, to be discarded as still 
 more novel ones appeared. I found myself very 
 soon treading upon a large pink claytonia or spring 
 beauty, many times the size of our delicate April 
 flower of the same name. Soon I came upon a bank 
 by the httle creek covered with a low, nodding purple 
 primrose ; then masses of the shooting-star attracted 
 me ; then several species of pedicularis, a yellow 
 anemone, and many saxifrages. A complete list of 
 flowers blooming here within sixty miles of the Arctic 
 circle, in a thin layer of soil resting upon perpetual 
 
 114 
 
IN GREEN AIASKA 
 
 frost, would be a long one. There were wild bees 
 here too, to cross-fertilize the flowers, and bumble- 
 bees boomed by very much as at home. And mosqui- 
 toes, how they swarmed up out of the grass upon me 
 when, in my vain effort to reach a little volcanic cone 
 that rose up there before me like a haystack in a 
 meadow, I sat down to rest ! I could not seem to get 
 nearer the haystack, though I sometimes ran to get 
 away from the mosquitoes. The tundra proved far 
 less smooth to the feet than the eye had promised. 
 It was wet and boggy. A tundra is always wet in 
 summer, as the frost prevents any underground 
 drainage. But it was very uniform and the walking 
 not difficult; moss, bogs, grass, and flowering plants 
 covered it everywhere. The savanna sparrow and 
 the longspur started up before me as I walked, and 
 as I descended toward a branch of the little creek 
 after an hour's tramp, a new note caught my ear. 
 Presently I saw some plovers skimming over the 
 ground in advance of me, or alighting upon tussocks 
 of moss and uttering a soft, warbling call. They 
 proved to be golden plovers; I had evidently in- 
 vaded their breedino^-o:rounds, and thev were making 
 their musical protest. At times the males, as they 
 circled about me, warbled in the most delicrhtful 
 manner. There was in it, underneath its bright joy- 
 ousness, a tone of soft pleading and entreaty that 
 was very moving, — the voice of the tundra, soft, 
 alluring, plaintive, beautiful. The golden plover is 
 
 115 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 mottled black and white with a rich golden tinge 
 on its back. It is a wonderful fiver. We found it 
 near the Arctic circle; six months later, probably the 
 same birds might have been found in Patagonia. 
 
 In a patch of willows along the creek the gray- 
 cheeked thrush w^as in song, and the fox sparrow and 
 the western tree sparrow were found. I saw one of 
 the thrushes do what I never saw any of the thrush 
 kind do before: it hovered in the air fifty feet or 
 more above the moor and repeated its song three 
 times very rapidly. As there were no trees to afford 
 it a lofty perch, it perched upon the air. 
 
 It was a very novel experience, this w^alking over 
 the tundra; its vastness, its uniformity, its solitude, 
 its gentleness, its softness of contour, its truly bo- 
 real character, — the truncated hills and peaks on 
 the near horizon suggesting huge earthworks, the 
 rounded and curved elevations like the backs of pros- 
 trate giants turned up to the sun, and farther off the 
 high, serrated, snow-streaked ranges on the remote 
 horizon to the north, — all made up a curious and 
 unfamiliar picture. 
 
 We were fortunate in having clear, bright skies 
 during our stay in these high latitudes. But the 
 nights were starless; the sun was so near, there 
 was so much light in the sky, that the stars were 
 put out. The sun set about ten and rose about 
 two, dipping down but a little way below the bori° 
 zon. 
 
 116 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND 
 
 Port Clarence was the northernmost point we 
 reached. A little farther north the ice pack closed 
 the gateway to the Arctic Ocean. An excursion into 
 the ice to see the midnight sun did not hold out in- 
 ducements enough to offset the dangers. So in the 
 early morning of July 13 we steamed away on the 
 return trip. Before noon we were again in the thick 
 veil of fog with which Bering Sea always seems to 
 cover her face. Near nightfall, with a stiff wind 
 blowing, we anchored off St. Lawrence Island, and 
 two boat-loads of our people went ashore. St. Law- 
 rence is a large island at the gateway of the Arctic 
 Ocean, and in spring the ice floes from the north 
 often strand polar bears upon it. Our hunters still 
 dreamed of bears. The shore was low and marshy, 
 and the high land miles away was hidden by the 
 canopy of fog resting upon it. In his walk one of 
 our doctors saw the backs of two large white ob- 
 jects, showing above a little swell in the land. Here 
 evidently were the polar bears they were in quest of. 
 
 The doctor begins to stalk them, replacing the 
 shells in his gun with heavier ones as he creeps along. 
 Now he has another glimpse of the white backs ; they 
 are moving and can be nothing but bears. A few 
 moments more and he will be within close range, 
 when lo! the heads and long necks of two white 
 swans come up above the bank ! The doctor said he 
 
 117 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 never felt so much like a fi^oose before in his life. The 
 hirds aiuJ flowers found were about the same as 
 those we had already seen. 
 
 Not many years ago there were on St. Lawrence 
 Island many encampments of Eskimos, embracing 
 several hundred people. I.atc one autumn some 
 whalers turned u}) there with the worst kind of whis- 
 key, with which they wrought the ruin of the na- 
 tives, persuading them to exchange most of their 
 furs and other valuables for it, and leaving them so 
 debauched and demoralized that nearly all perished 
 of cold and hunger the following winter. Village 
 after village was found cjuite depopulated, the people 
 lying dead in their houses. 
 
 HALL AND ST. MATTHEW ISLANDS 
 
 From St. Lawrence Island our course w^as asrain 
 through fog to St. Matthew Island, w^hich we missed 
 on our w^ay up, and which we now found late in the 
 afternoon of the next day. Our first stop w^as at Hall 
 Island, which once probably formed a part of St. 
 Matthew, but is now separated from it only by a nar- 
 row strait. This w^as our first visit to uninhabited 
 land, and to a land of such unique grace and beauty 
 that the impression it made cannot soon be forgotten, 
 — a thick carpet of moss and many-colored flowers 
 covering an open, smooth, undulating country that 
 faced the sea in dark basaltic cliffs, some of them a 
 thousand feet high. The first thing that attracted 
 
 118 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 our attention was the murres — "arries," the Aleuts 
 call them — about their rookeries on the cliffs. Their 
 numbers darkened the air. As we approached, the 
 faces of the rocks seemed paved with them, with a 
 sprinkling of gulls, puffins, black cormorants, and 
 auklets. On landing at a break in the cliffs where a 
 little creek came down to the sea, our first impulse 
 was to walk along the brink and look down upon the 
 murres and see them swarm out beneath our feet. 
 On the discharge of a gun the air became ])lack 
 with them, while the cliffs apparently remained as 
 populous as ever. They sat on little shelves or niches 
 with their black backs to the sea, each bird covering 
 one egg with its tail feathers. In places one could 
 have reached down and seized them by the neck, 
 they were so tame and so near the top of the rocks. I 
 believe one of our party did actually thus procure a 
 specimen. It was a strange spectacle, and we lingered 
 long looking upon it. To behold sea fowl like flies 
 in uncounted millions was a new experience. Every- 
 where in Bering Sea the murres sw^arm like vermin. 
 It seems as if there was a murre to every square yard 
 of surface. They were flying about over the ship or 
 flapping over the water away from her front at all 
 times. I noticed that they could not get up from the 
 water except against the wind ; the w^ind lifted them 
 as it does a kite. With the wind or in a calm they 
 skimmed along on the surface, their heads bent for- 
 ward, their wings beating the water impatiently. 
 
 119 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Unable to rise, they would glance behind them in a 
 fri<j^htened manner, tJien plunge beneath the waves 
 until they thought the danger had passed. At all 
 hours of the night and day one could hear this impa- 
 tient flapping of the frightened murres. The bird 
 is a species of diver, nearly as large as a black 
 duck. Its tail is so short that in flying the two 
 webbed feet stretched behind do the duty of a tail. 
 It is amusing to see it spread or contract them 
 in turning or changing its course, as the case re- 
 quires. After we had taken our fill of gazing upon 
 the murres came the ramble away from the cliffs, in 
 the long twilight, through that mossy and flowery 
 solitude. Such patterns and suggestions for rugs and 
 carpets as we walked over for hours ; such a blend- 
 ing of grays, drabs, browns, greens, and other delicate 
 neutral tints, all dashed with masses of many-colored 
 flowers, it had never before been my fortune to be- 
 hold, much less to walk upon. Drifting over this 
 marvelous carpet, or dropping down upon it from 
 the air above, was the h}^erborean snowbird, w hite 
 as a snowflake and with a song of great sweetness 
 and power. With lifted wings the bird would drop 
 through the air to the earth, pouring out its joyous, 
 ecstatic strain. Out of the deep twilight came also 
 the song of the longspur, delivered on the wing, and 
 touching the wild solitude like the voices of children 
 at play. Then there was the large Aleutian sand- 
 piper, that ran before me and uttered its curious wild 
 
 120 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 plaint. The robber jaeger was there too, — a very 
 beautiful bird, a sort of cross between a hawk and a 
 gull, — sitting quietly upon the moss and eying our 
 movements. On the top of the grassy bank near the 
 sea some of the party found the nest and young of 
 the snowy owl. Fragments of the bodies of murres 
 and ducks lay upon the ground beside it. 
 
 The most novel and striking of the wild jBowers 
 was a species of large white claytonia growing in 
 rings of the size of a tea plate, floral rings dropped 
 here and there upon the carpet of moss. In the centre 
 was a rosette of pointed green leaves pressed close to 
 the ground; around this grew the ring of flowers, 
 made up of thirty or forty individuals, all springing 
 from the same root, their faces turned out in all direc- 
 tions from the parent centre. In places they were so 
 near together that one could easily step from one 
 circle to another. 
 
 The forenoon of the next day, the 15th, we spent 
 upon St. Matthew Island, and repeated our experi- 
 ence of walking over ground covered with na- 
 ture's matchless tapestry. Here, too, a thick, heavy 
 carpet of variegated mosses and lichens had been 
 stretched to the very edge of the cliffs, with rugs and 
 mats of many-colored flowers — pink, yellow, violet, 
 white; saxifrage, chickweed, astragalus, claytonia — 
 dropped here and there upon it. Sometimes the 
 flowers seemed worked into the carpet itself, and a 
 species of creeping willow spread its leaves out as if 
 
 121 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 stitched upon it. Scattered about were the yellow 
 poppies, a yellow and a red pc(ilcularis, and a rare 
 and curious blue flower in heads, the name of which 
 I have forgotten. On the highest point the blue and 
 purple astrapjalus covered large areas, but the most 
 novel of all the flowers was a species of little silene 
 with a bluish ribbed flower precisely like a minia- 
 ture Chinese lantern. 
 
 The highest point of the island was enveloped 
 most of the time in fog and cloud. While groping 
 my way upon one of these cloud summits, probably 
 a thousand feet above the sea which flowed at its 
 base, I came suddenly upon a deep cleft or chasm, 
 which opened in the moss and flowers at my feet and 
 led down between crumbling rocky walls at a fear- 
 ful incline to the beach. It gave one a sense of peril 
 that made him pause quickly. The wraiths of fog 
 and mist whirling through and over it enhanced its 
 dreadful mystery and depth. Yet I hovered about it, 
 retreating and returning, c juite fascinated by the con- 
 trast between the smooth flowery carpet upon which 
 I stood and the terrible yawning chasm. When tht 
 fog lifted a little and the sun gleamed out, I looked 
 down this groove into the ocean, and Tennyson's 
 line came to mind as accurately descriptive of the 
 scene : — 
 
 ** The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls." 
 
 Another curious effect was the appearance of the 
 
 122 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 bottom of the sea, visible a long way out from shore. 
 The water seemed suddenly to become shallow or 
 else to take on a strange transparency; the color and 
 configuration of the rocky floor were surprisingly 
 distinct. 
 
 A new species of small blue fox was found and 
 killed upon the island, and a sorry apology for a fox 
 it was.^ It looked as though it might have been 
 singed or else skinned once, and as though this was 
 the second growth of fur. The polar bears which our 
 sportsmen had hoped for were not found, though 
 the deep, broad, unused trails leading back from the 
 chffs had doubtless some time been made by them. 
 Nothing is plainer than that one cannot go to Alaska, 
 or probably to any other country, and say, " Come, 
 now, we will kill a bear," and kill it, except as a rare 
 streak of luck. It is a game at which two can play, 
 and the bear plays his part extremely well. AH 
 large game has its beat or range. The first thing to 
 be done is to find this beat, which may take days 
 or weeks, then the trial of strategy begins. If you 
 outgeneral the bear, you may carry off his pelt. 
 
 We found the hyperborean snow bunting nesting 
 in crevices of the rocks. It was probably compelled 
 to this course to escape the foxes. This was the type 
 locality for this bird, and it was very abundant. The 
 rosy finch also was seen along the cliffs. There were 
 
 1 This was the Hall Island Arctic fox {Vulpes hallensis Merriaml 
 £n worn summer dress ; in winter it is snow white. 
 
 123 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 snow-banks on the beach by the sea, and piles of 
 driftwood, most of the large tree trunks doubtless 
 brought down by the Yukon, and many hewn and 
 sawed timbers from wrecked vessels. 
 
 THE RETURN TRIP 
 
 Returning to Unalaska, we tarried a few hours at 
 Dutch Harbor to take in water and coal, and then, 
 for the first time, our good ship ponited eastward 
 and toward home. A steamer from the Yukon 
 was also in Dutch Harbor with several hundred 
 returning: fjold-scekers on board. As we steamed 
 away I saw several of them far up on the green 
 mountain-side on our left looking down upon us. 
 They were barely distinguishable on that broad, 
 high, emerald slope. Just out of the harbor we saw 
 myriads of fulmars, a kind of petrel. The sea for 
 miles was black with them. We touched again at 
 the Shumagin Islands to pick up the party we had 
 left there on the 7th ; and on the 20th were again 
 at sweet pastoral Kadiak. The wild roses were in 
 bloom, very large and fine, and armfuls of them were 
 brought in to deck the table in celebration of the 
 birthday of one of Mr. Harrii-ian's daughters. 
 While here we took an afternoon to visit Long 
 Island, ten or twelve miles away, where there was 
 another fox farm. It was a low, wooded island of 
 several hundred acres stocked ^tith about a thousand 
 blue foxes. Some of the animals peeped shyly at us 
 
 124 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 from around the corner of an old bam, others 
 growled at us from beneath it, while others still lifted 
 up their voices in protest from the woods. A great 
 many fish, trout and salmon, w^ere drying in the sun 
 from poles on the beach in front. These were for the 
 foxes in winter. Magpies were common here and 
 very tame. The farmer had a comfortable home and 
 a pleasant situation, and life there must have many 
 attractions. The experiment of growing silver-black 
 foxes had been tried, but had not succeeded. The 
 animals were so wild, and proved to be such dainty 
 feeders, that the undertaking was abandoned. They 
 require live game for food. 
 
 On leaving Kadiak we again ran into Cook Inlet, 
 and put ashore two parties. But there was a sudden 
 change of plan, the parties were recalled, and we 
 were soon again at sea, homeward bound. 
 
 ST. ELIAS AND THE FAIRWEATHER RANGE 
 
 On the 23d we had such a view of St. Elias and all 
 that grand range as is seldom granted to voyagers. 
 One of our artists, Mr. Gifford, was up at two 
 o'clock in the morning, and finding the summit just 
 smitten with the rising sun, painted till liis hands 
 were too cold to hold the brush. 
 
 We again ran into Yakutat Bay, but all I have to 
 record is our feast of Yakutat strawberries. The In- 
 dians brought them to us in baskets. The berries 
 looked pale and uninviting, but their flavor was really 
 
 125 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 excellent. They f]^row in great abundance in the sand 
 on the beach. On the *2-ith we steamed all day oft" the 
 Fairweather Ranw, which lav there before us with- 
 out a cloud or film to dim its naked majesty. AYe 
 were two or three hours in passing the great peak 
 itself. Piled with snow and beaten upon by a cloud- 
 less sun, its reflected light shone in my stateroom 
 like that of an enormous full moon. This w^as a day 
 in blue and white, — blue of the sea and sky and 
 white of the mountains, — long to be remembered 
 but not to be described. The peak of St. Elias, 
 standing above a band of cloud, kept us in its eye 
 till we were one hundred and fifty miles down the 
 coast. 
 
 On the 25th we w^ere at Juneau again, taking coal 
 and water. The only toad I saw in Alaska I saw this 
 day, as it was fumbling along in the weeds by the 
 roadside, just out of Juneau. Here also I gathered 
 my first salmon-berries, — a kind of raspberry an 
 inch in diameter, w'ith a slightly bitterish flavor, 
 but very good. 
 
 The lovely weather still favored us on our return 
 trip down the inland passage. Under date of the 26th 
 I find this entry in my note-book: — 
 
 "15 right and w^arm and still ; all day down the 
 inside passage. At one point in Tongass Narrows, 
 fishermen taking salmon: a large seine gathered in 
 between two rowboats, one of them bright red, and 
 men in each with forks picking the fish out of the net 
 
 X2G 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 and throwing them into the boat. The salmon 
 glance and wriggle in the sun like bars of silver. 
 Bristling forests, tufted islands, snow-striped peaks 
 on every side. A soft, placid day, when nature broods 
 and dreams, both sea and shore wrapped in a pro- 
 found midsummer tranquillity." 
 
 In the afternoon we anchored off a deserted In- 
 dian village north of Cape Fox. There v/as a row of 
 a dozen houses on the beach of a little bay, with 
 nineteen totem poles standing along their fronts. 
 These totem poles were the attraction. There was a 
 rumor that the Indians had nearly all died of small- 
 pox a few years before, and that the few survivors 
 had left under a superstitious fear, never to return. 
 It was evident that the village had not been occu- 
 pied for seven or eight years. Why not, therefore, 
 secure some of these totem poles for the museums of 
 the various colleges represented by members of the 
 expedition ? This was finally agreed upon, and all 
 hands, including the ship's crew, fell to digging up 
 and floating to the ship five or six of the more striking 
 poles. This occupied us till the night of the 27th. 
 
 Under this date I find this entry in my note-book : 
 "All day on shore by the deserted Indian village. 
 Clear and hot. I sit in the shade of the spruces amid 
 huge logs of driftwood on the upper edge of the 
 beach, with several Indian graves at my back, under 
 the trees, and write up my notes, — the ship at 
 anchor out in the bay a mile away. Aided by the 
 
 127 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 sailors the men are taking down totem poles and 
 towing them to the ship with the naphtha launches. 
 As I write there are many birds in the trees and 
 bushes near me, — the rufous hummer, the rufous- 
 backed chickadee, the golden-crowned kinglet, the 
 pine siskin. Back in the woods I hear the russet- 
 backed thrush and Steller's jay. With my lunch I 
 have some salmon-berries gathered near by." 
 
 " July 28. Woke up this morning hearing the 
 birds sing through my open window. I looked out 
 into the dusky wooded side of a mountain nearly 
 within a stone's throw. We were in Gren^^[lle Chan- 
 nel, the skies clear, the sun shining full upon the op- 
 posite shore. Presently we were passing one of those 
 bewitching alcoves or recesses in the shore where the 
 mountains form a loop miles deep around an inlet 
 of blue sea, with snow-crowned peaks above great 
 curves of naked rock at the head of it. Then we cut 
 one of those curious tide-lines, where two currents 
 of water of different colors meet. The dividing line 
 is sharp and clear for a long distance.*' 
 
 The next day, which was still bright and warm, 
 there was a film of smoke in the air in the morning, 
 which increased as we went south. We were nearing 
 the region of forest fires. When we reached Seattle 
 on July 30, this smoke had so increased that all the 
 great mountains were hidden by it as effectually as 
 they had been by the clouds when we entered upon 
 the voyage. 
 
 128 
 
IN GREEN ALASKA 
 
 We had three tons of coal left in our bunkers, but 
 of our little stock farm down below only the milch 
 cow remained. She had been to Siberia and back, 
 and had given milk all the way. 
 
 No voyagers were ever more fortunate than we. 
 No storms, no winds, no delays nor accidents to 
 speak of, no illness. We had gone far and fared 
 well. 
 
n 
 
 WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 FRIENDS have often asked me why I turned 
 my back upon the Hudson and retreated into 
 the wilderness. Well, I do not call it a retreat; I call 
 it a withdrawal, a retirement, the taking up of a new 
 position to renew the attack, it may be, more vigor- 
 ously than ever. It is not always easy to give rea- 
 sons. There are reasons within reasons, and often 
 no reasons at all that we are aware of. 
 
 To a countryman like myself, not born to a great 
 river or an extensive water- view, these things, I think, 
 grow wearisome after a time. He becomes surfeited 
 with a beauty that is alien to him. He longs for some- 
 thing more homely, private, and secluded. Scenery 
 may be too fine or too grand and imposing for one's 
 daily and hourly view. It tires after a while. It de- 
 mands a mood that comes to you only at intervals. 
 Hence it is never wise to build your house on the 
 most ambitious spot in the landscape. Rather seek 
 out a more humble and secluded nook or corner, 
 which you can fill and warm with your domestic and 
 home instincts and affections. In some things the 
 half is often more satisfying than the whole. A 
 
 131 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 glimpse of the Hudson River between hills or 
 through openings in the trees wears better with me 
 than a long expanse of it constantly spread out be- 
 fore me. One day I had an errand to a farmhouse 
 nestled in a little valley or basin at the foot of a moun- 
 tain. The earth put out protecting arms all about it, 
 — a low hill with an orchard on one side, a sloping 
 pasture on another, and the mountain, with the 
 skirts of its mantling forests, close at hand in the 
 rear. How my heart warmed toward it ! I had been 
 so long perched high upon the banks of a great river, 
 in sight of all the world, exposed to every wind that 
 blows, with a horizon-line that sweeps over half a 
 county, that, quite unconsciously to myself, I was 
 pining for a nook to sit down in. I was hungry for 
 the private and the circumscribed; I knew it when 
 I saw this sheltered farmstead. I had long been rest- 
 less and dissatisfied, — a vague kind of homesick- 
 ness; now I knew the remedy. Hence when, not 
 long afterward, I was offered a tract of wild land, 
 barely a mile from home, that contained a secluded 
 nook and a few acres of level, fertile land shut off 
 from the vain and noisy world of railroads, steam- 
 boats, and yachts by a wooded, precipitous moun- 
 tain, I (piickly closed the bargain, and built me a 
 rustic house there, which I call " Slabsides," because 
 its outer walls are covered with slabs. I might have 
 given it a prettier name, but not one more fit, or more 
 in keeping with the mood that brought me thither 
 
 132 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 A slab is the first cut from the log, and the bark goes 
 with it. It is like the first cut from the loaf, which 
 we call the crust, and which the children reject, but 
 which we older ones often prefer. I wanted to take a 
 fresh cut of life, — something that had the bark on, 
 or, if you please, that was like a well-browned and 
 hardened crust. After three years I am satisfied with 
 the experiment. Life has a different flavor here. It 
 is reduced to simpler terms; its complex equations 
 all disappear. The exact value of x may still elude 
 me, but I can press it hard ; I have shorn it of 
 many of its disguises and entanglements. 
 
 When I went into the woods the robins went with 
 me, or rather they followed close. As soon as a space 
 of ground was cleared and the garden planted, they 
 were on hand to pick up the worms and insects, and 
 to superintend the planting of the cherry-trees : three 
 pairs the first summer, and more than double that 
 number the second. In the third, their early morn- 
 ing chorus was almost as marked a feature as it is 
 about the old farm homesteads. The robin is no her- 
 mit : he likes company ; he likes the busy scenes of 
 the farm and the village; he likes to carol to listen- 
 ing ears, and to build his nest as near your dwelling 
 as he can. Only at rare intervals do I find a real 
 sylvan robin, one that nests in the woods, usually by 
 still waters, remote from human habitation. In such 
 places his morning and evening carol is a welcome 
 surprise to the fisherman or camper-out. It is like a 
 
 133 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 doon-ard flower found blooming in the wilderness. 
 AVitli the robins came the song sparrows and social 
 sparrows, or chippies, also. The latter nested in the 
 bushes near my cabin, and the song sparrows in the 
 bank above the ditch that drains my land. I notice 
 that Chippy finds just as many horsehairs to weave 
 into her nest here in my horseless domain as she does 
 when she builds in the open country. Her partiality 
 for the long hairs from the manes and tails of horses 
 and cattle is so great that she is often known as the 
 hair-bird. What would she do in a country where 
 there were neither cows nor horses ? Yet these hairs 
 are not good nesting-material. They are slippery, 
 refractory things, and occasionally cause a tragedy in 
 the nest by getting looped around the legs or the 
 neck of the young or of the parent bird. They prob« 
 ably give a smooth finish to the interior, dear to the 
 heart of Chippy. 
 
 The first year of my cabin life a pair of robins at- 
 tempted to build a nest upon the round timber that 
 forms the plate under my porch roof. But it was a 
 poor place to build in. It took nearly a week's time 
 and caused the birds a great waste of labor to find 
 this out. The coarse material they brought for the 
 foundation would not bed well upon the rounded 
 surface of the timber, and every vagrant breeze that 
 came along swept it off. My porch was kept littered 
 with twigs and weed-stalks for days, till finally the 
 birds abandoned the undertaking. The next season 
 
 134 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 a wiser or more experienced pair made the attempt 
 again, and succeeded. They placed the nest against 
 the rafter where it joins the plate; they used mud 
 from the start to level up with and to hold the first 
 twigs and straws, and had soon completed a firm, 
 shapely structure. When the young were about 
 ready to fly, it was interesting to note that there 
 was apparently an older and a younger, as in most 
 families. One bird was more advanced than any of 
 the others. Had the parent birds intentionally stim- 
 ulated it with extra quantities of food, so as to be 
 able to launch their offspring into the world one 
 at a time ? At any rate, one of the birds was ready 
 to leave the nest a day and a half before any of the 
 others. I happened to be looking at it when the first 
 impulse to get outside the nest seemed to seize it. Its 
 parents were encouraging it with calls and assur- 
 ances from some rocks a few yards away. It an- 
 swered their calls in vigorous, strident tones. Then 
 it chmbed over the edge of the nest upon the plate, 
 took a few steps forward, then a few more, till it was 
 a yard from the nest and near the end of the tim- 
 ber, and could look off into free space. Its parents 
 apparently shouted, "Come on!" But its courage 
 was not quite equal to the leap; it looked around, 
 and seeing how far it was from home, scampered 
 back to the nest, and climbed into it like a fright- 
 ened child. It had made its first journey into the 
 world, but the home tie had brought it quickly back. 
 
 135 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 A few hours afterward it journeyed to the end of the 
 plate again, and tlien turned and rushed back. The 
 third time its heart was braver, its wings stronger, 
 and leaping into the air with a shout, it flew easily 
 to some rocks a dozen or more yards away. Each of 
 the young in succession, at intervals of nearly a day, 
 left the nest in this manner. There would be the 
 first journey of a few feet along the plate, the first 
 sudden panic at being so far from home, the rush 
 back, a second and perhaps a third attempt, and 
 then the irrevocable leap into the air, and a clamor- 
 ous flight to a near-by bush or rock. Young birds 
 never go back when they have once taken flight. 
 The first free flap of the wing severs forever the ties 
 that bind them to home. 
 
 The chickadees we have always with us. They 
 are like the evergreens among the trees and plants. 
 Winter has no terrors for them. They are properly 
 wood-birds, but the groves and orchards know 
 them also. Did they come near my cabin for better 
 protection, or did they chance to find a little cavity 
 in a tree there that suited them ? Branch-builders 
 and ground-builders are easily accommodated, but 
 the chickadee must find a cavity, and a small one at 
 that. The woodpeckers make a cavity when a suit- 
 able trunk or branch is found, but the chickadee, 
 with its small, sharp beak, rarely does so; it usually 
 smooths and deepens one already formed. This a 
 pair did a few yards from my cabin. The opening 
 
 136 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 was into the heart of a Httle sassafras, about four 
 feet from the ground. Day after day the birds 
 took turns in deepening and enlarging the cavity: 
 a soft, gentle hammering for a few moments in the 
 heart of the little tree, and then the appearance of 
 the worker at the opening, with the chips in his, 
 or her, beak. They changed off every little while, 
 one working while the other gathered food. Abso- 
 lute equality of the sexes, both in plumage and 
 in duties, seems to prevail among these birds, as 
 among a few other species. During the preparations 
 for housekeeping the birds were hourly seen and 
 heard, but as soon as the first egg was laid, all this "^ 
 was changed. They suddenly became very shy and 
 quiet. Had it not been for the new egg that was 
 added each day, one would have concluded that 
 they had abandoned the place. There was a pre- 
 cious secret now that must be well kept. After incu- 
 bation began, it was only by watching that I could 
 get a glimpse of one of the birds as it came quickly 
 to feed or to relieve the other. 
 
 One day a lot of Vassar girls came to visit me, and 
 I led them out to the little sassafras to see the chick- 
 adees' nest. The sitting bird kept her place as head 
 after head, with its nodding plumes and millinery, 
 appeared above the opening to her chamber, and a 
 pair of inquisitive eyes peered down upon her. But I 
 saw that she was getting ready to play her little trick 
 to frighten them away. Presently I heard a faint 
 
 137 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 explosion at the bottom of the cavity, when the peep- 
 \ng girl jerked her head quickly back, with the ex- 
 damation, "Why, it spit at me!" The trick of the 
 bird on such occasions is apparently to draw in its 
 breath till its form perceptibly swells, and then give 
 forth a quick, explosive sound like an escaping jet of 
 steam. One involunlarily closes his eyes and jerks 
 back his head. The girls, to their great amusement, 
 provoked the bird into this pretty outburst of her 
 impatience two or three times. But as the ruse failed 
 of its effect, the bird did not keep it up, but let the 
 laughing faces gaze till they were satisfied. 
 
 There is only one other bird known to me that 
 resorts to the same trick to scare away intruders, 
 and that is the great crested flycatcher. As your 
 head appears before the entrance to the cavity in 
 which the mother bird is sitting, a sudden burst of 
 escaping steam seems directed at your face, and 
 your backward movement leaves the way open for 
 the bird to escape, which she quickly does. 
 
 The chickadee is a prolific bird, laying from six 
 to eight eggs, and it seems to have few natural 
 enemies. I think it is seldom molested by squirrels 
 or black snakes or weasels or crows or owls. The 
 entrance to the nest is usually so small that none of 
 these creatures can come at them. Yet the number 
 of chickadees in any given territory seems small. 
 What keeps them in check ? Probably the rigors of 
 winter and a limited food-supply. The ant-eaters, 
 
 138 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 fruit-eaters, and seed-eaters mostly migrate. Our 
 all-the-year-round birds, like the chickadees, wood- 
 peckers, jays, and nuthatches, live mostly on nuts 
 and the eggs and larvae of tree-insects, and hence 
 their larder is a restricted one; hence, also, thes^ 
 birds rear only one brood in a season. A hairy wood- 
 pecker passed the winter in the woods near me by 
 subsisting on a certain small white grub which he 
 found in the bark of some dead hemlock-trees. He 
 " worked " these trees, — four of them, — as the 
 slang is, " for all they were worth." The grub was 
 under the outer shell of bark, and the bird literally 
 skinned the trees in getting at his favorite morsel. 
 He worked from the top downward, hammering or 
 prying off this shell, and leaving the trunk of the tree 
 with a red, denuded look. Bushels of the frag- 
 ments of the bark covered the ground at the foot of 
 the tree in spring, and the trunk looked as if it had 
 been flayed, — as it had. 
 
 The big chimney of my cabin of course attracted 
 the chimney swifts, and as it was not used in sum- 
 mer, two pairs built their nests in it, and we had 
 the muflled thunder of their wings at all hours 
 of the day and night. One night, when one of the 
 broods was nearly fledged, the nest that held them 
 fell down into the fireplace. Such a din of screeching 
 and chattering as they instantly set up ! Neither my 
 dog nor I could sleep. They yelled in chorus, stop- 
 ping at the end of every half-minute as if upon sig' 
 
 139 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 nal. Now they were all screeching at the top of their 
 voices, then a sudden, dead silence ensued. Then the 
 din began again, to terminate at the instant as be- 
 fore. If they had been long practicing together, they 
 could not have succeeded better. I never before 
 heard the cry of birds so accurately timed. After a 
 while I got up and put them back up the chimney, 
 and stopped up the throat of the flue with news- 
 papers. The next day one of the parent birds, in 
 bringing food to them, came down the chimney with 
 such force that it passed through the papers and 
 brought up in the fireplace. On capturing it I saw 
 that its throat was distended with food as a chip- 
 munk's cheek with corn, or a boy's pocket with 
 chestnuts. I opened its mandibles, when it ejected a 
 wad of insects as large as a bean. Most of them were 
 much macerated, but there were two house-flies yet 
 alive and but little the worse for their close confine- 
 ment. They stretched themselves, and walked about 
 upon my hand, enjoying a breath of fresh air once 
 more. It was nearly two hours before the swift again 
 ventured into the chimney with food. 
 
 These birds do not perch, nor alight upon buildings 
 or the ground. They are apparently upon the wing 
 all day. They outride the storms. I have in my 
 mind a cheering picture of three of them I saw facing 
 a heavy thunder-shower one afternoon. The wind 
 was blowing a gale, the clouds were rolling in black, 
 portentous billows out of the west, the peals of thun- 
 
 140 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 der were shaking the heavens, and the big drops 
 were just beginning to come down, when, on looking 
 up, I saw three swifts high in air, working their way 
 slowly, straight into the teeth of the storm. They 
 were not hurried or disturbed ; they held themselves 
 firmly and steadily ; indeed, they were fairly at 
 anchor in the air till the rage of the elements should 
 have subsided. I do not know that any other of our 
 land birds outride the storms in this way. 
 
 The phoebe-birds also soon found me out in my 
 retreat, and a pair of them deliberated a long while 
 about building on a little shelf in one of my gables. 
 But, much to my regret, they finally decided in favor 
 of a niche in the face of a ledge of rocks not far 
 from my spring. The place was well screened by 
 bushes and well guarded against the approach of 
 snakes or four-footed prowlers, and the birds pros- 
 pered well and reared two broods. They have now 
 occupied the same nest three years in succession. 
 This is unusual : Phoebe prefers a new nest each sea- 
 son, but in this case there is no room for another^ 
 and, the site being a choice one, she slightly repairs 
 and refurnishes her nest each spring, leaving the 
 new houses for her more ambitious neighbors. 
 
 Of wood-warblers my territory affords many 
 specimens. One spring a solitary Nashville warbler 
 lingered near my cabin for a week. I heard his 
 bright, ringing song at all hours of the day. The 
 next spring there were two or more, and they nested 
 
 141 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 in my pea-bushes. The black and white creeping 
 warblers are perhaps the most abundant. A pair of 
 them built a nest in a steep moss and lichen cov- 
 ered hillside, beside a high gray rock. Our path 
 to Julian's Rock led just above it. It was an ideal 
 spot and an ideal nest, but it came to grief. Some 
 small creature sucked the eggs. On removing the 
 nest I found an earth-stained egg beneath it. Evi- 
 dently the egg had ripened before its receptacle was 
 ready, and the mother, for good luck, had placed 
 it in the foundation. 
 
 One day, as I sat at my table writing, I had a 
 call from the worm-eating warbler. It came into the 
 open door, flitted about inquisitively, and then, 
 startled by the apparition at the table, dashed 
 against the window-pane and fell down stunned. I 
 picked it up, and it lay with closed eyes panting in 
 my hand. I carried it into the open air. In a mo- 
 ment or two it opened its eyes, looked about, and 
 then closed them and fell to panting again. Soon it 
 looked up at me once more and about the room, and 
 seemed to say: *' Where am I ? What has happened 
 to me ? " Presently the panting ceased, the bird's 
 breathing became more normal, it gradually got its 
 bearings, and, at a motion of my hand, darted away. 
 This is an abundant warbler in my vicinity, and 
 nested this year near by. I have discovered that it 
 has an air-song — the song of ecstasy — like that 
 of the oven-bird. I had long suspected it, as I fre- 
 
 142 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 quently heard a fine burst of melody that was new 
 to me. One June day I was fortunate enough to 
 see the bird dehvering its song in the air above the 
 low trees. As with the oven-bird, its favorite hour 
 is the early twilight, though I hear the song occa- 
 sionally at other hours. The bird darts upward fifty 
 feet or more, about half the height that the oven- 
 bird attains, and gives forth a series of rapid, ring- 
 ing musical notes, which quickly glide into the long, 
 sparrow-like trill that forms its ordinary workaday 
 song. While this part is being uttered, the singer is 
 on its downward flight into the woods. The flight- 
 song of the oven-bird is louder and more striking, 
 and is not so shy and furtive a performance. The 
 latter I hear many times every June twilight, and I 
 frequently see the singer reach his climax a hundred 
 feet or more in the air, and then mark his arrow-like 
 flight downward. I have heard this song also in the 
 middle of the night near my cabin. At such times it 
 stands out on the stillness like a bursting rocket on 
 the background of the night. 
 
 One or two mornings in April, at a very early 
 hour, I am quite sure to hear the hermit thrush 
 singing in the bushes near my window. How 
 quickly I am transported to the Delectable Moun- 
 tains and to the mossy solitudes of the northern 
 woods! The winter wren also pauses briefly in his 
 northern journey, and surprises and delights my 
 ear with his sudden lyrical burst of melody. Such 
 
 143 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 a dapper, fidgety, gesticulating, bobbing-up-and- 
 down-and-out-and-in little bird, and yet full of such 
 sweet, wild melody! To get him at his best, one 
 needs to hear him in a dim, northern hemlock 
 wood, where his voice reverberates as in a great hall; 
 just as one should hear the veery in a beech and 
 birch wood, beside a purling trout brook, when the 
 evening shades are falling. It then becomes to you 
 the voice of some particular spirit of the place and 
 the hour. The veery does not inhabit the woods im- 
 mediately about my cabin, but in the summer twi- 
 light he frequently comes up from the valley below 
 and sings along the borders of my territory. How 
 w^elcome his simple flute-like strain! The wood 
 thrush is the leading chorister in the woods about me. 
 He does not voice the wildness, but seems to give a 
 touch of something half rural, half urban, — such is 
 the power of association in bird-songs. In the even- 
 ing twilight I often sit on the highest point of the 
 rocky rim of the great granite bowl that holds my 
 three acres of prairie soil, and see the shadows 
 deepen, and listen to the bird voices that rise up 
 from the forest below me. The songs of many wood 
 thrushes make a sort of golden warp in the texture of 
 sounds that is being woven about me. Now the 
 flight-song of the oven-bird holds the ear, then the 
 fainter one of the worm-eating warbler lures it. The 
 carol of the robin, the vesper hymn of the tanager, 
 the flute of the veery, are all on the air. Finally, as 
 
 144 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 the shadows deepen and the stars begin to come out, 
 the whip-poor-will suddenly strikes up. What a rude 
 intrusion upon the serenity and harmony of the 
 hour! A cry without music, insistent, reiterated, 
 loud, penetrating, and yet the ear welcomes it also; 
 the night and the solitude are so vast that they can 
 stand it; and when, an hour later, as the night enters 
 into full possession, the bird comes and serenades 
 me under my window or upon my doorstep, my 
 heart warms toward it. Its cry is a love-call, and 
 there is something of the ardor and persistence 
 of love in it, and when the female responds, and 
 comes and hovers near, there is an interchange of 
 subdued, caressing tones between the two birds that 
 it is a delight to hear. During my first summer here 
 one bird used to strike up every night from a high 
 ledge of rocks in front of my door. At just such a 
 moment in the twilight he would begin, the first to 
 break the stillness. Then the others would follow, 
 till the solitude was vocal with their calls. They are 
 rarely heard later than ten o'clock. Then at day- 
 break they take up the tale again, whipping poor 
 Will till one pities him. One April morning between 
 three and four o'clock, hearing one strike up near 
 my window, I began counting its calls. My neigh- 
 bor had told me he had heard one call over two hun- 
 dred times without a break, which seemed to me a 
 big story. But I have a much bigger one to tell. 
 This bird actually laid upon the back of poor Will 
 
 145 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 one thousand and eighty-ei^^ht blows, with only a 
 barely perceptible pause here and there, as if to 
 catch its breath. Then it stopped about half a min- 
 ute and began again, uttering this time three hun- 
 dred and ninety calls, when it paused, flew a little 
 farther away, took up the tale once more, and con- 
 tinued till I fell asleep. 
 
 By day the whip-poor-will apparently sits motion- 
 less upon the ground. A few times in my walks 
 through the woods I have started one up from 
 almost under my feet. On such occasions the bird's 
 movements suggest those of a bat; its wings make 
 no noise, and it wavers about in an uncertain 
 manner, and quickly drops to the ground again. 
 One June day we flushed an old one with her two 
 young, but there was no indecision or hesitation in 
 the manner of the mother bird this time. The young 
 w^ere more than half fledged, and they scampered 
 away a few yards and suddenly squatted upon the 
 ground, where their protective coloring rendered 
 them almost invisible. Then the anxious parent put 
 forth all her arts to absorb our attention and lure 
 us away from her off'spring. She flitted before u.s 
 from side to side, with spread wings and tail, now 
 falling upon the ground, where she would remain a 
 moment as if quite disabled, then perching upon an 
 old stump or low branch with drooping, quivering 
 wings, and imploring us by every gesture to take her 
 and spare her young. My companion had his camera 
 
 146 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 with him, but the bird would not remain long 
 enough in one position for him to get her picture. 
 The whip-poor-will builds no nest, l)ut lays her two 
 blunt, speckled eggs upon the dry leaves, where the 
 plumage of the sitting bird blends perfectly with her 
 surroundings. The eye, only a few feet away, has to 
 search long and carefully to make her out. Every 
 gray and brown and black tint of dry leaf and lichen, 
 aixd bit of bark or broken twig, is copied in her plum- 
 age. In a day or two, after the young are hatched, 
 the mother begins to move about with them through 
 the woods. 
 
 When I want the wild of a little different flavor 
 and quality from that immediately about my cabin, 
 I go a mile through the woods to Black Creek, here 
 called the Shattega, and put my canoe into a long, 
 smooth, silent stretch of water that winds through a 
 heavily timbered marsh till it leads into Black Pond, 
 an oval sheet of water half a mile or more across. 
 Here I get the moist, spongy, tranquil, luxurious 
 side of Nature. Here she stands or sits knee-deep in 
 water, and wreathes herself with pond-lilies in sum- 
 mer, and bedecks herself with scarlet maples in 
 autumn. She is an Indian maiden, dark, subtle, 
 dreaming, with glances now and then that thrill 
 the wild blood in one's veins. The Shattega here is a 
 stream without banks and with a just perceptible 
 current. It is a waterway through a timbered marsh. 
 The level floor of the woods ends in an irregular line 
 
 147 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 where the level surface of the water begins. As oii« 
 glides along in his boat, he sees various rank acjua- 
 tic growths slowly waving in the shadowy depths 
 beneath him. The larger trees on each side unite 
 their branches above his head, so that at times he 
 seems to be entering an arboreal cave out of which 
 glides the stream. In the more open places the 
 woods mirror themselves in the glassy surface till 
 one seems floating between two worlds, clouds and 
 sky and trees below him matching those around and 
 above him. A bird flits from shore to shore, and one 
 sees it duplicated against the sky in the under-world. 
 What vistas open ! What banks of drooping foliage, 
 what grain and arch of gnarled branches, lure the 
 eve as one drifts or silently paddles along! The 
 stream has absorbed the shadows so long that it is 
 itself like a liquid shadow. Its bed is lined with vari- 
 ous dark vegetable growths, as with the skin of 
 some huge, shaggy animal, the fur of which slowly 
 stirs in the languid current. I go here in early spring, 
 after the ice has broken up, to get a glimpse of the 
 first wild ducks and to play the sportsman without a 
 gun. I am sure I would not exchange the quiet sur- 
 prise and pleasure I feel, as, on rounding some point 
 or curve in the stream, two or more ducks spring 
 suddenly out from some little cove or indentation in 
 the shore, and with an alarum quack, quack,, launch 
 into the air and quickly gain the free spaces above 
 the treetops, for the satisfaction of the gunner who 
 
 148 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 sees their dead bodies fall before his murderous fire. 
 He has only a dead duck, which, the chances are, he 
 will not find very toothsome at this season, while I 
 have a live duck with whistling wings cleaving the 
 air northward, where, in some lake or river of Maine 
 or Canada, in late summer, I may meet him again 
 with his brood. It is so easy, too, to bag the game 
 with your eye, while your gun may leave you only a 
 feather or two floating upon the water. The duck 
 has wit, and its wit is as quick as, or quicker than, the 
 sportsman's gun. One day in spring I saw a gunner 
 cut down a duck when it had gained an altitude of 
 thirty or forty feet above the stream. At the report 
 it stopped suddenly, turned a somersault, and fell 
 with a splash into the water. It fell like a brick, and 
 disappeared like one ; only a feather and a few bub- 
 bles marked the spot where it struck. Had it sunk ? 
 No; it had dived. It was probably winged, and in 
 the moment it occupied in falling to the water it had 
 decided what to do. It w^ould go beneath the hunter, 
 since it could not escape above him; it could fly in 
 the water with only one wing, with its feet to aid it. 
 The gunner instantly set up a diligent search in all 
 directions, up and down along the shores, peering 
 long and intently into the depths, thrusting his oar 
 into the weeds and driftwood at the edge of the wa- 
 ter, but no duck or sign of duck could he find. It 
 was as if the wounded bird had taken to the mimic 
 heaven that looked so sunny and real down there, 
 
 149 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and fifone on to Canada by that route. What aston* 
 ished me was that the duck should have kept its pre- 
 sence of mind under such tryin<^ circumstances, and 
 not have lost a fraction of a second of time in decid- 
 ing on a course of action. The duck, I am convinced, 
 has more sagacity than any other of our commoner 
 fowl. 
 
 The day I see the first ducks I am pretty sure to 
 come upon the first flock of blackbirds, — ruk^ty 
 grackles, — resting awhile on their northward jour- 
 ney amid the reeds, alders, and spice-bush beside 
 the stream. They allow me to approach till I can see 
 their yellow eyes and the brilliant iris on the necks 
 and heads of the males. Many of them are vocal, and 
 their united voices make a volume of sound that is 
 analogous to a bundle of slivers. Sputtering, splinter- 
 ing, rasping, rending, their notes chafe and excite the 
 ear. They suggest thorns and briers of sound, and 
 yet are most welcome. What voice that rises from our 
 woods or beside our waters in April is not tempered 
 or attuned to the ear? Just as I Hke to chew the 
 crinkleroot and the twigs of the spice-bush at this 
 time, or at any time, for that matter, so I like to treat 
 my ear to these more aspirated and astringent biid 
 voices. Is it Thoreau who says they are like pepper 
 and salt to this sense ? In all the blackbirds we hear 
 the voice of April not yet quite articulate ; there is a 
 suggestion of catarrh and influenza still in the air- 
 passages. I should, perhaps, except the red-shoul- 
 
 150 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 dered starling, whose clear and liquid gur-ga-lee or 
 o-ka-lec, above the full water-courses, makes a differ- 
 ent impression. The cowbird also has a clear note, 
 but it seems to be wrenched or pumped up with 
 much effort. 
 
 In May I go to Black Creek to hear the warblers 
 and the water-thrushes. It is the only locality where 
 I have ever heard the two water-thrushes, or accen- 
 tors, singing at the same time, — the New York and 
 the large-billed. The latter is much more abundant 
 and much the finer songster. How he does make 
 these watery solitudes ring with his sudden, brilliant 
 burst of song ! But the more northern species pleases 
 the ear also with his quieter and less hurried strain. 
 I drift in my boat and let the ear attend to the one, 
 then to the other, while the eye takes note of their 
 quick, nervous movements and darting flight. The 
 smaller species probably does not nest along this 
 stream, but the large-billed breeds here abundantly. 
 The last nest I found was in the roots of an up- 
 turned tree, with the water immediately beneath it. 
 I had asked a neighboring farm-boy if he knew of 
 any birds' nests. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; and he named over the nests of 
 robins, highholes, sparrows, and others, and then 
 that of a " tip-up." 
 
 At this last I pricked up my ears, so to speaks 
 I had not seen a tip-up's nest in many a day. 
 ** Where ? " I inquired. 
 
 151 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 tt 
 
 In the roots of a tree in the woods," said Charley. 
 Not the nest of the * tip-up,' or sandpiper," said 
 I. " It builds on the ground in the open country near 
 streams." 
 
 "Anyhow, it tipped," replied the boy. 
 
 He directed me to the spot, and I found, as I ex- 
 pected to find, the nest of the water-thrush. When 
 ythe Vassar girls came again, I conducted them to the 
 spot, and they took turns in walking a small tree 
 trunk above the w ater, and gazing upon a nest brim- 
 ming with the downy backs of young birds. 
 
 When I am listening to the water-thrushes, I 
 am also noting with both eye and ear the warblers 
 and vireos. There comes a week in May when the 
 speckled Canada warblers are in the ascendant. 
 They feed in the low bushes near the water's edge, 
 and are very brisk and animated in voice and move- 
 ment. The eye easily notes their slate-blue backs 
 and yellow breasts with their broad band of black 
 spots, and the ear quickly discriminates their not 
 less marked and emphatic song. 
 
 In late summer I go to the Shattega, and to the 
 lake out of which it flows, for white pond-lilies, and 
 to feast my eye on the masses of purple loosestrife 
 and the more brilliant but more hidden and retired 
 cardinal-flower that bloom upon its banks. One can- 
 not praise the pond-lily; his best words mar it, like 
 the insects that eat its petals: but he can contem- 
 plate it as it opens in the morning sun and distills 
 
 152 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 such perfume, such purity, such snow of petal and 
 such gold of anther, from the dark water and still 
 darker ooze. How feminine it seems beside its 
 coarser and more robust congeners ; how shy, how 
 pliant, how fine in texture and star-like in form ! 
 
 The loosestrife is a foreign plant, but it has made 
 itself thoroughly at home here, and its masses of 
 royal purple make the woods look civil and festive. 
 The cardinal burns with a more intense fire, and 
 fairly lights up the little dark nooks where it glasses 
 itself in the still water. One must pause and look 
 at it. Its intensity, its pure scarlet, the dark back- 
 ground upon which it is projected, its image in the 
 still darker water, and its general air of retirement 
 and seclusion, all arrest and delight the eye. It is a 
 heart-throb of color on the bosom of the dark soli- 
 tude. 
 
 The rarest and wildest animal that my neighbor- 
 hood boasts of is the otter. Every winter we see the 
 tracks of one or more of them upon the snow along 
 Black Creek. But the eye that has seen the animal 
 itself in recent years I cannot find. It probably 
 makes its excursions along the creek by night. Fol- 
 low its track — as large as that of a fair-sized dog — 
 over the ice, and you will find that it ends at every 
 open pool and rapid, and begins again upon the ice 
 beyond. Sometimes it makes little excursions up the 
 bank, its body often dragging in the snow like a log. 
 My son followed the track one day far up the moun- 
 
 153 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 tain-side, where the absence of the snow caused him 
 to lose it. I Hke to think of so wild and shy a crea- 
 ture hokUng its own within sound of the locomo- 
 tive's whistle. 
 
 The fox passes my door in winter, and probably 
 in summer too, as do also the 'possum and the coon. 
 The latter tears down my sweet corn in the garden, 
 and the rabbit eats off my raspberry-bushes and nib- 
 bles my first strawberries, while the woodchucks eat 
 my celery and beans and peas. Chipmunks carry 
 off the corn I put out for the chickens, and weasels 
 eat the chickens themselves. 
 
 Many times during the season I have in my soli- 
 tude a visit from a bald eagle. There is a dead tree 
 near the summit, where he often perches, and w hich 
 we call the " old eagle-tree." It is a pine, killed years 
 ago by a thunderbolt, — the bolt of Jove, — and 
 now the bird of Jove hovers about it or sits upon it. 
 I have little doubt that what attracted me to this 
 spot attracts him, — the seclusion, the savageness, 
 the elemental grandeur. Sometimes, as I look out of 
 my window early in the morning, I see the eagle 
 upon his perch, preening his plumage, or waiting for 
 the rising sun to gild the mountain-tops. When the 
 smoke begins to rise from my chimney, or he sees 
 me going to the spring for water, he concludes it is 
 time for him to be off. But he need not fear the 
 crack of the rifle here ; nothing more deadly than 
 field-glasses shall be pointed at him while I am 
 
 154 
 
WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 
 
 about. Often in the course of the day I see him 
 circling above my domain, or winging his way 
 toward the mountains. His home is apparently in 
 the Shawangunk Range, twenty or more miles dis- 
 tant, and I fancy he stops or lingers above me on his 
 way to the river. The days on which I see him are 
 not quite the same as the other days. I think my 
 fnoughts soar a little higher all the rest of the morn- 
 ing: I have had a visit from a messenger of Jove. 
 The lift or range of those great wings has passed into 
 my thought. I once heard a collector get up in a 
 scientific body and tell how many eggs of the bald 
 eagle he had clutched that season, how many from 
 this nest, how many from that, and how one of 
 the eagles had deported itself after he had killed 
 its mate. I felt ashamed for him. He had only 
 proved himself a superior human weasel. The man 
 with the rifle and the man with the collector's 
 craze are fast reducing the number of eagles in the 
 country. Twenty years ago I used to see a dozen or 
 more along the river in the spring when the ice was 
 breaking up, where I now see only one or two, or 
 none at all. In the present case, what would it 
 profit me could I find and plunder my eagle's nest, 
 or strip his skin from his dead carcass ? Should I 
 know him better ? I do not want to know him that 
 way. I want rather to feel the inspiration of his 
 presence and noble bearing. I want my interest and 
 sympathy to go with him in his continental voyaging 
 
 155 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 up and down, and in his long, elevated flights to and 
 from his eyrie upon the remote, solitary cliffs. He 
 draws great lines across the sky ; he sees the forests 
 like a carpet beneath him, he sees the hills and val- 
 leys as folds and wrinkles in a many-colored tapes- 
 try ; he sees the river as a silver belt connecting re- 
 mote horizons. We climb mountain-peaks to get a 
 glimpse of the spectacle that is hourly spread out 
 beneath him. Dignity, elevation, repose, are his. I 
 would have my thoughts take as wide a sweep. I 
 would be as far removed from the petty cares and 
 turmoils of this noisy and blustering world. 
 
Ill 
 
 NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 ONE of the good signs of the times is the inter- 
 est our young people are taking in the birds, 
 and the numerous clubs and societies that are be- 
 ing formed throughout the country for bird pro- 
 tection and bird study. In my youth but little was 
 heard about the birds. They were looked upon as 
 of small account. Many of them were treated as 
 the farmer's natural enemies. Crows and all kinds 
 of hawks and owls were destroyed w henever chance 
 offered. I knew a farmer who every summer caught 
 and killed all the red-tailed hawks he could. He 
 stood up poles in his meadows, upon the tops of 
 which he would set steel traps. The hawks, looking 
 for meadow-mice, would alight upon them and be 
 caught. The farmer was thus slaying some of his 
 best friends, as these large hawks live almost en- 
 tirely upon mice and other vermin. The redtail, or 
 hen-hawk, is very wary of a man with a gun, but 
 he has not yet learned of the danger that lurks in a 
 steel trap on the top of a pole. 
 
 If a strict account could be kept with our crows 
 
 157 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and hawks for a year, it would be found at the end 
 of that time that most of them had a balance to their 
 credit. They do us more good than injury. A few 
 of them, such as the fish crow, the sharp-shinned 
 hawk, Cooper's hawk, and the duck hawk, are de- 
 structive to song-birds and wild fowl ; but the others 
 subsist mainly upon insects and vermin. 
 
 One August, when I was a boy, I remember a 
 great flight of sparrow hawks, — so called, I sup- 
 pose, because they rarely if ever catch sparrows. 
 They were seen by the dozen, hovering above and 
 flitting about the meadows. On carefully observing 
 them, I found they were catching grasshoppers, — 
 the large, fat ones found in the meadows in late 
 summer. They would poise on the wing twenty 
 or thirty feet above the ground, after the manner 
 of the larger hawks watching for mice, then sud- 
 denly drop down and seize their prey, w^hich they 
 devoured on the limb of a tree or a stake in the fence. 
 They lingered about for several days and then drifted 
 away. 
 
 Nearly every season a pair of broad-winged 
 hawks — about a size smaller than the hen-hawk — 
 build their nest in the woods not far from my cabin. 
 You may know this hawk by its shrill, piercing cry, 
 the smoothest, most ear-piercing note I know of 
 in the woods. They utter this cry when you approach 
 their nest, and continue to utter it as long as you 
 linger about. One season they built in a large pine« 
 
 158 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 tree near which I frequently passed in my walk. 
 Always, as I came near, I would hear this wild, shrill 
 plaint, made, I think, by the mother bird. Often 
 she would sit upon a branch in full view and utter 
 her ear-dividing protest. There were never any 
 signs about the nest that birds or poultry formed 
 part of the food of the young. It is said that this 
 hawk subsists principally upon insects and frogs. 
 When the young — two of them — were about two 
 thirds grown, they used to perch upon the edge of 
 the nest and upon one of the branches that held it 
 in place. 
 
 One day I took a couple of bird enthusiasts there 
 to hear the cry of the mother hawk. We hngered 
 about for nearly an hour, and not a sound was heard 
 nor a parent hawk seen. Then I tried to stir up 
 the young, but without effect. They regarded us 
 intently, but made no move and uttered no cry. A 
 smaller tree grew beside the pine that held the nest. 
 Up this I climbed till within probably twenty-five 
 feet of the suspicious young ; then I reached out my 
 foot and planted it upon a limb of the larger tree. 
 Instantly, as if the tree were a vital part of them- 
 selves, the young hawks took the alarm and launched 
 into the air. But the wings of one of them could not 
 long sustain him, and he came to the ground within 
 twenty yards of the foot of the tree. As we ap- 
 proached him his attitude of defense was striking, — 
 wings half spread, beak open, one foot raised, and 
 
 159 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 a look of defiance in his eye. But we soon reassured 
 him, and presently left him perched upon a branch 
 in a much more composed state of mind. The parent 
 hawks did not appear upon the scene during our stay. 
 
 II 
 
 I do not share the alarm expressed in some quar- 
 ters over the seeming decrease in the numbers of our 
 birds. We are always more or less pessimistic in 
 regard to the present time and present things. As we 
 grow older, the number of beautiful things in the 
 world seems to diminish. The Indian summer is not 
 what it used to be; the winters are not so bracing; 
 the spring is more uncertain; and honest men are 
 fewer. But there is not much change, after all. The 
 change is mainly in us. I find no decrease in the great 
 body of our common field, orchard, and wood birds, 
 though I do not see the cliff swallows I used to see in 
 my youth; they go farther north, to northern New 
 Ensrland and Canada. Our smart new farm build- 
 ings with their dressed and painted clapboards do not 
 attract them. At Rangeley Lake, in Maine, I saw the 
 eaves of barns as crowded with their mud nests as I 
 used to see the eaves of my father's barns amid the 
 Catskills. In the cliffs along the Yukon in Alaska 
 they are said to swarm in great numbers. The cliffs 
 along the upper Columbia show thousands of their 
 nests. Nearly all our game-birds are decreasing in 
 numbers, because sportsmen are more and more 
 
 160 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 numerous and skillful, and their guns more and more 
 deadly. The bobolinks are fewer than they were a 
 decade or two ago, because they are slaughtered 
 more and more in the marshes and rice-fields of the 
 South. The bluebirds and hermit thrushes were 
 threatened with extinction by a cold wave and a 
 severe storm in the Southern States, a few years ago. 
 These birds appear to have perished by the hundred 
 thousand. But they have slowly recovered lost 
 ground, and seem now to be as numerous as ever. 
 I see fewer eagles along the Hudson River than I 
 used to see fifteen years ago. The collectors and the 
 riflemen are no doubt responsible for this decrease. 
 But the robins, thrushes, finches, warblers, black- 
 birds, orioles, flycatchers, vireos, and woodpeckers 
 are quite as abundant as they were a quarter of a 
 century ago, if not more so. 
 
 The English sparrows, no doubt, tend to run out 
 our native birds in towns and smaller cities, but in 
 the country this effect is not noticeable. They are 
 town birds anyhow, and naturally take their place 
 with a thousand other town abominations. A friend 
 of mine who lives in the heart of a city of twenty 
 thousand people amused me by recounting his obser- 
 vation upon a downy woodpecker that had made up 
 its mind to pass the winter in town. In November it 
 began to excavate a chamber for its w^inter quarters in 
 the dead branch of a maple that stood on the curb in 
 front of my friend's window. The English sparrows 
 
 161 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 sat about upon the branches, regarding the proceed- 
 ing with evident interest, but showing no incHnation 
 to interfere. " Let him work," they seemed to say; 
 "something interesting may come of it." For two 
 weeks or more Downy was busy carving out his 
 retreat. At last it was finished ; but when he re- 
 turned one night he found it occupied, and the occu- 
 pant refused to vacate it. This seemed to puzzle the 
 woodpecker a good deal. Every night he was barred 
 out of his own house. Then he took it into his head 
 to come home earlier in the day. This scheme 
 worked at first, but soon the sparrows clubbed to- 
 gether, assaulted his castle, and literally dragged 
 him out by sheer force. Then he gave up the fight, 
 and no doubt returned to the country a sadder and 
 a w^iser bird. A new retreat had to be drilled out. 
 an undertaking which must have caused him no little 
 solicitude. It would be interesting to know where, 
 in the mean time, he passed the night. Probably in 
 some old retreat of his or his friends'. 
 
 How to get rid of the English sparrows, or to keep 
 them in clieck, is a question that is agitating many 
 of our communities. A sporadic effort here and there 
 will not have much effect; there must be concerted 
 action over a w ide area. The blow must be struck 
 in their breeding-haunts. In every town that has a 
 police force, let it be one of the duties of the police 
 to spy out their nesting-places and report to head- 
 quarters, as they would any other nuisance or misde- 
 
 1G2 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 rneanor. Then let men be detailed to break them up. 
 As long as the nest is untouched, killing the birds is 
 of little avail. A friend of mine, a well-known orni- 
 thologist, told me that one summer he and his wife 
 took for the season a house in a small town not far 
 from Boston. There were two sparrows' nests in 
 the cavities of two fruit trees in the garden. At once 
 he opened war upon the parent birds. He shot one 
 of them. In two hours the male or female, whichever 
 it was, had another mate. He continued the shoot- 
 ing. Whenever a bird showed itself about either nest 
 it was shot. In consequence the birds became very 
 wild and shrewd, till he was compelled to fire from 
 a crack in the door. But he kept up the warfare 
 till he had killed sixty-two birds about those nests, 
 and yet from each cavity a brood of young birds 
 came forth. I suppose there were eggs or young in 
 the nest when my friend appeared upon the scene, 
 and that he did not in any one day kill both the par- 
 ent birds. Had he done so, it is still a question 
 whether the young would have been allowed to per- 
 ish. Their cries would probably have attracted other 
 birds. 
 
 The parental instinct is strong in most creatures. 
 Birds as well as animals will sometimes adopt the 
 young of others. I have been told of a bluebird that 
 took it upon himself to help feed some young vireos 
 in a nest near his own, and of a house wren that 
 carried food to some young robins. 
 
 163 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Last summer I witnessed a similar occurrence, and 
 made this record in my note-book : " A nest of young 
 robins in the maple in front of the house being fed 
 by a chipping sparrow. The little sparrow is very 
 attentive ; seems decidedly fond of her adopted 
 babies. The old robins resent her services, and 
 hustle her out of the tree whenever they find her near 
 the nest. (It was this hurried departure of Chippy 
 from the tree that first attracted my attention.) She 
 watches her chances, and comes with food in their 
 absence. The young birds are about ready to fly, 
 and when the chippy feeds them her head fairly 
 disappears in their capacious mouths. She jerks 
 it back as if she were afraid of being swallowed. 
 Then she lingers near them on the edge of the nest, 
 and seems to admire them. When she sees the old 
 robin coming, she spreads her wings in an attitude 
 of defense, and then flies away. I wonder if she 
 has had the experience of rearing a cow -bunting "^ " 
 (A day later.) "The robins are out of the nest, and 
 the little sparrow continues to feed them. She ap- 
 proaches them rather timidly and hesitatingly, as if 
 she feared they might swallow her, then thrusts her 
 titbit quickly into the distended mouth and jerks 
 back." 
 
 Whether the chippy had lost her own brood, 
 whether she was an unmated bird, or whether the 
 case was simply the overflowing of the maternal in* 
 stinct, it would be interesting to know. 
 
 164 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 III 
 
 I am glad to see that this growing interest in bird 
 life has reached our schools and is being promoted 
 there. I often receive letters from teachers touchinsr 
 these matters. A teacher in the State of Delaware 
 wrote me that he and his pupils were trying to know 
 all the birds within a mile of their schoolhouse. 
 One species of bird had puzzled them much. The 
 teacher frequently saw the birds feeding in the road 
 in the evening as he walked home from school. Then, 
 when the blizzard came, they approached the school- 
 house for crumbs, sometimes in loose flocks of a 
 dozen or more. 
 
 This is the teacher's description of the bird : — 
 
 " The upper half of its bill is dark, and about one 
 third on the tips of the lower. The rest is light. The 
 feathers are a greenish yellow below the bill, and the 
 throat feathers are black with white tips. The belly 
 is white, but the feathers are black underneath. In 
 size it is a little smaller than the robin. It has a chirp, 
 when flying, something like the cedar-bird. The 
 back toe is certainly very long for so small a bird." 
 
 Had not this description been accompanied by a 
 wing, leg, and tail of the bird in question, I should 
 have been at a loss to name it. One of the birds was 
 found dead in the snow beneath the telegraph wires, 
 and this afforded the samples. It proved to be the 
 prairie homed lark, one of our migrants, which passes 
 
 165 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 the winter near the snow-hne in the Southern States, 
 and the summer in the hilly parts of New York, 
 New England, and Canada. 
 
 The above description makes the bird much too 
 large, as its size is nearer that of the bobolink and 
 the bluebird. All the larks have the hind toe very 
 prominent. This species, like the true skylark, is 
 entirely a terrestrial bird, and never alights upon 
 trees. When singing it soars and hovers high in air 
 like the skylark, but its song is a very crude, feeble 
 affair in comparison with that of the latter. Its 
 winter plumage is far less marked than its summer 
 dress. One day I took note of one singing above my 
 native hills, when it repeated its feeble, lisping song 
 one hundred and three times before it closed its wings 
 and dropped to the earth precisely as does the Euro- 
 pean skylark. 
 
 Another teacher writes me asking if the blue jay 
 eats acorns. She is sure she has seen them flying 
 away from oak-trees with acorns in their beaks, and 
 yet some authority to whom she had appealed was 
 doubtful about their eating them. It is quite certain 
 that jays eat acorns, but they carry away and hide 
 a great many more than they eat. The thieving pro- 
 pensity of the jay, which is a trait of his family, 
 the Corvidce, leads him to carry away chestnuts and 
 acorns and hide them in the grass and under leaves, 
 and thus makes him an unsuspecting instrument 
 in the planting of forests. This is the reason why, 
 
 1G6 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 when a pine or hemlock forest is cut away, oaks and 
 chestnuts are so Ukely to spring up. These nuts 
 can be disseminated only by the aid of birds and 
 squirrels. 
 
 A clergyman writes me from a New England 
 town of something he found in his winter walks that 
 puzzled him very much. It was an old cocoon of the 
 cecropia moth, in which he found two kernels of 
 corn. What creature could have put them there, and 
 for what purpose ? Of course it was the blue jay; he 
 had hidden the corn in the same blind way that he 
 hides the acorns. I have seen jays in winter carry 
 away corn and put it into an old worm's nest in a 
 wild-cherry tree, and drop it into knot-holes in the 
 tree trunk. It is doubtful if the jay can digest corn 
 swallowed whole. It is too hard a grist for his mill. 
 He will peck out the chit or softer germinal part, as 
 will the chickadee, and devour that. 
 
 Another teacher wrote me that two pretty birds, 
 strangers to her, had built their nest in a pear-tree 
 near the kitchen door of her house. 
 
 They were small and slender, the male of a ruddy 
 brown, his head, tail, and wings black, and the fe- 
 male yellowish green, with darker wings. The male 
 brought worms and fed his mate while she was sit- 
 ting, and seemed the happiest bird alive, save when 
 the kittens romped about the door ; and then, even 
 in the midst of his cries of alarm like a blackbird's, 
 he would burst out with glad notes of rejoicing, a 
 
 1G7 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 song to her ear like a sparrow's. Soon there were 
 young in the nest, and the air was filled with the con- 
 stant fluttering of wings and the rapturous song of 
 the father. But alas! one morning found the nest 
 rifled of its treasures, and only the silent, miserable 
 male flitting in and about the home in the most 
 heartbroken fashion. A red squirrel or a cat or an 
 owl had done the mischief. The nest was woven of 
 hemp and grasses, and was suspended from the fork 
 of a limb. The teacher guessed rightly that the bird 
 was a near relative of the Baltimore oriole; it was 
 the orchard oriole, a much rarer bird and a much 
 finer songster. The song is not like a sparrow's, 
 but much louder, stronger, and more ecstatic. The 
 male does not get his full uniform of black and bay 
 till the fourth summer. 
 
 A college boy once wrote me that he had seen a mo- 
 ther oriole fall down dead when her nest was being 
 robbed. The nest was in a large sycamore about 
 twenty-five feet from the ground. An old French- 
 man Uving near wanted one of the eggs for his col- 
 lection. He procured a long pole, armed with some 
 sharp nails on the end, and from the top of a small 
 building: under the tree tried to cut off the nest from 
 the branch. The mother bird kept her place within 
 till it began to yield before the assault. Instead of 
 eggs, the nest held young birds. When one of them 
 fell out, the mother bird flew down and screamed 
 
 around it in great excitement. Before the man could 
 
 168 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 loosen his pole from the nest, all the young birds 
 had fallen to the ground. The mother was darting 
 and screaming about them, when suddenly she fell 
 to the ground dead, a victim, no doubt, to her exces- 
 sive emotion of grief. Birds are very delicate, high- 
 strung creatures, and probably die of apoplexy or 
 heart failure as frequently as human beings. 
 
 IV 
 
 Love the wood-rose, but leave it on its stalk, hints 
 the poet. So, I say, find a bird's nest, but touch not 
 the eggs. It seems to profane the nest even to touch 
 its contents with the utmost care. One June day, I 
 found the nest of the yellow- winged sparrow, — the 
 sparrow one often hears in our fields and mead- 
 ows, that has a song that suggests a grasshopper. I 
 was sitting on the fence that bounded a hill meadow, 
 watching the horned larks, and hoping that one of 
 them would disclose the locality of its nest. A few 
 yards from me was a small bush, from the top of 
 which a yellow-winged sparrow was sending out its 
 feeble, stridulous song. Presently a Uttle brown bird 
 came out of the meadow and alighted in the grass 
 but a few yards from the singer. Instantly he flew to 
 the spot, and I knew it was his mate. They seemed 
 to have some conversation together there in the grass, 
 when, in a moment or two, they separated, the male 
 flitting to his perch on the bush and continuing his 
 song, while the female disappeared quickly into the 
 
 169 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 grass ten or more yards away. " The nest is there," 
 I said, "and I must find it." So I walked straight 
 to the spot where the bird had vanished and scru- 
 tinized the ground closely. Not seeing the object 
 of my search, I dropped my handkerchief upon 
 the grass, and began walking cautiously about it 
 in circles, covering more and more ground, and 
 scanning closely every foot of the meadow-bottom. 
 Suddenly, when I was four or five yards from my 
 handkerchief, a little dark-brown bird fluttered out 
 almost from under my feet, and the pretty secret 
 was mine. 
 
 The nest, made of dry grass and a few hairs, was 
 sunk into the ground, — into the great, brownish- 
 gray, undistinguished meadow surface, — and held 
 four speckled eggs. The mother bird fluttered 
 through the grass, and tried, by feigning disable- 
 ment, to lure me away from the spot. I had noticed 
 that the male had ceased singing as soon as I be- 
 gan my search, and had showed much uneasiness. 
 He now joined the female, and two more agitated 
 birds I had never seen. The actions of this bird 
 are quick and nervous at all times ; now they be- 
 came almost frenzied. But I quickly withdrew, and 
 concealed myself behind the fence. After a brief 
 consultation the birds withdrew also, and it was 
 nearly a half-hour before they returned. Then the 
 mother bird, after much feigning and flitting ner- 
 vously about, dropped into the grass several yards 
 
 170 
 
NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 
 
 from the nest. I fancied her approaching it in la 
 cautious, circuitous, indirect way. 
 
 In the afternoon I came again; also the next day; 
 but at no time did I find the male in song on his old 
 perch. He seemed to take the blame of the accident 
 upon himself ; he had betrayed the locality of the 
 nest ; and now I found him upon the fence or upon 
 an apple-tree far off, where his presence or his song 
 would not give away the precious secret. 
 
 The male bird of almost every species is careful 
 about being much in evidence very near the nest. 
 You will generally find him in song along the rim 
 of a large circle of which the nest is the centre. I 
 have known poets to represent the bird singing upon 
 its nest, but if this ever happens, it is a very rare 
 occurrence. 
 
IV 
 BIRD LIFE IN WINTER 
 
 THE distribution of our birds over the country in 
 summer is like that of the people, quite uni- 
 form. Every wood and field has its quota, and no 
 place so barren but it has some bird to visit it. One 
 knows where to look for sparrows and thrushes and 
 bobolinks and warblers and flycatchers. But the 
 occupation of the country by our winter residents 
 is like the Indian occupation of the land. They are 
 found in little bands, a few here and there, with 
 large tracts quite untenanted. 
 
 One may walk for hours through the winter woods 
 and not see or hear a bird. Then he may come 
 upon a troop of chickadees, with a nuthatch or two 
 in their wake, and maybe a downy woodpecker. 
 Birds not of a feather flock together at this inclement 
 season. The question of food is always an urgent 
 one. Evidently the nuthatch thinks there must be 
 food where the chickadees flit and call so cheerily, 
 and the woodpecker is probably drawn to the nut- 
 hatch for a similar reason. 
 
 Together they make a pretty thorough search, — 
 fine, finer, finest. The chickadee explores the twigs 
 
 173 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and smaller branches ; what he gets is on the surface, 
 and so fine as to be almost microscopic. The nut- 
 hatch explores the trunks and larger branches of the 
 trees ; he goes a little deeper, into crevices of the bark 
 and under lichens. Then comes Downy, who goes 
 deeper still. He bores for larger game through the 
 bark, and into the trunks and branches themselves. 
 
 In late fall this band is often joined by the golden- 
 crowned kinglet and the brown creeper. The kinglet 
 is finer-eyed and finer-billed than even the chick- 
 adee, and no doubt gathers what the latter over- 
 looks, while the brown creeper, with his long, slender, 
 curved bill, takes what both the nuthatch and the 
 woodpecker miss. Working together, it seems as if 
 they must make a pretty clean sweep. But the trees 
 are numerous and large, and the birds are few. Only 
 a mere fraction of tree surface is searched over at 
 any one time. In large forests probably only a mere 
 fraction of the trees are visited at all. 
 
 One cold day in midwinter, when I was walking 
 through the snowless woods, I saw chickadees, nut- 
 hatches, and woodpeckers upon the ground, and 
 upon roots and fallen branches. They were look- 
 ing for the game that had fallen, as a boy looks for 
 apples under the tree. 
 
 The winter wren is so called because he sometimes 
 braves our northern winters, but it is rarely that one 
 sees him at this season. I think I have seen him only 
 two or three times in winter in my life. The event 
 
 174 
 
BIRD LIFE IN WINTER 
 
 of one long walk, recently, in February, was seeing 
 one of these birds. As I followed a byroad, beside 
 a little creek in the edge of a wood, my eye caught a 
 glimpse of a small brown bird darting under a stone 
 bridge. I thought to myself no bird but a wren 
 would take refuge under so small a bridge as that. 
 I stepped down upon it and expected to see the bird 
 dart out at the upper end. As it did not appear, I 
 scrutinized the bank of the little run, covered with 
 logs and brush, a few rods farther up. 
 
 Presently I saw the wren curtsying and gesticu- 
 lating beneath an old log. As I approached he disap- 
 peared beneath some loose stones in the bank, then 
 came out again and took another peep at me, then 
 fidgeted about for a moment and disappeared again, 
 running in and out of the holes and recesses and be- 
 neath the rubbish like a mouse or a chipmunk. The 
 winter wren may always be known by these squat- 
 ting, bobbing-out-and-in habits. 
 
 As I sought a still closer view of him, he flitted 
 stealthily a few yards up the run and disappeared 
 beneath a small plank bridge near a house. 
 
 I wondered what he could feed upon at such a 
 time. There was a light skim of snow upon the 
 ground, and the weather was cold. The wren, so far 
 as I know, is entirely an insect-feeder, and where can 
 he find insects in midwinter in our climate ? Probably 
 by searching under bridges, under brush heaps, in 
 holes and cavities in banks where the sun falls warm. 
 
 175 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 In such places he may find dormant spiders and flies 
 and other hibernating insects or their larva?. We 
 have a tiny, mosquito-like creature that comes forth 
 in March or in midwinter, as soon as the temper- 
 ature is a little above freezing. One may see them 
 performing their fantastic air-dances when the air 
 is so chilly that one buttons his overcoat about him 
 in his w^alk. They are darker than the mosquito, — 
 a sort of dark water-color, — and are very frail to 
 the touch. Maybe the wTen knows the hiding-place 
 of these insects. 
 
 With food in abundance, no doubt many more of 
 our birds w^ould brave the rigors of our winters. I 
 have known a pair of bluebirds to brave them on 
 such poor rations as are afforded by the hardback 
 or sugarberry, — a drupe the size of a small pea, w ith 
 a thin, sweet skin. Probably hardly one per cent, of 
 the drupe is digestible food. Bluebirds in December 
 will also eat the berries of the poison ivy, as will the 
 downy woodpecker. 
 
 Robins will pass the winter with us when the cover 
 of a pine or hemlock forest can be had near a supply 
 of red cedar berries. The cedar-bird probably finds 
 little other food in the valley of the Hudson and in 
 New England, yet I see occasional flocks of them 
 every winter month. 
 
 Sometimes the chickadees and nuthatches, hunt- 
 ing through the winter woods, make a discovery that 
 brings every bird within hearing to the spot, — they 
 
 176 
 
BIRD LIFE IN WINTER 
 
 spy out the screech owl hiding in the thick of a hem- 
 lock-tree. What an event it is in the day's experience! 
 It sets the whole clan agog. 
 
 While I was walking in the December woods, one 
 day, my attention was attracted by a great hue and 
 cry among these birds. I found them in and about 
 a hemlock-tree, — eight or ten chickadees and four 
 or five red-bellied nuthatches. Such a chiding chorus 
 of tiny voices I had not heard for a long time. The 
 tone was not that of alarm so much as it was that 
 of trouble and displeasure. 
 
 I gazed long and long up into the dark, dense 
 green mass of the tree to make out the cause of all 
 this excitement. The chickadees were clinging to the 
 ends of the sprays, as usual, apparently very busy 
 looking for food, and all the time uttering their shrill 
 plaint. The nuthatches perched about upon the 
 branches or ran up and down the tree trunks, inces- 
 santly piping their displeasure. At last I made out 
 the cause of the disturbance, — a little owl on a limb, 
 looking down in wide-eyed intentness upon me. 
 How annoyed he must have felt at all this hullabaloo, 
 this lover of privacy and quiet, to have his name 
 cried from the treetops, and his retreat advertised 
 to every passer-by ! 
 
 I have never known woodpeckers to show any 
 excitement at the presence of hawk or owl, probably 
 because they are rarely preyed upon by these ma- 
 rauders. In their nests and in their winter quarters, 
 
 177 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 deeply excavated in trunk or branch of tree, wood- 
 peckers are beyond the reach of both beak and claw. 
 
 The day I saw the winter wren I saw two golden- 
 crowned kinglets fly from one sycamore to another 
 in an open field, uttering their fine call-notes. That 
 so small a body can brave the giant cold of our win- 
 ters seems remarkable enough. These are mainly 
 birds of the evergreens, although at times they fre- 
 quent the groves and the orchards. 
 
 How does the ruby-crowned kinglet know he has 
 a brilliant bit of color on his crown which he can 
 uncover at will, and that this has great charms for 
 the female? During the rivalries of the males in 
 the mating season, and in the autumn also, they 
 flash this brilliant ruby at each other. I witnessed 
 what seemed to be a competitive display of tliis 
 kind one evening in November. I was walking along 
 the road, when my ear was attracted by the fine, 
 shrill lisping and piping of a small band of these 
 birds in an apple-tree. I paused to see what was the 
 occasion of so much noise and bluster among these 
 tiny bodies. There were four or five of them, all 
 more or less excited, and two of them especially so. 
 I think the excitement of the others was only a 
 reflection of that of these two. These were hopping 
 around each other, apparently peering down upon 
 something beneath them. I suspected a cat con- 
 cealed behind the wall, and so looked over, but 
 there was nothing there. Observing them more 
 
 178 
 
BIRD LIFE IN WINTER 
 
 closely, I saw that the two birds were entirely occu- 
 pied with each other. 
 
 They behaved exactly as if they were comparing 
 crowns, and each extolHng his own. Their heads 
 were bent forward, the red crown patch uncovered 
 and showing as a large, brilHant cap, their tails 
 were spread, and the side feathers below the wings 
 were fluffed out. They did not come to blows, but 
 followed each other about amid the branches, ut- 
 tering their thin, shrill notes and displaying their 
 ruby crowns to the utmost. Evidently it was some 
 sort of strife or dispute or rivalry that centred about 
 this brilliant patch. 
 
 Few persons seem aware that the goldfinch is also 
 a winter bird, — it is so brilliant and familiar in sum- 
 mer and so neutral and withdrawn in winter. The 
 call-note and manner of flight do not change, but the 
 color of the males and their habits are very different 
 from their color and habits in summer. In winter 
 they congregate in small, loose flocks, both sexes of 
 a dusky yellowish brown, and feed upon the seeds 
 of grasses and weeds that stand above the snow in 
 fields and along fences. 
 
 Day after day I have observed a band of five 
 or six of them feeding amid the dry stalks of the 
 evening primrose by the roadside. They are adepts 
 in extracting the seed from the pods. How pretty 
 their call to each other at such times, — paisley of 
 'peasely, with the rising inflection ! 
 
 170 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 The only one of our winter birds that really seems 
 a part of the winter, that seems to be bom of the 
 whirling snow, and to be happiest when storms drive 
 thickest and coldest, is the snow bunting, the real 
 snowbird, with plumage copied from the fields where 
 the drifts hide all but the tops of the tallest weeds, — 
 large spaces of pure white touched here and there 
 wnth black and gray and brown. Its twittering call 
 and chirrup coming out of the white obscurity is the 
 sweetest and happiest of all winter bird sounds. It 
 is like the laughter of children. The fox-huntei 
 hears it on the snowy hills, the farmer hears it when 
 he goes to fodder his cattle from the distant stack, 
 the country schoolboy hears it as he breaks his way 
 through the drifts toward the school. It is ever a 
 voice of good cheer and contentment. 
 
 One March, during a deep snow, a large flock of 
 buntings stayed about my vineyards for several days, 
 feeding upon the seeds of redroot and other weeds 
 that stood above the snow. What boyhood associa- 
 tions their soft and cheery calls brought up! How 
 plump and well-fed and hardy they looked, and how 
 alert and suspicious they were ! They evidently had 
 had experiences with hawks and shrikes. Every 
 minute or two they would all spring into the air as 
 one bird, circle about for a moment, then alight upon 
 the snow again. Occasionally one would perch upon 
 a wire or grapevine, as if to keep watch and ward 
 
 Presently, while I stood in front of my study look 
 
 180 
 
BIRD LIFE IN WINTER 
 
 ing at them, a larger and darker bird came swiftly 
 by me, flying low and straight toward the buntings. 
 He shot beneath the trellises, and evidently hoped 
 to surprise the birds. It w^as a shrike, thirsting for 
 blood or brains. But the buntings were on the alert, 
 and were up in the air before the feathered assassin 
 reached them. As the flock wheeled about, he joined 
 them and flew along with them for some distance, 
 but made no attempt to strike that I could see. 
 
 Presently he left them and perched upon the top of 
 a near maple. The birds did not seem to fear him 
 now, but swept past the treetop where he sat as if 
 to challenge him to a race, and then went their way. 
 I have seen it stated that these birds, when suddenly 
 surprised by a hawk, will dive beneath the snow to 
 escape him. They doubtless roost upon the ground, 
 as do most ground-builders, and hence must often be 
 covered by the falling snow. 
 
V 
 A BIRDS' FREE LUNCH 
 
 ONE winter, during four or five weeks of severe 
 weather, several of our winter birds were 
 pensioners upon my bounty, — three blue jays, 
 two downy woodpeckers, three chickadees, and 
 one kinglet, — and later a snowbird — junco — ap- 
 peared. 
 
 I fastened pieces of suet and marrow-bones upon 
 the tree in front of my window, then, as I sat at my 
 desk, watched the birds at their free lunch. The jays 
 bossed the woodpeckers, the woodpeckers bossed the 
 chickadees, and the chickadees bossed the kinglet. 
 
 Sometimes in my absence a crow would swoop 
 down and boss the whole crew and carry off the 
 meat. The kinglet was the least of all, — a sort of 
 " hop-o'-my-thumb " bird. He became quite tame, 
 and one day alighted upon my arm as I stood lean- 
 ing against the tree. I could have put my hand 
 upon him several times. I wonder where the midget 
 roosted. He was all alone. He liked the fare so well 
 that he seemed disposed to stop till spring. Dur- 
 ing one terrible night of wind and snow and zero 
 temperature I feared he would be swept away- 1 
 
 183 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 thought of him in the middle of the night, when the 
 violence of the storm kept me from sleep. Imagine 
 this solitary atom in feathers drifting about in the 
 great arctic out-of-doors and managing to survive. 
 I fancied him in one of ray thick spruces, his head 
 under his tiny wing, buffeted by wind and snow, his 
 little black feet clinging to the perch, and wishing 
 that morning would come. 
 
 The fat meat is fuel for him ; it keeps up the 
 supply of animal heat. None of the birds will eat 
 lean meat; they want the clear fat. The jays alight 
 upon it and peck away with great vigor, almost 
 standing on tiptoe to get the proper sweep. The 
 woodpecker uses his head alone in pecking, but 
 the jay's action involves the whole body. Yet his 
 blows are softer, not so sharp and abrupt as those 
 of the woodpecker. Pecking is not exactly his busi- 
 ness. 
 
 He swallows the morsel eagerly, watching all 
 the time lest some enemy surprise him in the act. 
 Indeed, one noticeable thing about all the birds 
 is their nervousness while eating. The chickadee 
 turns that bead-like eye of his in all directions inces- 
 santly, lest something seize him while he is not look- 
 ing. He is not off his guard for a moment. It is 
 almost painful to observe the state of fear in which 
 he lives. He will not keep his place upon the bone 
 longer than a few seconds at a time lest he become 
 a mark for some enemy, — a hawk, a shrike, or a cat. 
 
 184 
 
A BIRDS' FREE LUNCH 
 
 One would not think the food would digest when 
 taken in such haste and trepidation. 
 
 While the jays are feeding, swallowing morsel 
 after morsel very rapidly, the chickadees flit about in 
 an anxious, peevish manner, lest there be none left 
 for themselves. 
 
 I suspect the jays carry the food off and hide it, 
 as they certainly do corn when I put it out for the 
 hens. The jay has a capacious throat ; he will lodge 
 half a dozen or more kernels of corn in it, stretching 
 his neck up as he takes them, to give them room, and 
 then fly away to an old bird's-nest or a caterpillar's 
 nest and deposit them in it. But in this respect the 
 little kettle cannot call the big pot black. The chickr 
 adee also will carry away what it cannot eat. One 
 day I dug a dozen or more white grubs — the larvae 
 of some beetle — out of a decayed maple on my 
 woodpile and placed them upon my window-sill. 
 The chickadees soon discovered them, and fell to 
 carrying them off as fast as ever they could, dis- 
 tributing them among the branches of the Norway 
 spruces. Among the grubs was one large white 
 one half the size of one's little finger. One of the 
 chickadees seized this; it was all he could carry, 
 but he made off with it. The mate to this grub 
 I found rolled up in a smooth cell in a mass of 
 decayed wood at the heart of the old maple re- 
 ferred to ; it was full of frost. I carried it in by the 
 fire, and the next day it was alive and apparently 
 
 185 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 wanted to know what had brought spring so sud- 
 denly. 
 
 How rapidly birds live ! Their demand for food is 
 almost incessant. This colony of mine appear to 
 feed every eight or ten minutes. Their little mills 
 grind their grist very rapidly. Once in my walk upon 
 the sea beach I encountered two small beach birds 
 running up and down in the edge of the surf, keep- 
 ing just in the thin, lace-like edging of the waves, 
 and feeding upon the white, cricket-like hoppers 
 that quickly buried themselves in the sand as the 
 waters retreated. I kept company with the birds 
 till they ceased to be afraid of me. They would feed 
 eagerly for a few minutes and then stop, stand on 
 one leg and put their heads under their wings for 
 two or three minutes, and then resume their feeding, 
 so rapidly did they digest their food. But all birds 
 digest very rapidly. 
 
 My two woodpeckers seldom leave the tree upon 
 which the food is placed. One is a male, as is shown 
 by his red plume, and the other a female. There is 
 not a bit of kindness or amity between them. Indeed, 
 there is open hostility. The male will not allow the 
 female even to look at the meat while he is feeding. 
 She will sidle around toward it, edging nearer and 
 nearer, when he will suddenly dart at her, and 
 often pursue her till she leaves the tree. Every hour 
 in the day I see him trying to drive her from the 
 neighborhood. She stands in perpetual dread of him 
 
 186 
 
A BIRDS' FREE LUNCH 
 
 and gives way the instant he approaches. lie is 
 a tyrant and a bully. They both pass the night 
 in snug chambers which they have excavated in 
 the decayed branch of an old apple-tree, but not 
 together. 
 
 But in the spring what a change will come over 
 the male. He will protest to the female that he was 
 only in fun, that she took him far too seriously, 
 that he had always cherished a liking for her. Last 
 April I saw a male trying his blandishments upon a 
 female in this way. It may have been the satoe pair 
 I am now observing. The female was extremely shy 
 and reluctant ; evidently she was skeptical of the sin- 
 cerity of so sudden a change on the part of the male. 
 I saw him pursue her from tree to tree with the most 
 flattering attention. The flight of the woodpecker 
 is at all times undulating, but on such occasions 
 this feature is so enhanced and the whole action so 
 affected and studied on the part of the male that 
 the scene becomes highly amusing. The female flew 
 down upon a low stump in the currant-patch and was 
 very busy about her own affairs ; the male followed 
 alighted on something several rods distant, and ap- 
 peared to be equally busy about his affairs. Presently 
 the female made quite a long flight to a tree by the 
 roadside. I could not tell how the male knew she had 
 flown and what course she had taken, as he was hid- 
 den from her amid the thick currant-bushes; but 
 he did know, and soon followed after in his curious 
 
 187 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 exaggerated undulatory manner of flight. I have 
 Httle doubt that his suit was finally successful. 
 
 I watch these woodpeckers daily to see if I can 
 solve the mystery as to how they hop up and down 
 the trunks and branches without falling away from 
 them when they let go their hold. They come down 
 a limb or trunk backward by a series of little hops, 
 moving both feet together. If the limb is at an angle 
 to the tree and they are on the under side of it, they 
 do not fall away from it to get a new hold an inch or 
 half inch farther down. They are held to it as steel 
 to a magnet. Both tail and head are involved in 
 the feat. At the instant of making the hop the head 
 is thrown in and the tail thrown out, but the exact 
 mechanics of it I cannot penetrate. Philosophers 
 do not yet know how a backward- falling cat turns 
 in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the 
 w oodpecker never quite relaxes his hold, though to 
 my eye he appears to do so. 
 
 Birds nearly always pass the night in such places 
 as they select for their nests, — ground-builders upon 
 the ground, tree-builders upon trees. I have seen 
 an oriole ensconce himself for the night amid the 
 thick cluster of leaves on the end of a maple branch, 
 where soon after his mate built her nest. 
 
 My chickadees, true to this rule, pass the arctic 
 w^inter nights in little cavities in the trunks of trees 
 like the woodpeckers. One cold day, about four 
 o'clock, while it was snowing and blowing, I heard, 
 
 188 
 
A BIRDS' FREE LUNCH 
 
 as I was unharnessing my horse near the old apple- 
 tree, the sharp, chiding note of a chickadee. On look- 
 ing for the bird I failed to see him. Suspecting the 
 true cause of his sudden disappearance, I took a pole 
 and touched a limb that had an opening in its end 
 where the wrens had the past season had a nest. As 
 I did so, out came the chickadee and scolded sharply. 
 The storm and the cold had driven him early to his 
 chamber. The snow buntings are said to plunge 
 into the snow-banks and pass the night there. We 
 know the ruffed grouse does this. 
 
VI 
 
 TWO BIRDS -NESTS 
 
 I CONSIDER myself lucky if, in the course of a 
 season, I can pick up two or three facts in nat- 
 ural history that are new to me. To have a new 
 delight in an old or familiar fact is not always easy, 
 and is perhaps quite as much to be desired. The 
 familiar we always have with us ; to see it with fresh 
 eyes so as to find a new pleasure in it, — that is a 
 great point. 
 
 I think one never sees a bird's-nest of any kind 
 without fresh pleasure. It is such a charming secret, 
 and is usually so well kept by the tree, or bank, or 
 bit of ground that holds it; and then it is such a 
 dainty and exquisite cradle or nursery amid its rough 
 and wild surroundings, — a point so cherished and 
 cared for in the apparently heedless economy of 
 the fields or woods ! 
 
 When it is a new nest and one long searched for, 
 the pleasure is of course proportionally greater. 
 Such a pleasure came to me one day last summer in 
 early July, when I discovered the nest of the water- 
 thrush or water- wagtail. 
 
 The nest of its cousin the oven-bird, called by the 
 
 191 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 old ornithologists the golden-crowned thrush, was 
 familiar to me, as it probably is to most country 
 boys, — a nest partly thrust under the dry leaves 
 upon the ground in the woods, and holding four or 
 five whitish eggs covered with reddish-brown spots. 
 The mother bird is in size less than the sparrow, 
 and in color is a light olive with a speckled breast, 
 and she is the prettiest walker to be seen in the 
 woods. 
 
 The water-accentor or wagtail is a much rarer 
 bird, and of a darker olive green. As the color of the 
 oven-bird harmonizes with the dry leaves over which 
 it walks, so the color of the wagtail is in keeping with 
 the dark- veined brooks and forest pools along which 
 it flits and near which it nests. 
 
 With me it is an April bird. When the spice-bush 
 is in bloom along the fringes of the creeks, and 
 the leaves of the adder's-tongue or fawn lily have 
 pierced the mould, I expect to hear the water-thrush. 
 Its song is abrupt, bright, and ringing. It contrasts 
 with its surroundings as does the flower of the blood- 
 root which you may have seen that day. 
 
 It is the large-billed or Louisiana water-thrush of 
 which I am speaking. The other species, the New 
 York water-accentor, is rarer with me, and goes 
 farther into the mountains. 
 
 The large-billed is a quick, shy, emphatic bird in 
 Its manner. Some birds, such as the true thrushes, 
 impress one as being of a serene, contemplative dis- 
 
 192 
 
TWO BIRDS'-NESTS 
 
 position; there is a kind of harmony and tranquil- 
 lity in all their movements; but the bird I am 
 speaking of is sharp, restless, hurried. Its song is 
 brilliant, its movements quick and decisive. You 
 hear its emphatic chirp, and see it dart swiftly be- 
 neath or through the branches that reach out over 
 the creek. 
 
 It nests upon the ground, or amid the roots of an 
 upturned tree in the woods near the water that it 
 haunts. Every season for many years I have looked 
 for the nest, but failed to find it till last summer. 
 
 My son and I were camping in the Catskills, when 
 one day, as I was slowly making my way down one of 
 those limpid trout streams, I saw a water-thrush dart 
 from out a pile of logs and driftwood that the floods 
 had left on the margin of the stream. The bird at 
 once betrayed much anxiety, and I knew the nest 
 was near. 
 
 I proceeded carefully to explore the pile of drift- 
 wood, and especially the roots of an upturned tree 
 which it held. I went over the mass almost inch by 
 inch several times. There was a little cavern in it, 
 a yard or more deep, where the light was dim; a 
 translucent pool of water formed the floor of it, and 
 kept me from passing its threshold. I suspected the 
 nest was in there amid the roots or broken branches, 
 but my eye failed to detect it. 
 
 "I will go on with my fishing," I said, "and re* 
 turn to-morrow and lay siege to tliis secret." 
 
 193 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 So on the morrow I returned, and carefully se- 
 creted myself on a mossy bank a few yards from the 
 pile of driftwood. Presently the parent bird came 
 with food in its beak, but instantly spying me, though 
 I fancied that in my recumbent position and faded 
 gray clothes I simulated well an old log, she grew 
 alarmed and refused to approach the nest. 
 
 She flitted nervously about from point to point, 
 her attention directed to me, and uttering a sharp, 
 chiding note. Soon her mate came, and the two birds 
 flitted about me, peering, attitudinizing, scolding. 
 The mother bird is always the bolder and more 
 demonstrative on such occasions. I was amused at 
 her arts and feints and her sudden fits of alarm. 
 Sometimes she would quickly become silent, and 
 stealthily approach the entrance of the little cavern 
 in the pile of driftwood; then, her fears and sus- 
 picions reviving, with emphatic chirps she would try 
 again to penetrate the mystery of that motionless, 
 prostrate form on the bank. 
 
 The dead branch of a tree that slanted down to 
 the bed of the stream near me was her favorite perch. 
 Inch by inch she would hop up it, her body mov- 
 ing like a bandmaster's baton, her notes sharp and 
 emphatic, her wings slightly drooping, meanwhile 
 bringing first one eye and then the other to bear 
 upon the supposed danger. 
 
 While she was thus engaging my attention, I 
 saw the male quickly slip into the little cavern with 
 
 194 
 
TWO BIRDS'-NESTS 
 
 loaded beak, and in a moment reappear. He ran 
 swiftly along the dry pebbles a few yards, and then 
 took to wing, and joined in the cry against me. In 
 a few moments he disappeared, presumably in quest 
 of more food. 
 
 The mother, after many feints and passes and 
 false moves, half -fearful of her own rashness, darted 
 into the little cavern also. She soon shot out from 
 it on nimble foot, as had her mate, tl^ took to 
 wing, and to fresh peering and abuse of the strange 
 object on the bank. - 
 
 The male was soon on the scene again, and after a 
 little flourishing, entered the shadow of the cavern 
 as before. Pausing a moment, the female did the 
 same. 
 
 Evidently their suspicions were beginning to be 
 lulled. They had seen fishermen many, a few every 
 day for wrecks, and had grown used to them ; these 
 had gone on about their business ; but this one 
 that tarried and seemed bent on finding out other 
 people's business, — here was cause for alarm! 
 
 In less than half an hour I felt sure I had the 
 birds' secret, — I had seen in the recesses of the 
 cavern the exact spot where they seemed to pause 
 a moment and then turn back. So I approached 
 the spot confidently ; I got down on my knees and 
 charged my eyes to find the nest. 
 
 I am surprised that they seem baffled. At the 
 particular niche or shelf in the mass of roots they 
 
 195 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 report only moss or moist stones, — no nest there. 
 I peer long and long. The little pool of limpid water 
 keeps me five or six feet away. 
 
 Well, there must be some unseen hole or cavity 
 in there which leads to the nest beyond the reach of 
 the eve. But I will watch ac:ain and be sure. So I 
 retreat to the bank, and the same little comedy or 
 drama is played as before. 
 
 At last I am positive I can put my hand upon the 
 nest. I procure a fragment of a board, bridge over 
 the little pool, thrust my head into the dim light of 
 the cavity, and closely scan every inch of the surface. 
 No nest, says the eye. Then I will try another sense; 
 I will feel with my hand. 
 
 Slowly my hand explores the place; presently it 
 touches something soft and warm at the very spot 
 where I had seen the birds pause. It is the backs 
 of the young birds ; they have flattened themselves 
 down until their beaks are on a level with the top of 
 the nest. They have baflSed the eye because, in the 
 scant light, they blend perfectly with their surround- 
 ings and just fill the depression of the nest. The 
 hand, going behind form and color, finds them out. 
 I felt that I had penetrated one of the prettiest 
 secrets in all the woods, and got a new glimpse of 
 the art and cunning of a bird. 
 
 The young were between down and feather, of a 
 grayish slate color, and they played their part well. 
 At my approach they would settle down in the nest 
 
 196 
 
TWO BIRDS-NESTS 
 
 till, instead of five, they became one, and that one a 
 circular mass of dark bluish stone or fragment of 
 bark. When I withdrcAv or concealed myself, they 
 would rise up and their individual forms become 
 outlined. 
 
 Another new nest which it was my luck to find the 
 past summer was that of the worm-eating warbler, a 
 bird of the Carolinian fauna, that heretofore has not 
 been known to breed in our State — New York. It 
 was a new find, then, in a double sense, new to me 
 and new to the ornithology of the State. 
 
 One day in early June, as I was walking along a 
 path on the side of a bushy hill, near dense woods, 
 I had a glimpse of a small brown bird that dashed 
 away from the bank but a few feet from me. I took 
 it to be the oven-bird. 
 
 Looking to the spot from whence it started, I saw 
 a bird with a striped head standing on the edge of a 
 nest *n Ihe side of the shelving bank, with something 
 white in its beak. I saw the heads of the young birds 
 beneath, and took in the situation instantly; I had 
 surprised the mother bird while she was waiting 
 upon her young. She stood motionless, half-turned 
 toward me, still keeping the white mass in her beak. 
 
 Neither of us stirred for a minute or two, and the 
 other parent made no sound, though he lingered but 
 a few yards away. 
 
 Presently I slowly withdrew, and sat down a few 
 paces away. The male bird now became quite un- 
 
 197 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 easy, and flitted from bush to bush and uttered his 
 alarm chirp. The mother bird never stirred. I could 
 see her loaded beak from where I sat. In two or 
 three minutes she dropped or otherwise disposed of 
 her morsel, but kept her place above her young. 
 Then her mate, taking his cue from her, quieted 
 down and soon disappeared from view. 
 
 After long waiting I approached the nest, and 
 pausing ten feet away, regarded it some moments. 
 The bird never stirred. Then I came nearer, and 
 when I sat down w ithin four or five feet of the nest, 
 the bird flew out upon the ground before me, and 
 sought to lure me away by practicing the old confi- 
 dence game that birds so often resort to on such 
 occasions. 
 
 She was seized with incipient paralysis in her 
 members ; she dragged herself about upon the 
 ground ; she quivered and tottered and panted with 
 open beak, and seemed on the point of going all to 
 pieces. Seeing this game did not work and that I 
 remained unmoved, she suddenly changed her tac- 
 tics ; she flew up to a limb and gave me a piece of her 
 mind in no equivocal terms. This brought the male, 
 and true to his name, he had a worm in his beak. 
 
 Both now joined in the scolding, and the rumpus 
 attracted a vireo to the spot, who came to see what 
 the danger really w^as. But evidently the warblers 
 regarded his presence as an intrusion. 
 
 The nest was in the edge of the bank where the 
 
 198 
 
TWO BIRDS'-NESTS 
 
 soil was broken away a little, and was mainly com- 
 posed of dry leaves and pine needles. The young, 
 five in number, were probably a week old. 
 
 I came again the next day, and found the bird sit- 
 ting on the edge of the nest as before, and ready, 
 when I disturbed her, with the same arts to lure me 
 away. I paid frequent visits to the place thereafter 
 till the young had flown. 
 
 The song of the male — a little shuffling chant 
 much like that of Chippy — was frequently heard. 
 This warbler may be instantly known by its oliva- 
 ceous color and the four sharp black stripes on its 
 buff -colored head. It is one of the prettiest and most 
 interesting of the warblers. 
 
VII 
 AUGUST DAYS 
 
 ONE of our well-known poets, in personifying 
 August, represents her as coming with daisies 
 in her hair. But an August daisy is a sorry affair; 
 it is little more than an empty, or partly empty, 
 seed-vessel. In the Northern States the daisy is 
 in her girlhood and maidenhood in June; she be- 
 comes very matronly early in July, — fat, faded, 
 prosaic, — and by or before August she is practi- 
 cally defunct. I recall no flower whose career is more 
 typical of the life, say, of the average European 
 peasant woman, or of the women of barbarous 
 tribes, its grace and youthfulness pass so quickly 
 into stoutness, obesity, and withered old age. How 
 positively girlish and taking is the daisy during the 
 first few days of its blooming, while its snow- 
 white rays yet stand straight up and shield its ten- 
 der centre somewhat as a hood shields a girl's face! 
 Presently it becomes a perfect disk and bares its 
 face to the sun; this is the stage of its young 
 womanhood. Then its yellow centre — its body — 
 begins to swell and become gross, the rays slowly 
 turn brown, and finally wither up and drop. It is a 
 
 201 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 flower no longer, but a receptacle packed with 
 ripening seeds. 
 
 A relative of the daisy, the orange-colored hawk- 
 weed {Hieracium aurantiacum) y which within the 
 past twenty years has spread far and wide over 
 New York and New England, is often at the height 
 of its beauty in August, when its deep vivid orange 
 is a delight to the eye. It repeats in our meadows 
 and upon our hilltops the flame of the columbine of 
 May, intensified. The personified August with these 
 flowers in her hair would challenge our admiration 
 and not our criticism. Unlike the daisy, it quickly 
 sprouts again when cut down with the grass in the 
 meadows, and renews its bloom. Parts of New Eng- 
 land, at least, have a native August flower quite as 
 brilhant as the hawkweed just described, and far 
 less a usurper; I refer to meadow-beauty, or rhexia, 
 found near the coast, which suggests a purple 
 evening primrose. 
 
 Nature has, for the most part, lost her delicate 
 tints in August. She is tanned, hirsute, freckled, like 
 one long exposed to the sun. Her touch is strong 
 and vivid. The coarser, commoner wayside flowers 
 now appear, — vervain, eupatorium, mimulus, the 
 various mints, asters, golden-rod, thistles, fireweed, 
 mulleins, motherwort, catnip, blueweed, turtle- 
 head, sunflowers, clematis, evening primrose, lobe- 
 lia, gerardia, and, in the marshes of the lower Hud- 
 son, marshmallows, and vast masses of the purple 
 
 202 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 loosestrife. Mass and intensity take the place of 
 delicacy and furtiveness. The spirit of Nature has 
 grown bold and aggressive; it is rank and coarse; 
 she flaunts her weeds in our faces. She wears a 
 thistle on her bosom. But I must not forget the deli- 
 cate rose gerardia, which she also wears upon her 
 bosom, and which suggests that, before the season 
 closes, Nature is getting her hand ready for her deli- 
 cate spring flora. With me this gerardia Hues open 
 paths over dry knolls in the woods, and its little 
 purple bells and smooth, slender leaves form one of 
 the most exquisite tangles of flowers and foliage of 
 the whole summer. It is August matching the color 
 and delicacy of form of the fringed polygala of May. 
 I know a half-wild field bordering a wood, which is 
 red with strawberries in June and pink with gerar- 
 dia in August. 
 
 One may still gather the matchless white pond- 
 lily in this month, though this flower is in the height 
 of its glory earlier in the season, except in the north- 
 ern lakes. 
 
 A very delicate and beautiful marsh flower that 
 may be found on the borders of lakes in northern 
 New York and New England is the horned bladder- 
 wort, — yellow, fragrant, and striking in form, like a 
 miniature old-fashioned bonnet, when bonnets cov- 
 ered the head and projected beyond the face, instead 
 of hovering doubtfully above the scalp. The horn 
 curves down and out Uke a long chin from a face hid- 
 
 203 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 den within the bonnet. I have found this rare flower 
 in the Adirondacks and in Maine. It may doubtless 
 be found in Canada, and in Michigan and Wis- 
 consin. Britton and Brown say " south to Florida 
 and Texas." It is the most fragrant August flower 
 known to me. This month has not nrany fragrant 
 flowers to boast of. Besides the above and the pond- 
 lily I recall two others, — the small purple fringed- 
 orchis and a species of lady's-tresses (Spiraiithes 
 ccrnua). 
 
 The characteristic odors of August are from fruit 
 — grapes, peaches, apples, pears, melons — and the 
 ripening grain; yes, and the blooming buckwheat. 
 Of all the crop and farm odors this last is the most 
 pronounced and honeyed, rivaling that of the flow er- 
 ing locust of May and of the linden in July. 
 
 The mistakes of our lesser poets in dealing with 
 nature themes might furnish me with many a text in 
 this connection. Thus one of them makes the call of 
 the phoebe-bird prominent in August. One w^ould 
 infer from the poem that the phoebe was not heard 
 during any other month. Now it is possible that 
 the poet heard the phoebe in August, but if so, the 
 occurrence was exceptional, and it is more proba- 
 ble that it was the wood pewee that he heard. The 
 phoebe is most noticeable in April and early May, 
 and its characteristic call is not often heard till the 
 sun is well up in the sky. Most of our song-birds 
 are silent in August, or sing only fitfully, as do the 
 
 204 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 song sparrow and the oriole. The real August song- 
 ster, and the bird that one comes to associate with 
 the slow, drowsy days, is the indigo-bird. After 
 midsummer its song, delivered from the top of some 
 small tree in the pasture or a bushy field, falls upon 
 the ear with a peculiar languid, midsummery effect. 
 The boys and girls gathering raspberries and black- 
 berries hear it ; the stroller through the upland fields, 
 or lounger in the shade of maple or linden, probably 
 hears no bird-song but this, if he even distinguishes 
 this from the more strident insect voices. The plum- 
 age of the bird is more or less faded by this time, 
 the vivid indigo of early June is lightly brushed with 
 a dull sooty shade, but the song is nearly as full as 
 the earlier strain, and in the dearth of bird voices is 
 even more noticeable. I do not now recall that any 
 of our poets have embalmed this little cerulean song- 
 ster in their verse. 
 
 One may also occasionally hear the red-eyed vireo 
 in August, but it is low tide with him too. His song 
 has a reminiscent air, like that of the indigo. The 
 whip-poor-will calls fitfully in this month, and may 
 be heard even in September; but he quickly checks 
 himself, as if he knew it was out of season. In the 
 Adirondacks I have heard the speckled Canada 
 warbler in August, and the white-throated sparrow. 
 But nearly all the migratory birds begin to get rest- 
 less during this month. They cut loose from their 
 nesting-haunts and drift through the woods in pro- 
 
 205 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 misciiods bands, and many of them start on their 
 southern journey. From my woods along the Hud- 
 son the warblers all disappear before the middle of 
 the month. Some of them are probably in hiding 
 during the moulting season. The orioles begin to 
 move south about the middle of the month, and by 
 the first of September the last of them have passed. 
 They occasionally sing in a suppressed tone during 
 this migration, probably the young males trying their 
 instruments. It is at this time, when full of froUc 
 and mischief, like any other emigrants with faces 
 set to new lands, that they make such havoc in the 
 Hudson River vineyards. They seem to puncture 
 the grapes in the spirit of pure wantonness, or as if 
 on a wager as to who can puncture the most. The 
 swallows — the cliff and the barn — all leave in 
 August, usually Dy the 20th, though the swift may 
 be seen as late as October. I notice that our poets 
 often detain the swallows much beyond the proper 
 date. One makes them perch upon the barn in Oc- 
 tober. Another makes them noisy about the eaves 
 in Indian summer. An English poet makes the swal- 
 low go at November's bidding. The tree swallow may 
 often be seen migrating in countless numbers along 
 the coast in early October, but long ere this date the 
 barn and the cliif swallows are in tropical climes. 
 They begin to flock, and apparently rehearse the 
 migrating programme, in July. 
 
 The boboHnks go in early August with the red- 
 
 206 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 shouldered starlings, and along the Potomac and 
 Chesapeake Bay become the reed-birds of sports- 
 men. One often hears them in this month calling 
 from high in the air as they journey southward from 
 more northern latitudes. 
 
 About the most noticeable bird of August in New 
 York and New England is the yellowbird, or gold- 
 finch. This is one of the last birds to nest, seldom 
 hatching its egg3 till late in July. It seems as if a 
 particular kind of food were required to rear its 
 brood, which cannot be had at an earlier date. The 
 seed of the common thistle is apparently its main- 
 stay. There is no prettier sight at this season than 
 a troop of young goldfinches, led by their parents, 
 going from thistle to thistle along the roadside and 
 pecking the ripe heads to pieces for the seed. The 
 plaintive call of the young is one of the charac- 
 teristic August sounds. Their nests are frequently 
 destroyed, or the eggs thrown from them, by the 
 terrific July thunder-showers. Last season a pair 
 had a nest on the slender branch of a maple in front 
 of the door of the house where I was staying. The 
 eggs were being deposited, and the happy pair had 
 many a loving conversation about them many times 
 each day, when one afternoon a very violent storm 
 arose which made the branches of the trees stream 
 out like wildly disheveled hair, quite turning over 
 those on the windward side, and emptying the pretty 
 nest of its eggs. In such cases the birds build anew, 
 
 207 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 • — a delay that may bring the incubation into 
 August. Such an accident had probably befallen a 
 pair of wliich I one season made this note in my 
 note-book, under date of August 6 : — 
 
 "A goldfinches' nest in the maple-tree near the 
 window Avhere I write, the female sitting on four pale 
 bluish-white eggs ; the male feeds her on the nest ; 
 whenever she hears his voice she calls incessantly, 
 much after the manner of the young birds, — the 
 only case I recall of the sitting bird calling while in 
 the act of incubation. The male evidently brings the 
 food in his crop, or at least well back in his beak or 
 throat, as it takes him several moments to deliver it 
 to his mate, which he does by separate morsels. The 
 male, when disturbed by a rival, utters the same 
 note as he pursues his enemy from point to point 
 that the female does when calling to him. It does 
 not sound like a note of anger, but of love and con- 
 fidence." 
 
 As the bird-songs fail, the insect harpers and fid- 
 dlers begin. August is the heyday of these musi- 
 cians. The katydid begins to " work her chromatic 
 reed " early in the month, and with her comes that 
 pulsing, purring monotone of the little pale tree- 
 crickets. These last fill the August twilight with a 
 soft, rhythmic undertone of sound, which forms a 
 sort of background for the loud, strident notes of the 
 katydids. 
 
 August, too, is the month of the screaming, high* 
 
 208 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 sailing hawks. The young are now fully fledged, 
 and they love to circle and scream far above the 
 mountain's crest all the tranquil afternoon. Some- 
 times one sees them against the slowly changing 
 and swelling thunder-heads that so often burden 
 the horizon at this season. 
 
 It is on the dewy August mornings that one notices 
 the webs of the little spiders in the newly mown 
 meadows. They look like gossamer napkins spread 
 out upon the grass, — thousands of napkins far 
 and near. The farmer looks upon it as a sign of 
 rain; but the napkins are there every day; only a 
 heavier dew makes them more pronounced one 
 morning than another. 
 
 Along the paths where my walks oftenest lead me 
 in August, in rather low, bushy, wet grounds, the 
 banner flower is a species of purple boneset, or trum- 
 pet-weed, so called, I suppose, because its stem is 
 hollow. It often stands up seven or eight feet high, 
 crowned with a great mass of dull purple bloom, and 
 leads the ranks of lesser weeds and plants like a 
 great chieftain. Its humbler servitors are white 
 boneset and swamp milkweed, while climbing bone- 
 set trails its wreaths over the brookside bushes not 
 far away. A much more choice and brilliant purple, 
 like some invasion of metropolitan fashion into a 
 rural congregation, is given to a near-by marsh by the 
 purple loosestrife. During the latter half of August 
 the bog is all aflame with it. There is a wonderful 
 
 209 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 style about this plant, either singly or in masses. Its 
 suggestion is as distinctly feminine as that of the 
 trumpet-weed is masculine. 
 
 When the poet personifies August, let him fill her 
 arms with some of these flowers, or place upon her 
 brows a spray of wild clematis, which during this 
 month throws its bridal wreaths so freely over our 
 bushy, unkempt waysides and fence corners. After 
 you have crowned and adored your personified 
 August in this way, then give the finishing touch 
 with the scarlet raceme of the cardinal flower, 
 flaming from the sheaf of ranker growths in her 
 arms. How this brilliant bit of color, glassing 
 itself in a dark, still pool, lights up and affects the 
 vague, shadowy background upon which it is pro- 
 jected ! 
 
 In August the "waters blossom." This is the 
 term the country people in my section apply to a 
 phenomenon which appears in the more sluggish 
 streams and ponds during this month. When ex- 
 amined closely, the water appears to be filled with 
 particles of very fine meal. I suspect, though I do 
 not know, that these floating particles are the spores 
 of some species of fresh-water alga; or they may 
 be what are called zoospores. The algse are at their 
 rankest during August. Great masses of some 
 species commonly called " frogs' spawn " rise to the 
 surface of the Hudson and float up and down with 
 the tide, — green unclean-looking masses, many 
 
 210 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 yards In extent. The dog-star seems to invoke these 
 fermenting masses from the deep. They suggest 
 decay, but they are only the riot of the lower forms 
 of vegetable life. 
 
 August, too, is the month of the mushrooms, — 
 those curious abnormal flowers of a hidden or sub- 
 terranean vegetation, invoked by heat and moisture 
 from darkness and decay as the summer wanes. Do 
 they not suggest something sickly arid uncanny in 
 Nature? her unwholesome dreams and night fan- 
 cies, her pale superstitions ; her myths and legends 
 and occult lore taking shape in them, spectral and 
 fantastic, at times hinting something libidinous and 
 unseemly: vegetables with gills, fibreless, bloodless; 
 earth-flesh, often offensive, unclean, immodest, often 
 of rare beauty and delicacy, of many shades and 
 colors — creamy white, red, yellow, brown, — now 
 the hue of an orange, now of a tomato, now of a 
 potato, some edible, some poisonous, some shaped 
 like spread umbrellas, some like umbrellas reversed 
 by the wind, — the sickly whims and fancies of 
 Nature, some imp of the earth mocking and tra- 
 vestying the things of the day. Under my evergreens 
 I saw a large white disk struggling up through the 
 leaves and the debris like the full moon through 
 clouds and vapors. This simile is doubtless sug- 
 gested to my mind by a line of a Southern poet, 
 Madison Cawein, which I look upon as one of the 
 best descriptive lines in recent nature poetry : — 
 
 211 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 ** The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white, 
 Through loosening loam. 
 
 Sometimes this moon of the loam is red, or goldeiij 
 or bronzed; or it is so small that it suggests only a 
 star. The shy wood folk seem to know the edible 
 mushrooms, and I notice often eat away the stalk 
 and nibble at the top or pileus. 
 
 One day two friends came to see me with some- 
 thing wrapped up in their handkerchiefs. They said 
 they had brought their dinner with them, — they 
 had gathered it in the woods as they came along, 
 — beefsteak mushrooms. The beefsteak was duly 
 cooked and my friends ate of it with a relish. A por- 
 tion was left, which my dog attacked rather doubt- 
 ingly, and then turned away from, with the look of 
 one who has been cheated. Mock-meat, that is what 
 it was, — a curious parody upon a steak, as the dog 
 soon found out. I know a man who boasts of hav- 
 ing identified and eaten seventy-five different spe- 
 cies. When the season is a good one for mushrooms, 
 he snaps his fingers at the meat trust, even going to 
 the extent of drying certain kinds to be used for 
 soup in the winter. 
 
 The decay of a mushroom parodies that of real 
 flesh, — a kind of unholy rotting ending in black- 
 ness and stench. Some species imitate jelly, — mock 
 calves'-foot jelly, which soon melts down and be- 
 comes an uncanny mass. Occasionally I see a blue- 
 
 212 
 
AUGUST DAYS 
 
 gilled mushroom, —an infusion of indigo in its cells. 
 How forbidding it looks! Yesterday in the Au^^^ust 
 woods I saw a tiny mushroom like a fairy parasol of 
 a Japanese type, — its top delicately fluted. 
 
 During the steaming, dripping, murky, and 
 muggy dog-days that sometimes come the latter 
 half of August, how this fungus growth runs riot in 
 the woods and in the fields too, — a kind of sacri- 
 legious vegetation mocking Nature's saner and more 
 wholesome handiwork, — the flowers of death, 
 vegetable spectres. 
 
 August days are for the most part tranquil days; 
 the fret and hurry of the season are over. We are on 
 the threshold of autumn. Nature dreams and med- 
 itates; her veins no longer thrill with the eager, 
 frenzied sap ; she ripens and hardens her growths ; 
 she concentrates; she begins to make ready for 
 winter. The buds for next year are formed during 
 this month, and her nuts and seeds and bulbs finish 
 storing up food for the future plant. 
 
 From my outlook upon the Hudson the days are 
 placid, the river is placid, the boughs of the tree? 
 gently wag, the bees make vanishing-lines through 
 the air. The passing boats create a great commotion 
 in the water, converting it from a cool, smooth, 
 shadowy surface to one pulsing and agitated. The 
 pulsations go shoreward in long, dark, rolling, glassy 
 swells. The grapes are purpling in the vineyard ; 
 the apples and pears are coloring in the orchard ; 
 
 213 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 the corn is glazing in the field; the oats are ripe 
 for the cradle ; grasshoppers poise and shuffle above 
 the dry road; yellow butterflies mount upward face 
 to face ; thistledown drifts by on the breeze ; a 
 sparrow sings fitfully now and then ; dusty wheelmen 
 go by on their summer vacation tours ; boats ap- 
 pear upon the river loaded with gay excursionists, 
 and on every hand Ihe stress and urge of life have 
 abated. 
 
VIII 
 BABES IN THE WOODS 
 
 ONE day in early May, Ted and I made an expe- 
 dition to the Shattega, astill, dark, deep stream 
 that loiters silently through the woods not far from 
 my cabin. As we paddled along, we were on the alert 
 for any bit of wild life of bird or beast that might 
 turn up. Ted was especially on the lookout for 
 birds'-nests, and many times I pushed the boat up 
 close to the bank that he might explore with his slen- 
 der arm the cavities the woodpeckers had made in 
 the dead tree trunks that bordered or overhung the 
 stream. Only once did he bring out a handful of ma- 
 terial that suggested a bird's-nest, and on examining 
 it, sure enough, there was a bird's e^g^ the egg of the 
 chickadee. The boy had clutched the nest, egg and 
 all* and had made such a wreck of the former that 
 we concluded it was useless to try to restore it and 
 return it to the cavity. So Ted added the egg to his 
 collection, and, I suspect, regretted the result of his 
 eager dive into the hollow stub less than I did. 
 
 There were so many of these abandoned wood- 
 pecker chambers in the small dead trees as we went 
 along that I determined to secure the section of a tree 
 
 215 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 containing a good one to take home and put up for 
 the bluebirds. *' Why don't the bluebirds occupy them 
 here ? " inquired Ted. " Oh," I rephed, " bluebirds 
 do not come so far into the woods as this. They 
 prefer nesting-places in the open, and near human 
 habitations." After carefully scrutinizing several of 
 the trees, we at last saw one that seemed to fill the bill. 
 It was a small dead tree trunk seven or eight inches 
 in diameter, that leaned out over the water, and 
 from which the top had been broken. The hole, 
 round and firm, was ten or twelve feet above us. 
 After considerable effort I succeeded in breaking the 
 stub off near the ground, and brought it down into 
 the boat. " Just the thing," I said ; " surely the blue- 
 birds will prefer this to an artificial box." But, lo 
 and behold, it already had bluebirds in it! We 
 had not heard a sound or seen a feather till the 
 trunk was in our hands, when, on peering into the 
 cavity, we discovered two young bluebirds about 
 half grown. This was a predicament indeed! My 
 venture had proved to be more rash and regretta- 
 ble than Ted's. 
 
 Well, the only thing w^e could do was to stand the 
 tree trunk up again as well as we could, and as near 
 as we could to where it had stood before. This was 
 no easy thing. But after a time we had it fairly 
 well replaced, one end standing in the mud of the 
 shallow water and the other resting against a tree. 
 This left the hole to the nest about ten feet below and 
 
 216 
 
BABES IN THE WOODS 
 
 to one side of its former position. Just then we heard 
 the voice of one of the parent birds, and we quickly 
 paddled to the other side of the stream, fifty feet 
 away, to watch her proceedings, sayin<; to each other, 
 "Too bad," "Too bad." The mother bird bad a 
 large beetle in her beak. She alighted upon a limb a 
 few feet above the former site of her nest, looked 
 down upon us, uttered a note or two, and then 
 dropped down confidently to the point in the vacant 
 air where the entrance to her nest had been but a few 
 moments before. Here she hovered on the wing a 
 second or two, looking for something that was not 
 there, and then returned to the perch she had just 
 left, apparently not a little disturbed. She hammered 
 the beetle rather excitedly upon the liml) a few times, 
 as if it were in some way at fault, then dropped 
 down to try for her nest again. Only vacant air 
 there ! She hovers and hovers, her blue wings flicker- 
 ing in the checkered light; surely that precious hole 
 must be there; but no, again she is baffled, and again 
 she returns to her perch, and mauls the poor beetle 
 till it must be reduced to a pulp. Then she makes 
 a third attempt, then a fourth, and a fifth, and a 
 sixth, till she becomes very much excited. "What 
 could have happened ? am I dreaming ? has that 
 beetle hoodooed me ? " she seems to say, and in 
 her dismay she lets the bug drop, and looks l^ewil- 
 deredly about her. Then she flies away through the 
 woods, calling. "Going for her mate," I said to 
 
 217 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Ted. " She is in deep trouble, and she wants sym- 
 pathy and help." 
 
 In a few minutes we heard her mate answer! and 
 presently the two birds came hurrying to the spot, 
 both with loaded beaks. They perched upon the 
 familiar limb above the site of the nest, and the mate 
 seemed to say, "My dear, what has happened to 
 you ? I can find that nest." And he dived down, and 
 brought up in the empty air just as the mother had 
 done. How he winnowed it with his eager wings! 
 how he seemed to bear on to that blank space ! His 
 mate sat regarding him intently, confident, I think, 
 that he would find the clew. But he did not. Baffled 
 and excited, he returned to the perch beside her. 
 Then she tried again, then he rushed down once 
 more, then they both assaulted the place, but it 
 would not give up its secret. They talked, they en- 
 couraged each other, and they kept up the search, 
 now one, now the other, now both together. Some- 
 tim<is they dropped down to within a few feet of the 
 entrance to the nest, and we thought they would 
 surely find it. No, their minds and eyes were in- 
 tent only upon that square foot of space where the 
 nest had been. Soon they withdrew to a large limb 
 many feet higher up, and seemed to say to them- 
 selves, "Well, it is not there, but it must be here 
 somewhere ; let us look about." A few minutes 
 elapsed, when we saw the mother bird spring from 
 her perch and go straight as an arrow to the nest. 
 
 218 
 
BABES IN THE WOODS 
 
 Her maternal eye had proved the quicker. She had 
 found her young. Something Hke reason and com- 
 mon-sense had come to her rescue; she had taken 
 time to look about, and behold! there was that 
 precious doorway. She thrust her head into it, then 
 sent back a call to her mate, then went farther in, 
 then withdrew. " Yes, it is true, they are here, they 
 are here!" Then she went in again, gave them the 
 food in her beak, and then gave place to her mate, 
 who, after similar demonstrations of joy, also gave 
 them his morsel. 
 
 Ted and I breathed freer. A burden had been 
 taken from our minds and hearts, and we went cheer- 
 fully on our way. We had learned something, too; 
 we had learned that when in the deep woods you 
 think of bluebirds, bluebirds may be nearer you 
 than you think. 
 
 The young rabbits I saw one day in early May 
 on the edge of a clearing in the woods suggested 
 babies quite as much as the bluebirds did. The 
 mother had come out of the cover of the rocks and 
 bushes and made her nest on a dry knoll in the 
 edge of a muck swamp where the ground had been 
 cleared only a week or two before. The man at 
 work with the grubbing-hoe came near striking into 
 the nest, when the young sprang out. He caught 
 them and put them back under their cover and 
 resumed his work in another place. In the aftcr- 
 
 219 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 noon I happened that way. He told me what he had 
 found, and pointed to the spot a few yards off. I ap- 
 proached the place cautiously and began to scan 
 the ground at my feet. There was no bush or stump 
 or weed or stone to distract my eye, — only the back 
 of a small knoll, brown with fern stubble and dry 
 fern leaves. 
 
 "I can see no nest or rabbits here," I said to 
 George. "Where are they?" So he came up, and 
 stooping over, lifted up a tiny coverlid of dry fern 
 stalks, in which were mingled tufts of gray hair, and 
 disclosed a small depression in the ground, where 
 sat three little rabbits that one might almost have 
 held in the palm of his hand. Their ears were de- 
 pressed, their eyes shone, and their hearts beat fast. 
 In a moment they sprang out ; we covered them with 
 our hats and hands, and restored them to the nest 
 as gently as we could, pulling their blanket over 
 them. But they pushed their heads up through it and 
 between our fingers in their efforts to escape. We 
 held them down and finally quieted them, and then 
 carefully withdrew. I do not know how long they 
 remained in the nest, but when I came the next day 
 with some friends, we found the nest empty. One 
 of my friends, who was a naturalist, picked up the 
 cover of ferns and hair and examined it, and let it 
 fall in pieces to the ground. The weather was very 
 warm; we fancied the mother had taken her fam- 
 ily into the bush. A night or two after was very 
 
 220 
 
BABES IN THE WOODS 
 
 :old, with heavy frost. The day following I again 
 passed the nest, and was surprised to see two little 
 rabbits sitting side by side in it. As they did not 
 move, I touched them, and found them dead and 
 cold. The mother, on the approach of the cold wave, 
 had evidently brought her young back to the nest, 
 and having no cover over them, they had perished 
 of the frost. One would have thought she would 
 stay by them to keep them warm, or else cover them 
 with the fragments of the old blanket. Though of 
 course it is possible that she herself had fallen a 
 victim to some enemy, and that the young had died 
 of hunger, seeking in their last extremity the cradle 
 in v/liich they were born. The fate of the third one 
 I do not know. I left the two babies in the nest as I 
 had found them. 
 
 On the third day I came that way again with Ted. 
 To my surprise, the two baby rabbits had disap- 
 peared. But what was that sticking up through the 
 soil in the bottom of the cavity? It was the end 
 of one tiny ear, and beneath it we found the two 
 young rabbits carefully buried. We exhumed them 
 and brought them forth. They had been literally 
 buried. What or who had performed these last sad 
 rites? The mother? I know not. Not a hair of 
 them had been injured, as far as we could see, but 
 the little bodies had been carefully put from sight, 
 not by the use of leaves, as the robins covered the 
 children in the nursery tale, but by soil. We re- 
 
 221 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 placed them in their double grave and went on our 
 way. 
 
 It has since occurred to me that this burjang was 
 probably the work of a species of beetle, which re^ 
 moved the ground beneath them, letting the bodies 
 settle into the earth. 
 
IX 
 
 A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 WE lost February and found August, for 
 Jamaica is a country cursed with perpetual 
 summer. In four days we steamed straight through 
 two seasons. When we left Philadelphia on the 30th 
 of January, 1902, the rigors of midwinter were 
 upon us, a typical northeast snowstorm was settling 
 down to its best work, the mercury was low in the 
 teens, the ship's decks were piled with snow, and the 
 friends that came to see us off shivered in their 
 warmest wraps. The steamer made her way slowly 
 through the drifting ice and sodden snow sheets that 
 covered the Delaware, and did not reach the clear 
 waters of the bay till night had fallen. 
 
 The next day winter seemed far behind us. We 
 were in May; the day after we ran into June, and 
 the shade of the awnings began to be acceptable ; the 
 third day we were in July ; the captain blossomed 
 out in his white duck suit; we sought the shade of 
 the ship eagerly ; on the fourth day it was August, 
 and August it continued all the while that we were 
 in Jamaica. 
 
 On the third day, in the July w^eather, as I came 
 
 223 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 up on deck in the morning, I caught my first sight 
 of tropic seas, — emerald, indigo, violet, blending 
 and shifting there over the surface of the placid 
 water, and suggesting some realm of fable and 
 romance. 
 
 AYhat are those white birds that go in loose flocks, 
 
 skimming the surface of the water, then suddenly 
 
 disappearing ? a snowbird where snow never falls ? 
 
 Then, as more appear, it suddenly dawns upon me 
 
 that I am seeing my first flying-fish. No bird has 
 
 such a strenuous, machine-like flight as that. I am 
 
 on the shady side of the ship, and the afternoon sun, 
 
 falling upon the winged fishes, makes them, against 
 
 the deep blue of the sea, appear almost snow white. 
 
 Every few minutes, one or two, or a dozen, would 
 
 suddenly break from the water and go spinning away 
 
 from the ship as straight as arrows, striking the water 
 
 again several hundred feet away. It is not the flight 
 
 of a bird but of a toy machine, something wound up 
 
 and, if rightly launched, calculated to go fifty or one 
 
 hundred yards in a right line. It is a tour de force. 
 
 There is no freedom or mastery in it as in a bird's 
 
 fliirht. It reminds one of the excursions of certain 
 
 persons into poetry, — my own, for instance. How 
 
 determined it is ! but how restricted and mechanical ! 
 
 Sometimes the flyer would suddenly collapse after a 
 
 few feet, as if it had not launched itself at just the 
 
 right angle. Often it would cut through the crests 
 
 of the small waves, never swerving from a right 
 
 224 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 line. No power to swoop, or soar, or ride the air; 
 scales instead of feathers; fins in lieu of quills; a 
 creature out of its element, making surprising head- 
 way there for a brief moment; very pretty and 
 novel, but, I fancy, showing none of the grace and 
 mastery that it does beneath the wave. At night one 
 fell upon the deck of the ship, caught up and car- 
 ried there, the officer said, by a gust of wind. I think 
 an ingenious person might construct a tin fish with 
 wings that would spin through the air in much tlie 
 same way. 
 
 The flight of the fish is evidently its play, and not 
 its serious business in life, though it is suggested 
 that it is also a means of enabling it to escape its 
 enemies. These fish seemed on this occasion to be 
 racing with one another, like the dolphins, or as if 
 on a wager as to which could stay in the air the 
 longest and cover the greatest distance. 
 
 If, in the evolution of animal life upon the globe, 
 the birds emerged from the fishes and reptiles, as 
 the biologists teach, is this sport of the flying-fish nil 
 that now remains of the grand impulse tliat brought 
 about that transformation ? An upward striving of 
 the creative energy that changed scales into feathers, 
 and fins into wings, and peopled the air with the 
 thousand forms of bird life, now sur\4ving only in 
 this pretty and odd freak of the flying-fish ? 
 
 On the fourth day, in the midsummer tempera- 
 ture, we began to thread our way amid the tropic or 
 
 225 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 serai tropic islands, the Bahamas, — San Salvador 
 there diraly seen on our right, and, later. Crooked 
 Island in fuller view upon our left. Soon the moun- 
 tains of Cuba were dim shadows there to the west 
 of us, and on the morning of the fifth day, the Blue 
 INIountains of Jamaica were dimly seen on the 
 southern horizon. A few hours later they stood up 
 like larger Catskills, presenting, in their higher 
 peaks, much the same outlines. 
 
 The harbor of Port Antonio, which we entered in 
 mid-afternoon, is like a pocket in a woman's dress; 
 ycu would never suspect its presence. Tucked away 
 in one of the folds of the mountainous coast, it 
 makes no sign till the bow of the ship begins to poke 
 its way in. Small and cozy and picturesque, as I 
 looked down at the water against the steamer's 
 side, it seemed as ])lue and opaque as blue paint. 
 The dense, stiff, shining foliage of the vegetation 
 upon the slopes about us and the rows of cocoanut 
 palms upon the beach were novel sights to northern 
 eyes. 
 
 How absurd seemed the woolen blankets and over- 
 coats we were obliged to carry to our lodging-house. 
 We spent but one night in Port Antonio, in a clean 
 lodging-house kept by a Canadian family lately 
 from New Brunswick. I shall not soon forget a slen- 
 der, solemn-faced little girl of five or six years, who 
 followed me about, eying me very seriously and in- 
 tently, till she finally said : " I know you are Santa 
 
 226 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 Claus, are n't you ? I know you are, and I *m f(oiii^' 
 to tell you what I want. I want a cradle for my dolly 
 and a new hat and a Httle gold watch," — all this 
 said very slowly and solemnly, and with a sort of 
 hushed, awed air, closely watching my face the while. 
 I saw the child was in dead earnest, so I told her I 
 was not Santa Claus. " Yes, you are, I know you 
 are," she replied. " Will you bring me these things ? 
 I should like them now. Is your pack here ? " I 
 could not shake her off, and finally had to tell her 
 that my pack was on the steamer, and that I would 
 see her in the morning if it contained the things 
 she wanted. Poor child! her faith in Santa Claus, 
 and her belief that she had at last caught him, was 
 pathetic. 
 
 The next morning we took the train to Kingston, 
 going second class as we should have done in Eng- 
 land. A colored conductor, colored brakemen, and 
 colored station agents were novelties to us. 
 
 Here is a glimpse of a winter day, February o, 
 in Kingston : " I am sitting on a veranda, shut of! 
 from the street by a high brick wall pierced by a 
 tall gate, and flanked by a parched flower garden 
 where a few roses only are in bloom. No rain to 
 speak of since last fall. An atmosphere like that 
 of our August. Mercury 82°; soft, familiar clouds 
 slowly drifting over a blue midsunnner sky. Tur- 
 key buzzards sailing, forever sailing, far and near ; 
 their shadows sweep across the low roofs of the 
 
 227 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 houses Many swifts — the palm swift — diving in 
 the air, — smaller and more nimble of wing than 
 our swift. The low gray shingle roofs of the houses 
 visible on all hands ; women constantly passing in 
 the streets with trays or baskets on their heads 
 loaded with fruit, or yams, or cooked food, or other 
 wares, and sounding their shrill, wild street cries. 
 Can't understand one of them. Now a yellow man 
 with a push-cart with some cooling drink goes by. 
 It seems as if a large percentage of the population 
 must be on the street peddling, — all negroes. Then 
 comes the familiar hum and grind of the trolley 
 cars. Fleet-footed lizards dart here and there in the 
 shrubbery, or on the garden wall. A large green 
 one with a purple tail. The Blue Mountains back 
 of New Castle stand up against the sky, their tops 
 muffled in clouds. Occasionally a mass of cloud 
 drifts out toward the plain below and lets down thin 
 sheets of rain, but does not come far. The arid plain 
 seems to dissipate it or drive it back." 
 
 To escape from the tourist-infested portion of the 
 island and to get a taste of its wilder interior, we 
 engaged a carriage and driver, and set out early one 
 morning along the superb road that leads to Spanish 
 Town and thence on to Bog Walk and Ewarton. 
 
 The road was smooth and hard but dusty, and 
 the vegetation on either side — vines, bushes, trees, 
 often forming a solid impenetrable wall — was pow- 
 dered with dust as in midsummer at home. The 
 
 22S 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 most common vine by the roadside everj^vhere in 
 Jamaica is a wild morning-glory of many colors, 
 similar to our own, but growing far more luxuri- 
 antly, and the crimson bougainvillea. 
 
 As you pass along the country highways, you 
 come to have a half-defined feeling that some time 
 in the past there must have been a huge greenhouse 
 here that has gone to decay, and that the plants and 
 shrubs and vines have all escaped and gone wild, 
 invading the fields and woods, and running over 
 the banks and fences. Tender exotics that one sees 
 at home carefully nursed in the windows by our 
 women are here the common weeds by the road- 
 side. 
 
 This trip into the interior lasted five days, tak- 
 ing us through the wilder, ruggeder portions of the 
 island for about eighty miles, ending on the railroad 
 at Balaclava. It brought us pretty close to the real 
 life of the people, and, a few times, a httle closer to 
 wild nature than was conducive to our comfort. 
 Touch Nature too familiarly here, — sit down by 
 the roadside, or recline under a tree, — and she pep- 
 pers you with a kind of live pepper in the shape 
 of minute ticks, called also grass lice, that pene- 
 trate your clothing and make you burn and itch, 
 until by the aid of your companions you have re- 
 moved the last adhesive speck from your skin. 
 These Uving germs take root very quickly, and if 
 left, grow to the size of a small beau. They prey 
 
 229 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 upon the cattle and other Hve-stock. One could see 
 them on the under, less hairy parts of the cows, 
 looking like large warts. We often saw a large black 
 bird, the kling-kling, perched on the backs of the 
 cattle, making a meal off these gorged ticks. One 
 day one of our party made an excursion of a few rods 
 into the bush, and returned with his coat skirts brow^n 
 with these dust-like torments. Some colored girls 
 who chanced to be passing came to our aid, and 
 helped whip the ticks off with a certain leafy shrub 
 that they said was death to them. No, you can- 
 not make love to Nature in the tropics as you can in 
 our zone. Bew^are how you embrace her. She is a 
 lousy beggar, a stinging reptile, a brazen wanton, or 
 a barbaric princess, — just as you happen to find her. 
 Ah, me ! even at her best she has not the constancy, 
 the tenderness, the self-forgetfulness, of the Nature 
 of more temperate climes. I must make one excep- 
 tion: these Jamaican streams and rivers, beautiful 
 with the beauty of the purest mountain brooks, have 
 nothing suggestive of the tropics about them ; one's 
 heart goes out to them at once. Theirs are the 
 clear, shining faces of old friends, of many a trout 
 camp in the Catskills and Adirondack w^oods. 
 Limpid and pure as melted snow, no sediment, no 
 earth stain, the pebbles and boulders with which they 
 are paved are washed and scoured as if yesterday 
 had been a day of purification with them ; they lack 
 only the coolness of our very best mountain streams. 
 
 230 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 One would stoop in his thirst to drink from a copious 
 limpid spring gusliing out of the mountain-side, but 
 experience a feeling of surprise, if not of repugnance, 
 to find the water as warm as in a bathing-pool. This 
 cannot be the true source, you half think ; the water 
 must have been flowing a long way in the sun some- 
 where. One is apt to forget that the temperature of 
 a spring represents, pretty nearly, the average yearly 
 temperature of a locality. They have a way in Ja- 
 maica of reducing the temperature of the drinking- 
 water many degrees by letting it drip slowly through 
 a porous earthen vessel into a pitcher beneath it. 
 Treated thus, one soon comes to regard it as very 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Our course that first day soon brought us to the 
 Rio Cobre, along the rocky banks of which the road 
 leisurely took its way to Bog Walk. All the most 
 pleasing features of a clear, rapid, boulder-strewn 
 mountain river, the Rio Cobre presents. The rocks 
 are of limestone, old, worm-eaten, and very pictur- 
 esque, and the great lucid pools suggested trout and 
 salmon, though they held nothing finer than mullets. 
 On this stream we passed the plant that turns the 
 force of its falls and rapids into electricity, and so 
 furnishes the power that runs the trolley lines in 
 Kingston, twenty miles away. 
 
 We passed the night at a lodging-house (no hotels 
 in the country in Jamaica) in Ewarton, and were 
 fairly well cared for by the yellow landlady and her 
 
 231 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 son. The most novel scene I witnessed at Ewarton 
 was that of two old negroes next morning pounding 
 coffee in big mortar-like vessels made out of the 
 trunks of trees. They used a heavy club, and punched 
 and punched and stirred the green coffee to loosen 
 the chaff or skins from the berry, keeping up in the 
 mean time a wild, plaintive chant to wliich their 
 pounding was timed. They were grizzled and old, 
 and the scene was curious and interesting. Yes, and I 
 recall a famishing dog, scarcely more than a walking 
 skeleton, going about the street licking the ground 
 where a little flour had been spilt. 
 
 From Ewarton our course took us over wooded 
 hills and mountains, with here and there a rude 
 clearing, to Chapelton in the valley of the Rio 
 Minho, a distance of about twenty-five miles. My 
 son and Mr. Kellogg, to work off some of their super- 
 fluous American energy, walked the whole distance, 
 fording the Rio Minho a half-dozen or more times in 
 the course of the afternoon. I stuck to the carriage, 
 walking only when I got tired of riding. Bridges are 
 few over these rapid Jamaican streams, but fording 
 them at this season was a trifling matter. On many 
 of the smaller streams, in lieu of a bridge, a wall is 
 built across and the space above it filled in with 
 gravel, resulting in a wide, shallow sheet of water 
 through which carts and pedestrians pass easily, — 
 a new device in road-making to our eyes. 
 
 I walked several hours up the valley of the Rio 
 
 232 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 Minho, a very beautiful stream. A colored boy o! 
 twelve, with a singularly sweet face, joined us, and 
 clung closely to me, — a real little comrade. Finally 
 he said: "I like you, it does not tire me to walk 
 with you. When we likes a man, it is fun ; " again, 
 ** When we has pleasant company, it makes the way 
 seem short." Later he confessed: "I do love you, 
 and your son, too. When I love a man, I cannot 
 always tell him, but I can tell you." He said he 
 would write me a letter, so I wrote my name and 
 address on a dry bamboo leaf for him. He was a 
 winsome lad, and I shall not soon forget liim. 
 
 What does one see as he passes along the road in 
 the interior of Jamaica ? He sees a superb highway, 
 round and smooth and winding, leading on in front 
 of him, and on either hand bushes and trees and 
 woods; never an open, smooth, cleared field as at 
 home; at best, open glades and long vistas through 
 the groves of logwood and cotton wood. The log- 
 wood groves suggest orchards, — low, branching 
 trees, with curious fluted or beaded trunks and 
 smooth, yellowish, mottled bark, — each tree sug- 
 gesting a bundle of small columns welded together. 
 The effect was very novel and pretty. The cotton- 
 woods are wide-branching, sturdy-looking trees, 
 like our oaks. Few signs of agriculture as we know 
 it at home are visible; the wattled bamboo huts of 
 the negroes here and there in the bush are sur- 
 rounded by a few banana or breadfruit or orange 
 
 233 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 trees, with a little patch of half-cultivated yams; 
 there are few cattle, more donkeys, and many black, 
 lean pigs ; colored people on the road everywhere, 
 men, women, and children, — mostly women and 
 children, — with small or large burdens upon their 
 heads, going to their work in the bush or going to 
 and returning from market. The smallest bundle 
 is here carried upon the head. 
 
 I think it was this day that I first made the 
 jicquaintance of the sensitive plant, — " shame lady,'* 
 the natives call it. I saw a ball of delicate pink 
 bloom, the size of a boy's marble, amid a mass 
 of small, fine, pinnate leaves by the roadside. I 
 plucked the flower and a branch of the plant with it, 
 when lo ! as I turned my eyes from the flower to the 
 leaves, the latter were not the ones I thought I had 
 gathered. I plucked more, and then saw the sudden 
 change in the appearance of the leaves : the moment 
 they were touched they shut up hke a book, the 
 two halves hinging on the midrib. You stoop and 
 gather a spray of many-divided small leaves, — you 
 rise up with something in your hand that has an 
 entirely different aspect, the closed leaves present- 
 ing only sharp edges to you. Touch the plant with 
 your foot, or stick, ever so gently, and its aspect 
 changes in a twinkling. It is its way of hiding like 
 a sentient thing; the stems drop, the leaves close, 
 but the pretty flower is unchanged. Why so fear- 
 ful ? what is it hiding from ? of what advantage is 
 
 234 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 this extreme sensitiveness to it ? I could not find out. 
 I noticed that the falling rain did not cause it to 
 shut up. It took it about seven or eight minutes to 
 open its leaves again, which it did very slowly. The 
 plant belongs to the leguminous family. Indeed, 
 Jamaica is a wonderful country for pods and beans. 
 You see pod-bearing trees and bushes everpvhere, 
 and pick up on the seacoast huge black beans that 
 look like some rare polished stones. One day we 
 passed dense masses of low trees in bloom by the 
 roadside ; they looked like our honey-locust, except 
 that the blossoms were yellow. 
 
 On this day we passed through a dry section of 
 the country, where water was scarce ; and nearly 
 every colored boy or woman that we met carried a 
 long stick of sugar-cane. This was for drink. We 
 persuaded one boy to part with his six or eight feet 
 of cane, and thereafter for many miles three trav« 
 elers might have been seen eagerly gnawing at the 
 end of a section of the sweet, succulent stalk, and 
 chewing it with an air of placid content. The juice 
 slaked the thirst and was pleasant to the taste. By 
 attending closely to business, one could extract the 
 moisture just about fast enough to meet the hourly 
 wants of the system ; so that the gnawing and suck- 
 ing could go on indefinitely, or as long as the cane 
 
 held out. 
 
 By the roadside my son made an excursion into 
 a grove of wild oranges, and brought back a branch 
 
 235 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 of one of the trees with the nest of the Httle blue 
 quit upon it. The nest was made of dry grasses, and 
 was shaped hke a small crook-necked gourd; the 
 neck hooked over the limb so that the entrance to 
 it was on one side of the branch and the body of it 
 below the other side. It was very pretty, and I 
 carried it in the carriage for two days hoping to 
 bring it home with me, but it finally got hopelessly 
 crushed. 
 
 We saw no cultivation of the soil to speak of till 
 we reached a large sugar plantation in Judas Vale, 
 — one of the few large sugar estates that are still 
 worked in the island, — called Worthy Park, cover- 
 ing a large, oval, sunken valley several miles across. 
 Here were rich level bottoms covered w ith the green, 
 corn-like sugar-cane, and here sugar-making and 
 rum-making were being carried on by swarms of 
 negroes, in a large old mill with a huge overshot 
 water-wheel. It all smacked of the picturesque, 
 patriarchal, wasteful times. Things were done on 
 a large scale, but awkwardly, cumbrously: a vast 
 herd of oxen and mules to do the hauling, — six or 
 eight yoke of the former hitched to a huge, heavy 
 dray or wagon hauling sugar-cane and driven wildly 
 by as many men, with much running and yelling; 
 bushers and overseers of high and low degree; the 
 planter himself, a tj^ical colonial Englishman, 
 born on the island, — florid, burly, positive, out- 
 spoken, authoritative, dissatisfied, but hospitable 
 
 £36 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 to us strangers. The planter showed us through 
 his works from the rollers where the cane was be- 
 ing crushed and pressed to the cribs where the rum 
 was being distilled, and then invited us to his house 
 for luncheon. His men were paid mostly by piece 
 work. He said they were worth Httle at a stated 
 wage by the day or week. 
 
 From Worthy Park we took our way over the 
 mountain toward Chapelton, going down the long, 
 steep, peculiar " Old Woman's Hill " into the valley 
 of the beautiful Rio Minho. We saw flocks of green 
 parrots flying across the hill, — my first sight of a 
 wdld bright green bird. When we reached the ford 
 of the Rio Minho, there stood our little green heron, 
 looking very homelike to me. 
 
 " How far is it to Chapelton ? " we asked of a col- 
 ored man. 
 
 " Far enough, sah." 
 
 Several miles farther on we put the question to 
 another man. 
 
 " Not too far, sah." 
 
 The probable distance in miles to any given place 
 we could never get from a native in Jamaica. 
 
 Darkness came on, the team lagged, the road grew 
 hilly, and Chapelton seemed to recede before us. 
 Presently, long after dark, we saw far ahead of us, 
 in what seemed a bend in the road, brilliant lights 
 flashing out. Surely, we said, here is Chapelton, 
 and these are the lamps in the streets or in the win- 
 
 237 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 dows of the houses. But when we reached the place, 
 how bitter was our disappointment to find that the 
 hirhts came from huf^e fireflies ! There seemed to be 
 a firefly carnival in that particular spot. When one 
 of these insects passed through or over a tree and 
 sent forth his ray, one could see the foliage distinctly. 
 Photographers say that the light is sufficient to " fog " 
 a plate. It was yet a long, tiresome ride to Chapel- 
 ton, which w^e found on a hill above the river — a 
 straggling street of poor, dilapidated houses — about 
 ten o'clock. We succeeded in procuring lodging in 
 a house w^here, I am sure, some of the odors had 
 kept over from the times of the Spanish occupation, 
 and where the beds were as hard as the middle of 
 the road. I sat in the little stuffy sitting-room, tired 
 and sulky, Vv^hile my companions higgled with the 
 black landlady about charges. No grass could be 
 had in town for the horses, and these had finally 
 to be taken three miles out to pasture by our driver, 
 Andrew. 
 
 In the morning we drew the carriage up in front 
 of the lodging-house on the broad, grassy side of 
 the street to load on our traps. Before the luggage 
 was half on, a colored police officer appeared; with 
 great dignity and solemnity he ordered us to remove 
 the carriage, and asked for our names that he might 
 report us at Kingston for violating a village ordi- 
 nance. We had technically blockaded the street 
 (though ours seemed the only four-wheeled vehicle 
 
 238 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 in town, and a whole circus caravan coiiM have 
 marched past over the free space), and the law 
 must take cognizance of our offense. IIow stern 
 and unbending the colored corporal was! No mat- 
 ter if we were Americans and ignorant of the law, 
 the offense was the same, and we must answer at 
 the police court in Kingston. Andrew, the driver, 
 " sassed back," and would not give his name or resi- 
 dence, but I gave our names and the corporal wrote 
 them in his note-book. We hustled the wagon back 
 into the yard, gazed upon curiously by a crowd 
 of men, women, and boys that had gathered, put 
 on the rest of our things, and were off. Before we 
 were out of the village, we met the chief magistrate, 
 a hearty young Englishman, who had heard of 
 our arrival and wished to show ^Nlr. Kellogg some 
 attention. He waved aside the complaint of the 
 police corporal who came up just then, asked us 
 into his office, discussed our proposed route with 
 us, and gave us points, and letters of introduction 
 to police sergeants and others on the road. I saw 
 Andrew offer the police corporal, who had given us 
 a glimpse of the inviolability of village ordinances 
 in Jamaica, some copper coins to drink our health 
 with, but he refused them, and we were oft' in better 
 humor for Frankfield, distant another day's drive. 
 
 It was market day in Chapclton, and the road was 
 lined with women and children and donkeys on their 
 way to dispose of the produce of their little farms. 
 
 239 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 My son and Mr. Kellogg had gone on ahead of the 
 carriage, and we found them with their cameras set 
 up on the farther side of the Rio Minho, waiting to 
 photograph the women and donkeys as they forded 
 the stream. The women divined their purpose; a 
 large squad had collected in front of them, refusing 
 to be the subjects of a picture till they were paid. 
 "Give us money; give us money, bucra massa." 
 One old woman, between sixty and seventy, I should 
 say, had upon her head a burden that weighed 
 about as many pounds. I tossed her a penny to 
 placate her a bit, for she protested the most loudly 
 of any, and she tried to pick up the coin without 
 removing her burden, but could not quite do it, so 
 I got down from the wagon and handed it to her, 
 and got a graceful curtsy for my pains. Bowing 
 the head is out of the question with such burdens 
 as they carry. We bought tangerines and oranges 
 of the women; still they refused to move on, and 
 their numbers increased. One old woman had eggs 
 to sell. I handed one of them to Kellogg, and asked 
 him if he thought it was fresh. Now Kellogg has a 
 way of imitating the yea]p of a young chicken that 
 deceives the mother hen herself. He shook the egg 
 and placed it to his ear. Faint but clear came the 
 distressed yeap of the imprisoned chick. I heard 
 it, and others heard ; the old woman heard it, 
 and, as the cry continued, a curious, surprised, in- 
 credulous look came over her face. " I fear they are 
 
 240 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 not fresh," said Kellogg, and placed the egg to his 
 ear again with the same result. This was too much 
 for the old woman ; with a half-angry, half-alarmed 
 look, she reached forth her hand and said, " Gi' me 
 dat egg,'' and hurrying it into her basket, hastened 
 into the ford. The others followed, and the boys 
 got the exposure they wanted. 
 
 About mid-forenoon we overtook a colored man 
 with the inevitable machete, going to his work. We 
 walked with him a mile or more. He was a cheery, 
 bright, companionable sort of a man. His name was 
 John Good. He was going to grub out and clean 
 off a bit of land which he had near the river. 
 
 " Are you married, John Good ? " I asked. 
 
 " No, sah, not yet." 
 
 " Have you any children, John ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah, two." 
 
 John was living with the mother of his children, 
 but as yet he had neglected the ceremony of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 We wanted a bath, so John conducted us to a 
 large, beautiful, blue pool in the river, shaded by 
 bamboo, where we had our first Jamaican swim. 
 How delicious the water was, like that of our mid- 
 summer trout streams far from their source. John 
 said he would catch us a fish, a mullet, ^^^th his 
 hands. The feat seemed impossil^lc in such a lartro, 
 deep pool, but our black comrade came near doin*^ 
 it. We could see his dark form darling about at llio 
 
 241 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 bottom of the pool, like that of a huge muskrat, 
 feeling under rocks and roots of trees, and staying 
 down so long that our lungs ached in sympathy. 
 Only a few days before, he said, he had caught fish 
 there with his hands, but this time he could not 
 bring one to the surface. 
 
 We overtook girls and boys who had been to 
 market at Chapelton and were on their way home 
 with lightened burdens, some of them making a 
 journey of fifteen miles each way. How lithe and 
 supple some of the young women were, running and 
 dodging and playing games with the boys as they 
 went along, and never losing the burdens from their 
 heads! A squad of four or five kept with us for 
 many miles. I shall not soon forget their happy faces 
 and bright, playful ways. 
 
 At Frankfield we passed the night in a police 
 station, — the first experience of the kind any of us 
 had ever had. There was no lodging-house in the 
 place. We had a letter to the police sergeant, and 
 he took us into their snug, clean quarters, and made 
 us comfortable. 
 
 The most interesting sight w^e saw here was the 
 ruins of an old sugar-mill, — fragments of walls and 
 arches overgrown with vines and trees, and the iron 
 skeleton of a large water-wheel. The date in the 
 wall was 1773. At that time all the slopes and hills 
 about were covered with sugar-cane. 
 
 The next day, which was Sunday, we pushed on 
 
 U2 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 up the Rio Minho, often fording the shallow and 
 pellucid stream, falling in with colored men with 
 whom we walked and talked, crossing hills and 
 mountains on an easy grade, on to the home of 
 Colonel Hix, near Kendal. We had a letter to 
 Colonel Hix, and were received by him and his wife 
 with true Jamaican hospitality. The colonel is 
 superintendent of schools for a large section of the 
 island. He had served in our Civil War, and had 
 come to Jamaica from Illinois more than thirty 
 years before, in a very bad way from pulmonary 
 trouble. The climate had healed him, and he was 
 now as well as a man over seventy can reasonably 
 hope to be. He expected to finish his days in 
 Jamaica. His house was aptly named " Cozy," and 
 the hours we spent there are very pleasant to recall. 
 Colored people everywhere in their starched Sunday 
 clothes swarmed in the roads and lanes, going to 
 and from their huts amid the trees and bushes, 
 chatting, laughing, and supplying the human ele- 
 ment that this rather rude and broken landscape 
 needed. 
 
 The next day we continued our journey westward 
 toward the Cock Pit country and the valley of the 
 Black River, passing through a section where the 
 chief product was ginger. The boys and girls all 
 seemed occupied in peeling ginger roots, and before 
 every hut were little platforms where the roots were 
 drying. We passed a family moving, and appar- 
 
 243 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 ently canning all their goods and chattels upon 
 their heads, the women, as usual, having the biggest 
 bundles. Indeed, the number of people everywhere 
 in Jamaica upon the highway was a perpetual sur- 
 prise to us ; at least ten times as many as one would 
 see at home in our most populous country districts. 
 Market day comes several times a week, and every- 
 body seems to go to market with something to sell, — 
 a few shillings' worth of yams and oranges, or ba- 
 nanas, or eggs, or other farm produce. How familiar 
 became the sight of a woman, — dusty, sweating, 
 lean-shanked, but determined, — with her donkey 
 being led by a boy or girl, while she urged it from 
 behind, its huge panniers stuffed with grass and 
 a variety of country products, sometimes pigs and 
 poultry being visible. 
 
 This day, for the first time in the island, I saw two 
 smooth, nicely plowed fields on a side-hill, such as 
 one sees at home, — many acres free from bushes 
 and weeds, and apparently under thorough cultiva- 
 tion. I wondered at them much till I learned that 
 they were the property of two of my own country- 
 men, who were going into ginger farming. 
 
 We passed the night at Coleyville with the Rev. 
 Mr. Turner, to whom we had a letter, — a forlorn, 
 ramshackle place, but a hospitable host. Here 
 was this man, a Baptist clergyman in middle life, 
 spending his days in this wilderness amid these 
 rude, ignorant people, ministering to their souls and 
 
 244 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 to their sick bodies as best he could, living in an 
 old musty house with two or three slatternly ser- 
 vants, his wife in Scotland, and his two sons being 
 educated at Cambridge. Another year and a half 
 was to elapse before he could take a vacation to 
 visit them and his native land. His seemed to me 
 a bitter cup, but he was not making wry faces over 
 it. Let me again draw upon my note-book: "At 
 Dr. Turner's, Monday, February 10, 4 p. m., 1902. 
 A world of wooded knolls, very primitive. Alti- 
 tude three thousand feet, mercury 70°, a slow rain 
 falling ; wraiths of fog rising from the woods as at 
 home. Small thatched cabins of the natives here 
 and there visible through the trees. Like our back- 
 woods places, except the curious dumpling-shaped 
 hills scattered on all hands, — no long, sweeping 
 lines and curves. 
 
 " The note of the solitaire comes up from the wet 
 woods below us, almost identical with that of the 
 Oregon robin in Alaska, — very pleasing to me. 
 Now a mockingbird alights on a stake a few yards 
 from the house and sings for a moment, — the most 
 abundant songster about here, — not at all a fine 
 songster to me." 
 
 In the evening we sat about the table with much 
 talk, while the rain came steadily down. That 
 night we slept three in a bed, — a hard bed and 
 harder pillows. Sleep would not come to me; I 
 charged it to the altitude of three thousand feet; at 
 
 215 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 midnight I crept out, and, wrapped in my blanket, 
 lay upon the floor, — to reduce the altitude, my 
 son said : but no, it was to reduce the problem to 
 simpler terms. 
 
 It was foggy and misty when we left Coleyville 
 in the morning, and continued so until we had 
 reduced the altitude by over a thousand feet, and 
 had got below the cloud-line, when at noon, in the 
 valley of Hector's River, we ran into sunshine. 
 
 In the afternoon we skirted for two or three hours 
 that curious Cock Pit country, — a vast area cov- 
 ered with huge rough-hewn rocky bowls, several 
 hundred feet deep, and many hundred or even 
 thousand feet across the top, their rims craggy, 
 wooded, their sides and bottoms green and verdur- 
 ous, usually with a stream or river coming out of 
 the earth on one side, and plunging into it again on 
 the other, — a land of pits and caves and subter- 
 ranean water-courses. The road, hard and smooth, 
 wound round the rims of these huge pits or bowls, 
 giving us views into the deep, sunken valleys, now 
 on the right hand, nov/ on the left. Now we see a 
 sparkling current, now the hill has swallowed it. 
 The streams come from the earth quietly, gently^ 
 and as quietly and gently they return to it. This 
 region is full of caves, one of which, Oxford Cave, 
 near Balaclava, we explored. It was like our own 
 caves, a series of huge irregular chambers, with 
 the inevitable stalactites and stalagmites, and — 
 
 U6 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 what our caves do not have in such numbers — 
 swarms of bats. The bats came out of the crevices 
 of the rocks over our heads Hke bees out of a hive 
 in swarming time, making a curious soft hum with 
 their myriad wings. What acute senses of some 
 kind these creatures must have! In that primal 
 darkness, when our torches were extinguished, they 
 would pass and repass us, and thread their way 
 through those narrow, crooked alleys, without touch- 
 ing a wing to rock or man. The sense which in 
 the darkness makes us aware of our near approach 
 to any object, the bat doubtless has in a very acute 
 and highly developed form. 
 
 We found Balaclava one of the most attractive 
 places we had yet reached. There was a clean, well- 
 kept lodging-house, where good meals and good 
 beds could be had at a reasonable charge. We had 
 contemplated a canoe voyage from near this place 
 down Black River to the sea, but abandoned the 
 project. Canoeing or camping out in a tropical 
 country can have little of the attraction it has amid 
 our more simple, wholesome, and companionable 
 nature. From this point we returned to Kingston 
 by rail, leaving the team to come by the road. 
 
 From Kingston one sees the rows of white build- 
 ings of New Castle clinging to the shoulders of 
 the mountain like some new kind of cliff swal- 
 low's nests. They have an enticing, adventurous 
 look. New Castle is the rendezvous of the British 
 
 247 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 ioldiers in Jamaica during the summer. The 
 military authorities kindly consented to our occupy- 
 ing a furnished cottage there called " The Refuge," 
 which at that season was not in use, — a small, 
 low, rambling cottage perched upon a shelf of the 
 mountain, its little flower garden in front full of 
 blooming roses, geraniums, and heliotrope, and sur- 
 rounded by a fringe of the ever graceful bamboo. 
 A thousand feet above us towered Katherine's 
 Peak; below us we saw the world as a soaring 
 hawk sees it, the mountains dropping down to the 
 hills, and the hills to the plain, and the plain, upon 
 which stands the city of Kingston, tilting to the 
 sea, twelve or fifteen miles distant, where we saw 
 the ships sail away into the sky, to the moon, or 
 to the evening or the morning star. How the sea 
 rises up into the horizon when viewed from a great 
 altitude ! We could not tell where the water ended 
 and the sky began. 
 
 We had a colored man, Joseph, whom we had 
 picked up in Gordonsville, and who served us as 
 both man and maid, — quiet, willing, modest, relia- 
 ble Joseph, with broad, naked feet, greatly spread 
 at the toes, and sturdy neck capable of sustaining 
 the head, in a climb up the long, steep mountain- 
 side, with a burden of forty or fifty pounds. We 
 did not permit Joseph to do the cooking, we liked 
 that service ourselves, but he gathered the wood, — 
 mostly dry bamboo, — washed the dishes, and did 
 
 248 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 errands, one day going to Kingston and back with 
 great ease. 
 
 The climate at this elevation was much like 
 that of the Catskills in August, or even cooler; the 
 nights so cool that we could not sit out on the 
 veranda later than eight o'clock. A double woolen 
 blanket was not too much covering on the bed. 
 The whole scenery of the heavens is shifted a little 
 when you get so far south. The moon passes far- 
 ther north, Orion and the Pleiades seem rif'ht 
 over head, and the Big Dipper is quite hidden 
 behind the ridge of Katherine's Peak. Twice 
 we climbed to the top of the peak along one of the 
 narrow graded roads called "bridle-paths," that 
 thread all the valleys and mountain passes in 
 this island, and find their w^ay, always an easy, lei- 
 surely way, to all the mountain summits. In many 
 places the path was carved out of the soft, crum- 
 bling rock. It was lined and draped and cusliioncd 
 with mosses and ferns and vines and various trop- 
 ical growi;hs. Near the top of the mountain two 
 colored men were clearing it of its various wild 
 growths with the ubiquitous machete. This tool, 
 which is carried by nearly every countryman in 
 Jamaica, is the one universal tool. It serves as a 
 scythe with which to mow grass, and as an axe to 
 cut wood and fell trees. It is the tool for tropical 
 jungles and tangles. With this in his hand, how one 
 can slash his way through the dense, spiny, vine- 
 
 249 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 choked thickets! These men were clearing the 
 roads of weeds with it. We saw the hght blue 
 wreath of smoke from their fire going up through 
 the dark, glistening green of the forest that clothed 
 the mountain, when we were far below them. Their 
 dog lay curled up by the fire, where something for 
 their dinner was simmering, and barked at us as 
 any other self-respecting dog would have done. 
 
 This is the region of the tree ferns, — the only 
 place where we found them, — straight, rough, hairy 
 shafts, five or six inches through, and twelve or fif- 
 teen feet high, with a circle of delicate, wide-spread- 
 ing fronds at the top, — broad, tapering sheets or 
 plumes of green lace crowning a crabbed, touch- 
 me-not-looking column. 
 
 On the vertical bank of the roadside, what a 
 wealth of mosses and small ferns and plants ! with 
 now and then in the more sunny places a just 
 ripening wild strawberry. We had often to pause 
 and feast our eyes upon this marvelous veil behind 
 which Nature hides her cleft rocks in the trop- 
 ics. How dark and dense and bearded and choked 
 the forest sweeping down the mountain-side below 
 us, shaggy, glistening, almost scaly, fanged; with 
 touches of rare and delicate beauty, but with an as- 
 pect, on the whole, strange, forbidding, treacherous ! 
 
 When a turn in the path gave us unexpected 
 views across the deep valley upon the huge flank of 
 Blue Mountain Peak, and of its great sweeping sky- 
 
 2o0 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 lines, we would pause with delight, and let our eyes 
 go, Hke falcons loosed for the quarry. From these 
 altitudes we often saw hawks wheeling and heard 
 them screaming far below or above us, just as in 
 summer we are wont to see them from our native 
 mountains, and apparently they were the same 
 species, the red-tailed. 
 
 On the summit, which was free of trees, we 
 found our white clover in bloom and the butter- 
 cup and wild strawberries. I was more surprised, 
 however, to find the Scotch gorse blooming here. 
 It can hardly be a native of the island. It was 
 probably brought and planted there by British sol- 
 diers whose summer camp we had just left. It told 
 the story of Tommy Atkins longing for his native 
 hills. He had tried with fair success to create a bit 
 of Scotland there on Katherine's Peak. 
 
 From this vantage-ground we could look down 
 upon the coffee plantations tilted up against the 
 mountain-side beneath us. To our eyes they looked 
 like bushy, neglected fields. Here and there we 
 could see what is called a barbecue, — a broad 
 cement platform where the coffee is dried. The 
 superb mihtary road wound leisurely up from 
 the deep valley, — how plainly we could see it, — a 
 yellow ribbon amid the green, looping and loop- 
 ing endlessly. Towards Kingston, vivid emerald 
 squares of sugar-cane held the eye, and suggested 
 fields of Indian corn. They grow our corn in Ja- 
 
 251 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 maica, but only to a very limited extent. We saw 
 ripe com, and by its side corn just coming up. 
 
 On one occasion, my son and I, getting tired 
 of the heat and noises of Kingston, went seeking 
 discomfort, and we found it, the genuine article ; 
 but it was the discomfort of campers-out under 
 adverse conditions, — discomfort that time and 
 distance always soften, and, in a measure, trans- 
 form. Indeed, the woes of campers-out are always 
 better to look back upon than the pleasures of the 
 stay-at-homes. My son, with our travehng compan- 
 ion, Mr. Kellogg, had spent a night at Great Salt 
 Pond, a Httle side pocket of the Caribbean, beyond 
 Port Henderson, twelve miles distant, where, as 
 the fishermen hauled their nets, he had seen the 
 most wonderful phosphorescent fireworks in the 
 water, and where crocodiles promenaded the shores 
 at midnight. Hither we would go and get a taste of 
 the salty and, no doubt, seamy side of Jamaican 
 nature. But the ten-mile row across the harbor 
 from Kingston to Port Henderson, over that iri- 
 descent sea, under a soft (to us) midsummer sun, 
 the grand Blue Mountain scenery rising up into 
 the clouds on our right, the long, low arm of Port 
 Royal on our left, the wooded heights of Port Hen- 
 derson in front, great pelicans soaring and diving 
 obliquely into the water, all along the route, were 
 not without their charm to me, especially as my 
 companion did most of the pulling. 
 
 252 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 What made the old Scotch rhyme constantly 
 hum itself in my mind, I do not know : — 
 
 " Little did my mither think the day she cradled me. 
 The lands I was to travel in, the death I was to dee.*' 
 
 Here we were in strange lands, indeed, but we 
 had no fear of leaving our bones upon the sands 
 of Great Salt Pond. 
 
 And surely the reception we met with at Port 
 Henderson, at the hands of a family whose ac- 
 quaintance we had previously made, does not be- 
 long to the tale of our woes, but of our joys. Such 
 hospitality, — food, cheer, rest, — all so freely, gladly 
 given, one would rarely find at home ; but in Ja- 
 maica we found it everywhere. The generous 
 human affections and impulses seem to grow as 
 luxuriantly there as the vegetation. A pail of drink- 
 ing-water was provided us here, as we should find 
 none at Salt Pond, and in the early evening, the full 
 moon flooding the sea and the land with its light, we 
 set out for the pond, an hour's row distant, keeping 
 under the abrupt, high, rocky shore, over a glassy 
 sea, in the soft, luminous tropical night. Leisurely 
 we rounded point after point, till the mountain 
 ended and a low bushy shore was before us. In this, 
 somewhere, was the narrow, almost liidden open- 
 ing into Great Salt Pond. But the boy has a keen 
 sense of topography ; he had been there once before 
 by daylight ; so, with an instinct as unerring as 
 
 253 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 that of some wild creature, the boat felt its way 
 into the little gut or channel that connects the pond 
 with the sea. In less than a hundred yards we 
 emerged from the shadows of the verdure upon 
 the still, moon-drenched, circular bit of land-locked 
 sea. How weird and mystical it looked! a wild 
 range of rocky, bushy hills upon one side, and low, 
 wooded shores upon the other. 
 
 At the far side, a mile or more distant, standing 
 upon the sand, was a small, dilapidated building 
 used mainly by fishermen. To this point we directed 
 our course, and in due time drew our boat up on 
 the low, sandy beach. 
 
 The scene was wild and lonely in the extreme, but 
 this was a part of what we had come for. We ex- 
 perienced our first disappointment when we found 
 that the moonlight killed the phosphorescent dis- 
 play that we had hoped to see. Only a very pale 
 blue flame could now be evoked from the water. 
 My son's second disappointment came when his 
 long and cautious promenade upon the shore, re- 
 volver in hand, and his long vigil by the inlet into 
 a second salt pond revealed no crocodiles. In his 
 absence I had scooped out a place in the sand, 
 spread our blankets, and, with a couple of old doors 
 raised over the spot to keep off the dews of the 
 night, stretched myself out, a lodger for the first 
 time with tropical nature. But sleep did not come 
 easily ; in fact, did not come at all. The ants froro 
 
 254 
 
A LOST lElsRUARY 
 
 below and the mosquitoes from above soon found 
 me out. The Jamaican sand ant is a subtle, per- 
 sistent creature, and the mosquitois persistent with- 
 out being subtle. Roll myself in my blanket and 
 cover my face and head as I would, I could not 
 shake off or discourage either. About niidni^^Mit 
 my son returned from his fruitless crocodile hunt, 
 and joined me in the couch of sand. Youth can 
 sleep, no matter what the conditions. Presently 
 some strange water-fowl, whose hoarse honking 
 and calling we had been hearing all the evening, 
 spied us out there on the sand, and gathered about 
 us; they stretched their necks, or, as the boys say, 
 *' rubbered " and " rubbered," and let off their weird 
 notes of astonishment or alarm. In the moonlight 
 I saw them standing at the water's edge and cran- 
 ing their necks, all alive with curiosity. Not till my 
 son whipped out his revolver and fired at one of 
 them did the disturbing, long-necked commenting 
 upon our presence cease. 
 
 There in the stillness of the night we heard the 
 wild cattle low in the woods beyond the marshes. 
 (We had been told of a wild herd in this neighbor- 
 hood.) Then mockingbirds, the Antillean species, 
 sang in some near-by bushes, and the mosquitoes 
 and ants still persisted. About two o'clock, finding 
 sleep impossible, and that my body no longer fitted 
 the mould in the sand, I shook myself out of my 
 blanket and stepped forth, and instantly thanked 
 
 255 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 my stars for my wakefulness, for there low in the 
 southern horizon hung the Southern Cross, — four 
 large, bright stars, one in each arm of the imaginary 
 cross. I aroused my companion that he, too, might 
 see this splendid spectacle of the southern heavens. 
 It was the first and only view that we got during 
 our stay on the island. This bit of new astronomy 
 made me forget the pests of the sand. It was not 
 long now till daylight, and something Uke an hour's 
 sleep was snatched at the last moment. Before the 
 sun was up I was washed and combed and Hstening 
 to the vocal performances of the mockingbirds. It 
 was not engaging music to me. I do not know how 
 much this West Indian species falls short in musical 
 ability of that of our own mockingbird of the South- 
 ern States, if any. But it was not a songster that I 
 wished to take home with me as I did the solitaire. 
 It was not equal to our catbird's song, and the 
 morning carol of the robin would have made it seem 
 cheap and trivial. It was bantering, hilarious, fes- 
 tive, but it had no sweetness, seriousness, or feeling. 
 
 We had our Primus stove with us sans alcohol, 
 and my patience, even my temper, was sorely tried, 
 and many matches were wasted, in trying to evoke 
 with kerosene oil alone the intense blue flame that 
 crowns success with this stove. But despite the 
 wind, this feat was at last accomplished, and our 
 breakfast of bacon, eggs, tea, and toast was achieved. 
 
 Then we rowed round the pond, and found the 
 
 ^5Q 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 narrow channel that joins it to the second pond. 
 Into this we made our way, and discovered that 
 it was semi-stagnant. It was a likely place for 
 crocodiles, but we saw none, — only a large, heron - 
 Kke water-fowl that was suspicious of our approacli. 
 The most striking scene here was a kind of vege- 
 table Hades where we landed and tarried a short 
 time. If the bad spirits in the vegetable world go 
 to a bad place, this is probably where they bring up; 
 or, as I said to my son, if the human imps — mean- 
 ness, spitefulness, jealousy, uncharitableness, and 
 backbiting — were to take vegetable form, here we 
 doubtless see what they would be like, — a thick, 
 rank growth of several forms of cacti, intermingled 
 with various thorned and fanged bushes standing 
 upon a jagged, crabbed, deeply seamed rocky floor. 
 Under the hot sun the place exhaled a pcculiiirly 
 disagreeable odor. With great difficulty I pushed 
 my way into it a few yards. If there had only been 
 a few writhing, hissing serpents there and a horned 
 toad or two, the scene would have been complete. 
 Some of the fluted, cylindrical growths of cacti 
 towered up twenty feet, and were so thickly set with 
 rows of long, sharp, vicious needles that it fairly 
 made the eyes water to look at them. This was the 
 fanged side of tropical nature, and we soon had 
 enough of it. These huge growths of cacti were 
 fleshy and tender hke fruit; one could hack into 
 them with his knife as into a melon or an apple, but 
 
 257 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 what eats them ? Why all this terrible panoply 
 of spines ? The spine and the thorn everywhere, I 
 suppose, is simply a sign of savage, unregenerate 
 nature. We saw in Jamaica some species of palm, 
 so bristling with long, awl-like thorns that one could 
 not look at them without a positive feeling of dis- 
 comfort. Think of the amount of original sin there 
 must be in such a tree! And no fruit to guard, 
 either, — just a spontaneous overflow of the hatred 
 and spitefulness of the old fire-eating, all-devouring, 
 seismic earth! 
 
 Great Salt Pond is shallow, of a uniform depth 
 of about three and a half feet, so that the fisher- 
 men wade in, hauling their nets. The evaporation 
 is so great that the water seems to be always flowing 
 in from the sea. 
 
 On our way out we found a boat at the inlet w ith 
 our friends the Davises, — a father and three sons, 
 • — from Port Henderson. Their hospitality and soli- 
 citude for our well-being had brought them the four 
 miles with a pail of fresh water. In the inlet, which 
 was running like a mill race, we all went in bathing, 
 partly for a bath, but chiefly of necessity to haul and 
 push our boats out against the current. How de- 
 licious that bath w^as, except that the savage current 
 hurled both my son and me against the banks w ith 
 such force that our skins w^ere gashed in several 
 places. 
 
 Here we saw that large, beautiful tropical fish, the 
 
 258 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 " calipeever," darting about or poising in the swiftly 
 running, transparent water, as large as a salmon trout. 
 
 Then came the quiet afternoon row l)a(k to 
 Kingston, with more refreshment and cheer at the 
 house of our Port Henderson friends, the sujxrb 
 Blue Mountain scenery on the one hand, and Port 
 Royal and the open sea on the other. 
 
 The birds in Jamaican waters that amused us 
 most were the great, ill-shaped, lubberly pelicans. 
 EveryAvhere in the bays and harbors w^e w^ould see 
 them poising and diving. From a hundred feet or 
 so above the water, they hurl themselves down reck- 
 lessly, striking the surface with a great splash. Ikit 
 they usually get the fish. My son aptly described 
 their flight as that of a bird sitting down to fly. 
 Most water-fowl fly w ith head and neck stretched 
 straight out, but the pelican draws his head back, 
 curves his neck, and seems to sit down upon his 
 great hulk of a body and row himself along with his 
 huge wings. 
 
 Kingston we found a dull, hot, uninviting place, 
 — low houses, dirty streets, with a colored popula- 
 tion, for the most part ragged and lazy. It is a city 
 of crowing roosters. They begin at nine o'clock 
 promptly, and crow every hour, if not oftener, tlie 
 night through. When one gives the signal, you hear 
 the challenge taken up all about, tlie chorus swelling 
 and spreading till a wave of shrill-voiced sound 
 sweeps over the city. Then another wave, and 
 
 2,59 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 another, three or four times repeated, till theif 
 finally die down, to remain so till the hour strikes 
 again. The traveler tarrying in Kingston soon 
 comes to wish that the mongoose had made poultry- 
 raising still more difficult than it is. 
 
 And the dogs were not far behind the roosters. 
 But the flea and the tick do not leave much spirit in 
 the Jamaican dog. Poor cur, how wretched and 
 forlorn he looks ! That he can bark at all is a won- 
 der. And it is only in town that he does bark, and 
 in the cool of the night. In the country he looks at 
 you wistfully, or languidly searches his own body 
 for the pests that make his life miserable. 
 
 EveryT\here the cocoanut-trees are upon the 
 beach or near it. There seems to be a fringe of 
 them around the whole island. They lean toward 
 the sea as if they loved it ; or does this attitude 
 enable them the better to withstand the gales from 
 the sea ? We saw them upon small islands, — in one 
 case a solitary tree upon a little coral reef a few 
 yards in extent, still yearning seaward. The wind 
 blows back their long leaves so that they suggest 
 runners with their hair streaming behind them. 
 
 The palms of all sorts seem less like trees than 
 like gigantic woody plants. They have no branches, 
 ■ — only a stalk with a tuft of leaves at the top. The 
 wood is not wood, but bundles of tough fibres like 
 cords and ropes ; and the leaves are not leaves, but 
 more fibres welded together in tin-Uke sheets and 
 
 260 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 spears that rattle in the wind. They curve and 
 sway gracefully, but it is rather the grace and neat- 
 ness of geometric figures than of wild free growths. 
 The roots, too, are not roots like those of other trees, 
 but mops of cords of a uniform size. The cocoanut- 
 tree lays hold of the ground by ten thousand of 
 these cords about the size of a pipe-stem, which in 
 the stem are gathered together and welded into a 
 huge cable, eight or ten inches through. The growth 
 of the cocoanut is in but one direction, — upward. 
 The stem does not increase in size as it shoots 
 heavenward. A tree sixty feet high has a trunk 
 no larger than one ten feet high. Up, up it goes, 
 like some extension arrangement or appliance, per- 
 petually pushing out new leaves and new fruit 
 blossoms at the top, and dropping the old ones ; 
 always with a circle of ripened fruit surmounted 
 by other circles of half-grown and just formed nuts, 
 crowned by a ring of new, cream-colored bloom. 
 Its young leaves emerge from the parent stem 
 swathed in coarse burlap. Their swaddling-clothes 
 would make a shirt in which the most austere and 
 fanatical of the old monks might have done pen- 
 ance. Probably nothing else is born in the world 
 wrapped up in such a harsh, forbidding integument; 
 a product of the tree's interior juices and vitii? 
 functions, it is nevertheless as dry and stiff anc 
 apparently as lifeless as the product of a weaver's 
 loom. Its office seems to be to hold up and to 
 
 2G1 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 protect the young leaf till it can stand and wave 
 alone. Then it begins to let go and peel away. 
 From one young tree I cut enough of this natural 
 hemp cloth to make me a shirt, should I be seized 
 with the penitential fit. It possesses regular warp 
 and woof, and the fibres are crossed over and under 
 as in real cloth. The cocoanut is strongly expres- 
 sive of one side of tropical nature, — its hard, harsh, 
 glittering, barbaric side. 
 
 To our northern eyes, Nature in the tropics has 
 little tenderness or winsomeness. She is barbaric; 
 she is painty and stiff; she has no sentiment; she 
 does not touch the heart; she flouts and revels and 
 goes her own way like a wanton. She has never 
 known adversity; she has no memory and no long- 
 ing; there is no autumn behind her and no spring 
 before ; she is a prodigal, she lives in the present, 
 she runs to spikes and spines ; perpetual summer 
 has given her the hue and tone of August, — dark, 
 strident, cloying. She is rank, she is wicked; she 
 stings and stabs and bites you, or she heeds you 
 not. No turf in the fields, no carpet of moss and 
 lichens in the woods. Indeed, the woods are barred 
 against you. It is impossible to make your way 
 into them without cutting a path. The tangle of 
 vines, the spiny growths, the interlocked branches, 
 the close and fierce and unending struggle for ex- 
 istence of all manner of plants, bushes, and trees, 
 make walking in the woods out of the question. 
 
 262 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 Only where the superb roads and bridle-paths lay 
 them open, can you thread their interiors. And there 
 you walk betwee-n walls of rank vegetation, — no 
 glimpses along forest aisles and corridors, no long, 
 cool perspectives, no leaf-strewn floors of checkered 
 sunlight and shadow, no interior housed and 
 cloistered effects at all. Apparently the woods in 
 Jamaica are never swept by fire any more than 
 they are in Alaska; the dense ground vegetation 
 and the humidity secure them against the besom of 
 the flames. The trees cast their leaves one by one, 
 apparently, the year through, hke the human tree: 
 always falling leaves, always new buds and blos- 
 soms. We saw wild blackberries (poor things), with 
 ripe fruit and green, and just opened blossoms. 
 The word sylvan belongs to higher latitudes. There 
 are lairs and jungles and smothering dungeons in 
 tropical forests, but no clean, restful sylvan solitude. 
 How much the beauty of our northern land- 
 scape owes to grass, — this green nap or pile of the 
 fields and hills, so tender, so uniform, so human- 
 izing, softening the outlines, tempering the light, 
 loving the snow and the moisture, bringing out 
 the folds and dimples of plain and slope, and cloth- 
 ing the northern mountains as with veils of green 
 gauze! The tropical grasses are coarse, broad- 
 leafed, — crab grass, Bahama grass, Guinea grass, 
 — good forage, but not pleasing to look upon, and 
 the landscape is but slightly affected by them. 
 
 263 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 I cannot conceive of any poetry ever being 
 produced in the tropics. Nature and life there do 
 not make the poetic appeal. There is Uttle that is 
 heroic, or plaintive, or pathetic, or that stimulates 
 the imagination or fosters sentiment. The beak and 
 claw and spine and thorn side of nature is more 
 pronounced than in our zone ; forms are more 
 savage, disease is more deadly. Man cannot take 
 Nature to himself and dominate and tame and hu- 
 manize her, as he can where snow falls and spring 
 comes. Nature moulds and stamps him, and devel- 
 ops his fangs of passion. 
 
 How much our civilization owes to the winter 
 and to the spring! to the tender, to the heroic, to 
 the prophetic moods of Nature. How are our lives 
 enriched and deepened and stimulated by the 
 changes of the seasons : the spring with its yearn- 
 ing and allurements, the summer with its victories 
 and defeats, the autumn with its repose and plenty, 
 the winter with its spur and tonic, — what would 
 our lives be without these things ? 
 
 The leaves of the trees in Jamaica are for the 
 most part thick and stiff and shining, — var- 
 nished by the sun and the heat. The foliage rarely 
 presents the airy, feathery, graceful character of 
 the foliage of our trees. The landscape is rarely 
 impressive. It is deficient in the elements of sim- 
 plicity and dignity. It is too often a jumble of 
 broken and insignificant lines. It was not moulded 
 
 2G4 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 and sculptured by the old ice /];od.s in late p^eolo^nc 
 times as ours was. It looks crude and unfinislied 
 to northern eyes, like certain of our Rocky Mountain 
 views. In the Blue Mountains, however, one ^'ots 
 glimpses of the long, sweeping, masterful lines that 
 are characteristic of our mountain scenery. The 
 higher parts of the mountains are in the grand 
 style. They suggest the Catskills, but are steeper 
 and loftier by several hundred feet, Blue Mountain 
 Peak reaching an altitude of seventy-three hun- 
 dred feet. Their backs are not so broad as those 
 of the Catskills; they have not been worn down in 
 the same way. They are wooded to their summits. 
 One of our most delightful experiences was the 
 week we spent upon them at New Castle, four 
 thousand feet above the sea. 
 
 Jamaica is poor in animal life. No squirrels, nor 
 foxes, nor rabbits, nor marmots, nor bears, nor deer 
 in the woods, — no four-footed game at all, and 
 only a short list of native birds. We met a few of 
 our own summer residents there spending the win- 
 ter, — the Maryland yellow-throat, the black and 
 white creeping warbler, the redstart. In one place 
 on the edge of some woods I saw the oven-bird 
 walking about in its pretty, contented way as at 
 home, and along the mountain streams I heard the 
 sharp chijp of the water-wagtail, as along my own 
 streams. None of these birds were in song, and 
 probably in early March they turned their faces 
 
 2G5 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 northward, no doubt making their first flight of 
 ninety miles to Cuba, then continuing by way of 
 the Bahamas to the Florida coast. 
 
 I heard but one bird in the island that touched 
 my heart, and that was the solitaire, a thrush-like 
 bird that belongs to the genus Myadestes. It is 
 colored like our catbird, and of about the same 
 size. It has a white mark near the eye ; hence the 
 natives call it "shine eye." It is very shy and se- 
 cluded in its habits, and is often known as the 
 invisible bird. I heard it hundreds of times, but 
 saw it only twice. It is found only in the moun- 
 tains after an altitude of two or three thousand feet 
 is attained. I have never heard a bird-note more 
 expressive of seclusion and wild solitude, — melo- 
 dious, plaintive, far-heard, it sounds through the 
 twilight forests like a call to some holy rite or fes- 
 tival. It made me think of Keats's "Ode to a 
 Nightingale;" it has the same magic quality, the 
 power of pure music to call up visions of "faery 
 lands forlorn." 
 
 " Forlorn ; the very word is like a bell,** 
 
 and there was something bell-like in the " plaintive 
 anthem " of this bird. It usually began with a series 
 of tinkling, bell-like notes, — from a golden bell, if 
 that were possible. These were followed by two 
 long, tapering, flute-like strains in different keys, 
 exquisitely melodious and appealing. It was a voice 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 from out the heart of sacred solitude, and made 
 me want to follow 
 
 " And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 
 
 " Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
 
 What thou among the leaves hast never known. 
 The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
 
 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan." 
 
 When I first heard a single bar of the song, I was 
 strongly reminded of the plaint of the Oregon ro})in 
 as I had heard it in the wilds of Alaska. It was the 
 same tapering, soulful monotone. This may be the 
 reason that the full song seemed to me more expres- 
 sive of Alaskan solitudes, with so much in them that 
 was to the eye what pure melody is to the ear, than 
 of tropical forests. 
 
 There is another bird in Jamaica (called by the 
 natives the Spanish quail, because there is a look 
 about the head that suggests the quail), that I heard 
 briefly on one occasion utter notes much like those 
 of the solitaire. The native oriole has a whistle that 
 recalls that of our oriole, and the native kingbird 
 is almost a copy of ours. A species of grackle or 
 crow blackbird, with his white eye, had a ver\' famil- 
 iar look. A queer, clownish-looking bird is the little 
 tody, with its green suit and large, golden beak. It 
 looked as if made up for some carnival. I did not 
 hear it sing or rehearse its part. There are several 
 
 2G7 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 8mall birds called "quits," as the blue quit, the 
 grass quit, the orange quit. We found a nest of 
 the last-named bird on the limb of an orange-tree, 
 a curious structure woven of fine grasses, and shaped 
 like a gourd with the neck bent over the limb, so 
 that the entrance was upon one side of the branch 
 and the body of the nest upon the other. The latter 
 part of February the grass quit was building a nest 
 in a chmbing vine over the door of the house Avhere 
 we were staying. The male seemed more industri- 
 ous in carrying sticks and straws than the female, 
 — praise I had never before known a male bird to 
 deserve. The song was fine and insect-like. 
 
 Three species of hummingbirds were noticeable. 
 One large one, called the "doctor,*' nearly black, 
 with two long plumes in its tail, drew our attention 
 frequently. When it flew, these long, narrow plumes 
 trailed or undulated behind it, producing a curious 
 rocket-like effect, or the effect of some ingenious 
 toy. In the mountains I saw the black mango hum- 
 mingbird gathering spiders' webs from the rocks, 
 no doubt to be used in sticking the lichens upon the 
 nest, after the manner of our ruby-throat. 
 
 Mockingbirds were common throughout the is- 
 land, — the Antillean form appearing almost iden- 
 tical with our southern mockingbird. The mating 
 season was at hand, and the birds were full of action 
 and of song ; the latter quite unmusical, never as 
 pleasing as that of our catbird. 
 
 268 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 The only wild animal that we saw in Jamaica 
 was the mongoose, and this was not often seen. We 
 had glimpses of three or four, during our month's 
 stay on the island, hurriedly crossing the road in 
 front of us, or darting into the bushes. They sug- 
 gested a large weasel or a light-colored mink. They 
 are very destructive to everything that lives and 
 nests upon the ground. They have even driven the 
 rats into the trees ; we saw several rats' nests amid 
 the branches. They make eggs and poultry expen- 
 sive on account of their depredations upon the hen- 
 coops. 
 
 Our last week in Jamaica was spent at Bowden 
 on Port Morant, near the extreme eastern end of the 
 island. Bowden proved to be the most restful and 
 enjoyable place we had found — a most delightful 
 change from the heat, dust, and squalor of Kings- 
 ton. The hotel, called Peak View Cottages, owned 
 by the United Fruit Company, is situated on a ridge 
 three hundred feet above the harbor, w^ith the sea on 
 one hand and the huge pile of the Blue Mountains 
 on the other. A fresh breeze was always blowing, 
 the Caribbean Sea was always full of delicate, shift- 
 ing rainbow tints, the ten thousand cocoanut palms 
 that covered hill and valley about us were always 
 rustling and swapng, and the Blue INIountains and 
 the John Crow range, with a vast stretch of wooded 
 country between us and them, with plantation 
 houses at intervals gleaming out of the dank green, 
 
 209 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 were there to draw and delight the eye with the 
 rugged and the subhme. We could see the steam- 
 ers far at sea, coming round the point of the island 
 and making for our harbor. Late one afternoon 
 I watched a steamer leaving for South Africa, slant- 
 ing slowly away from the island into the Caribbean 
 and fading from view, — gt)ing down behind the 
 rim of the great ocean-girdled world. What a speck, 
 creeping slowly down and around, over the shining 
 surface of the great sphere toward that far-off land ! 
 
 Here, where we only expected to stop over night 
 on our way to Manchioneal, we tarried for a week, 
 and gave ourselves up to the mood or the whim 
 of the moment, sitting for hours on the cottage 
 porches, gazing upon the strange scenes, drinking 
 in tropical nature through all our senses, our 
 eyes following the calmly, majestically sailing tur- 
 key buzzards that were everywhere in evidence, 
 then resting on the long line of cocoanut palms 
 where the surf was breaking upon the coral reefs 
 two miles away. Glancing over the broad sweep of 
 palms near at hand, rustling and glinting in the sun, 
 our eyes plunged down into the green waters of the 
 bay below us on the west, then darted away to the 
 mountains where Cuna Cuna Pass invited us to 
 continue our journey to Manchioneal, or alighted on 
 the changing cloud drapery that hid Blue Moun- 
 tain Peak. 
 
 One day we took a leisurely drive to the Hot 
 
 270 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 Springs at Bath and gathered our first nutmegs 
 and Otahitu apples. Day after day we made our 
 way down through palm groves, past trees and 
 bushes, to the beach, where we bathed in the warm 
 surf, cut our feet upon the coral rocks, sat upon or 
 examined the rusty, time-eaten cannon that had 
 lain exposed or half buried in the ruined fortifica- 
 tions for more than a hundred years, contemplated 
 the strange and curious forms of vegetable life, or 
 watched the pelicans diving, and the fiddler crabs 
 "scrapping" upon the shore. We talked with the 
 people at their cabin doors and watched the men 
 taking the husks from the cocoanuts as the wo- 
 men gathered them; we loitered upon the dock 
 and watched the girls and women loading the fruit 
 steamers with bananas — an endless chain of wo- 
 men and girls going from the little cars to the 
 steamer's side, all bearing bunches of bananas on 
 their heads, often continuing the work till past mid- 
 night, and toward the last, when tired and sleepy, 
 timing their movements to a wild musical chant. 
 They were all barefoot and rather ragged and 
 soiled, the dripping of the juice from the frcslily 
 cut banana stem.s soon besmearing their clothes. 
 Thirty thousand bunches of the fruit were thus 
 often put on the steamer in a single night. The 
 women earned about eighteen pence each. 
 
 One day we made an excursion on the little toy- 
 like railway out to Golden Grove, six or eight miles 
 
 271 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 distant, in the last century a large sugar plantation, 
 now a banana and cocoanut plantation owned by 
 the United Fruit Company. The little railway con- 
 nected the plantation with the steamer. Train-loads 
 of bananas and cocoanuts were brought in to the 
 steamers daily. Golden Grove is a large, oval, fertile 
 plain, threaded by the limpid Gardner River and 
 surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills and moun- 
 tains. Most of the large, solid, whitewashed build- 
 ings of the old sugar plantation were still standing; 
 some of them with the high-arched bridge were very 
 picturesque. Here we saw many East Indian coolies, 
 
 — a slight, slender, sooty-faced race, the women often 
 in rags, with silver bands on their ankles and wrists. 
 Here, too, we saw a large herd of East Indian oxen, 
 
 — wide-horned, high-shouldered, dewlapped crea- 
 tures, with a wonderful look of dignity and repose. 
 A coolie woman, stripped to the waist, w^as washing 
 her clothes in the river near the ruins of the old 
 mill, while her little girl of ten or twelve was bathing 
 in the pool near by. It was a pretty picture, and my 
 son determined to get a photograph of it. When 
 the woman saw what he was about she was very 
 indignant and voluble, but she was too late; the 
 camera winks quickly. A few pennies would have 
 made her a willing subject. 
 
 For some reason, before I went to Jamaica I had 
 thought of the banana as growing upon a tree, but 
 here it was growing upon a kind of huge cornstalk, 
 
 272 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 — a stalk the size of one's leg and fifteen or twenty 
 feet high, — one bunch of fruit from each stalk or 
 plant. When the fruit is gathered the old stalk is 
 cut away, and a new sprout from the root takes its 
 place. The stalk is composed of the stems of the 
 big long leaves. The bunch of bananas springs di- 
 rectly out of the heart of the plant. There is notliing 
 superficial or fortuitious about it as there is with 
 most fruit. It is the whole show; it is a serious 
 matter ; it sums up the whole plant. One can see 
 where the bud is before it emerges, by the swelling 
 of the stalk, — Hke the bird or frog in the snake's 
 body. 
 
 I doubt if there is any future for Jamaica. It 
 seems to me it is bound to remain pretty much as it 
 now is. Its black population have not the sec^ds of 
 progress. The resources of the island are not great 
 except in the production of fruit, and for tliis there 
 is no free market near at hand. There is no mineral 
 wealth, and no tempting field for capital. For the 
 past ten years its imports have exceeded its exports 
 by a million dollars annually. This difference is 
 probably made good by tourists from this country 
 and from England. American capital and Americ-an 
 enterprise are doing more for the island than arc 
 British. Banana culture, already on a large scale, 
 is increasing, and is mainly the work of the UnitrJ 
 Fruit Company. 
 
 The burden of taxation in the island is excessive/ 
 
 273 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 and kills all native enterprise. If a new Industry 
 starts, it is taxed out of existence. I was told of 
 several that had been thus killed. They literally 
 tax the wheels off the wagons, the tax being about 
 five dollars a wheel. A man is afraid to make any 
 improvement about his house, — to add another 
 window, or to put on a piazza or a new roof, — lest 
 his taxes be increased. I heard of an American who 
 took an automobile there to make a tour of the 
 island, but the sum demanded by the authorities 
 before they would allow him to land it — something 
 over a hundred dollars — was so great that he went 
 back home with it on the steamer's return trip. 
 
 Hence I say that the tax-gatherer is the incubus 
 that weighs down Jamaica. The people are exces- 
 sively taxed, largely to pay big salaries to the tax- 
 gatherers. The governor, quite a useless personage, 
 it seems to me, is paid five thousand pounds a year, 
 and there is a long string of ofiice-holders below 
 him, grading down to the police commissioners, that 
 all draw big pay. Imports are taxed. Every fam- 
 ily that buys a barrel of flour pays two dollars to 
 the government. 
 
 The roads and bridle-paths in Jamaica sj^nbolize 
 England ; they are England clasping the island as 
 with a many-fingered hand. You w alk or ride along 
 these superb imperial highways and look out upon 
 a land semi-savage ; civilization under foot, and 
 barbarism just across the fence, — little or no agri- 
 
 274 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 culture or fruit culture, or culture of any kind as we 
 understand the word, except where the great Fruit 
 Companies have possession; the laridscape marred 
 and torn, but not subdued ; no open fields, no 
 smooth hill-slopes, rarely a well-kept (garden or a bit 
 of lawn; rude fertile nature everywhere, stru(:(;iiiig 
 to shake off the lazy grasp of these black children. 
 Lazy they no doubt are. During the three or four 
 months of the mango season, we were told, it is very 
 difficult to get man or woman to work. As the 
 mangoes grow every^N^here, the people subsist upon 
 them, and life becomes a hoUday. Hence the fruit 
 companies and sugar planters have to import coolie 
 labor, East Lidiamen, — a feeble race, but faithful 
 and reliable. We saw a great gathering of these 
 people in Kingston living in a large warehouse on 
 one of the docks. They had worked out their ten 
 years, and were awaiting a steamer to take them 
 back to India. How homesick many of them were, 
 poor souls, and how tedious the waiting was to 
 them! They were a quiet, picturesque crowd, })ut 
 very wary of the camera, unless we first sprinkled 
 them with a little copper. When we were sauntering 
 through the market, the Indian women, crouched 
 by their baskets filled with stuff on sale, wouM 
 spring up and turn their backs the moment they 
 saw the camera in my son's hand. They seem & 
 much prouder and more exclusive race than the 
 African. 
 
 27,') 
 
FAR AND NEAR 
 
 Just now I called the negro lazy, though that 
 is probably not strictly the right word. The negro 
 in Jamaica is childish, immature, void of any 
 serious purpose in life, rather than lazy. He is 
 haunted by no ideals : sufficient for the day are 
 the mangoes thereof, and why should he fret and 
 struggle? Those women forever upon the road, 
 making long marches with their burdens, were not 
 lazy; they were children that took life lightly and 
 carelessly. 
 
 The price of labor is low in Jamaica, yet any- 
 thing is dear that costs more than it is worth, and 
 much of the low-priced labor is expensive. On one 
 of the plantations of the United Fruit Company I 
 saw a coolie cleaning the ground of grass and weeds 
 in an orange orchard with a big long-handled hoe 
 at a rate for a given area that was more than four 
 times the price I could have done it for with a horse 
 and cultivator. A vast deal of hand-work is done 
 where we use horses and machinery. 
 
 Most of the road-making and road-mending 
 seems done by women and girls. They are the 
 real beasts of burden. They break up the stone and 
 carry it in bags upon their heads and dump it down 
 where it is wanted. One day I sat half an hour upon 
 the bank by the roadside, and got myself covered 
 with ticks, watching a woman raking the broken 
 otone in place, while my companion was photo- 
 graphing a big cottonwood-tree. 
 
 276 
 
A LOST FEBRUARY 
 
 We left Jamaica on the return trip the 3cl of 
 March, just about the time I fancy that the birds 
 from our woods that we had met there were also 
 turning their faces nortliward. We readied home 
 on the 9th, and at sundown the carohng of the robins 
 from the treetops was far more welcome tlian any 
 bird voice we heard in Jamaica, not even excepting 
 that of the solitaire. 
 
\ ( 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aqhbleen Pinnacles, 95. 
 
 Alaska, journey to, l-12'J ; forests 
 and treeless regions of, 81; cli- 
 mates of, 82, 8G. 
 
 Alaska Peninsula, voyage along, 
 94-98. 
 
 Albati'oss, 67. 
 
 Algae, 210, 211. 
 
 Amherst Glacier, 73. 
 
 Anemone, a yellow, 114. 
 
 Annette Island, 29-31. 
 
 Ants, Jamaican sand, 254, 255. 
 
 Astragalus, 121, 122. 
 
 August, characteristics of, 201- 
 214. 
 
 Auklet, least {Slvwrhynchus pri- 
 silhis), 106. 
 
 Auklets, 119. 
 
 Bad Lands of Utah, the, 7. 
 
 Bahamas, 226. 
 
 Balaclava, Jamaica, 247. 
 
 Bananas, loading, 271 ; manner of 
 growth of, 272, 273; culture of, 
 273. 
 
 Barry Glacier, 75, 77. 
 
 Bath, Jamaica, 271. 
 
 Bats, 247. 
 
 Bear, Kadiak, 83, 90, 91. 
 
 Bear, polar, 117, 123. 
 
 Belkofski, 96. 
 
 Bering Sea, voyage on, 101-123. 
 
 Biological Survey, U. S., a party 
 of naturalists from, 38. 
 
 Birds, seen from the train, 4 ; 
 killed hy the locomotive, 9; at 
 Victoria, B. C, 23; at Aletlakah- 
 tla, 31 ; at Fort Wrangell, 3;{; <»n 
 the White Pass, 37; onGustavus 
 Peninsula, 44, 45; on Mt. Wright, 
 52; at Sitka, 55; at Kadiak, 85, 
 
 88, 89; on Popof Island, M; ol 
 the tundra, 115, 110; on ll.ill h*- 
 land, 119-121; near Cajn^ Fox, 
 12«; about " Slabsides," 133-152, 
 1.54-156; present interest in, 157; 
 the seeming decrease in the 
 numbers of, 160, 161 ; parental 
 instinct in, 163 ; bird-study in 
 the scliools, ltV>-16s ; dying of 
 apoplexy and heart failure, ICUj 
 profanatiun of nests, ICy; iii;Uo 
 singint; near and on nest, 171; 
 distribution in summer and 
 winter, 173; life in winter, 17^ 
 181; feeding the, 183-1H6; rapid- 
 ity of lives of, 186; ro«isting- 
 places of, 188; of August, 2(>t- 
 209; some strange watt-r-fowl in 
 Jamaica, 255; of Jamaica, 265- 
 268. 
 
 Blackberry, in Jamaica, 2G3. 
 
 Blackbird, red-winged. Hee Star- 
 ling, red-shouldered. 
 
 IJlackbird, rusty. Hee Grackl«, 
 rusty. 
 
 Black Crag, 32. 
 
 Black Creek. ^V'(? Shattega Creek. 
 
 Black River, Jamaica, 243, 247. 
 
 Bladderwort, horned, 203, '20L 
 
 Bluebell, H8. 
 
 Bluebird {Snilia niaiU), 161, 163 ; 
 its food in winter, 176; a noat in 
 the woods. 216-219, 
 
 Blue MounLiin lV':ik, 2.50. 
 
 Blue Mountain.**, J.'imaic.n,22rt, 228; 
 a week among, 247-252, 265 ; beau- 
 ties of, 241.5 ; 2«y. 
 
 Bobolink (/ktlirhony^x orytivt 
 rus), 160, 2()(., 207. 
 
 Bogosluf Islands, 100. 104. 
 
 Bog Walk, Jamaica, '231. 
 
 279 
 
INDEX 
 
 Bomb Point, 79. 
 
 Boueset, climbing, 209. 
 
 Bones*)t, purple, 209. 
 
 Bone? et, white, 209. 
 
 Boiigainvillea, 229. 
 
 Bowtltn, Jamaica, 269-271. 
 
 Boy, a winsome colored, 233. 
 
 Brady, John C4reen, Governor of 
 Alaska, 54. 
 
 Brewer, Prof. William H., 22, 65, 
 92. 
 
 Bryanthus, 08. 
 
 Bryn Mawr Glacier, 73. 
 
 Bunting, hyperborean snow, or 
 McKay's snowflake {Passerina 
 nivalis hyperborea), 120; song 
 of, 120; nest of, 123. 
 
 Bunting, indigo. See Indigo-bird. 
 
 Bunting, lark {Calamospiza me- 
 lanocorys), 4. 
 
 Bunting, snow, or snowflake {Pas- 
 serina nivalis), a part of the 
 winter, 180 ; a flock of, 180, 181 ; 
 attacked by hawks and shrikes, 
 180, 181; 189; notes of, 180. 
 
 Bunting, snow, or Fribilof snow- 
 flake {Passerina nivalis toum- 
 sendi), 101, 106. 
 
 Buttercup, 251. 
 
 Buzzard, turkey, or turkey vul- 
 ture ( Cathartes aura), 227, 270. 
 
 Cacti, 257. 
 
 Calipeever, 259. 
 
 Camping-out, in Jamaica, 252- 
 
 259. 
 Campion, moss, 52, 53. 
 Canyons, 7, 12-14, 17. 
 Cape Fox, 127. 
 Cape Nome, 113. 
 Cardinal-flower, 152, 153, 214. 
 Cassiope, 88. 
 Cattle, wild, 255. 
 Caves, in Jamaica, 246, 247. 
 Cawein, Madison J., quotation 
 
 from, 211, 212. 
 Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing 
 
 {Ampelis cedrorum), 176. 
 Chapelton, Jamaica, 232, 237-239. 
 Chasm, a, 122. 
 Chickadee {Parus atricapillus), a 
 
 sitting bird, 137, 138; checks to 
 the increase of, 138, 139; 107,173, 
 174, 176, 177, 183-185; sleeping- 
 places of, 188, 189; nest of, 136, 
 137, 215. 
 
 Chickadee, rufous - backed, or 
 chestnut-backed chickadee {Par 
 rus rti/escens), 33, 55, 128. 
 
 Chickweed, 121. 
 
 Chipmunk, 154. 
 
 Chippy. See .Sparrow, social. 
 
 Clarence Straits, 31, 32. 
 
 Clarkia, 17. 
 
 Claytonia, 114, 121. 
 
 Clematis, wild, 210. 
 
 Clover, white, 251. 
 
 Cobwebs, 209. 
 
 Cock Pit country, Jamaica, 243, 
 246, 247. 
 
 Cocoanuts, 271. 
 
 Cocoanut-trees, 260-262. 
 
 Coffee, pounding, 232. 
 
 Coleyville, Jamaica, 244-246. 
 
 Collector, a human weasel, 155. 
 
 Columbia Glacier, 71. 
 
 Columbia River, journey along, 
 18-20. 
 
 Columbine, in Alaska, 64. 
 
 Cook Inlet, 80, 81, 125, 
 
 Coolies, East Indian, in Jamaica, 
 272, 275. 
 
 Coon, 154. 
 
 Cormorant {Phalacrocorax sp.), 
 119. 
 
 Cottonwood, 233. 
 
 Coville, Frederick V., 22, 65. 
 
 Cowbird {Molothrus ater), notes 
 of, 151. 
 
 Cowcatcher, riding on the, 8, 9. 
 
 Coyote, 4, 11. 
 
 Creeper, brown {Certhia familU 
 aris americana), 174. 
 
 Cricket. See Tree-cricket. 
 
 Crocodile, 252. 
 
 Crow, American {Corvus brachy- 
 rhynchos), 157. 
 
 Crow, fish {Corvus ossifragus), 158, 
 
 Daisy, ox-eye, 201. 
 
 Dall,* Dr. William H., 22, 65. 
 
 Davidson Glacier, 35. 
 
 280 
 
INDEX 
 
 Dead Horse Trail, 37. 
 
 Deer, 25-27. 
 
 Dellenbaugh, Fred S., 22. 
 
 Devereux, W. B., 22, G5. 
 
 Devil's club, 28. 
 
 Devil's Thumb, 33. 
 
 Dipper, American. See Ouzel, 
 
 water. 
 Dogs, in Jamaica, 232, 260. 
 Doran, Capt. Peter, 65, 75. 
 Douglas Island, 34. 
 Pove, mourning {Zenaidura ma- 
 
 croura), 9. 
 Puck, eider {Somateria sp.), 111. 
 pucks, wild, and gunners, 148- 
 
 150. 
 Puncan, Rev. William, 29, 30. 
 Putch Harbor, 98-101, IW. 
 
 Pagle, bald {HaUceetiis lexicoce- 
 phalus), 24, 25; inspiration of 
 the presence of, 154-156; and 
 the collector, 155 ; 161. 
 
 Pagles, 34. 
 
 Eider. See Duck, eider. 
 
 Elk Mountains, the, 5. 
 
 Elliot, Daniel G., 22, 76. 
 
 Emerson, Prof. Benjamin K., 22, 
 66, 108. 
 
 Eskimos, 72 ; an encampment in 
 Siberia, 108-111; at Port Clar- 
 ence, 112, 113 ; villages ruined by 
 whiskey, 118. 
 
 Etolin Island, 32. 
 
 Ewarton, Jamaica, 231, 232. 
 
 Fairweather Range, 63, 56, 67, 
 
 126. 
 Farms, in the East and in the 
 
 West, 2, 3. 
 Fernow, Dr. B. E., 22. 
 Feras, tree, 250. 
 Finch, house (Carpodacics mexi- 
 
 caniis frontalis), 15. 
 Finch, rosy, or Hepburn's lenco- 
 
 sticte (Leticosticte tephrocotis 
 
 mtoralis), 38, 52, 94, 123. 
 Fireflies, Jamaican. 238. 
 Fish, flying-fish, 224,225; mullet, 
 
 241 ; calipeever, 259. 
 Fisher, Dr. A. K., 22. 
 
 Flicker, northwostem. See HiKb- 
 hole, western. 
 
 Flowers, on the plaiiw, 11 ; on 
 Kadiak Ibland, 88 ; at Plover 
 Bay, 111; of the tundra at Port 
 Clarence, 114 ; on Hall and .St. 
 Matthew lshiud.s, 121, ll'J; on 
 BUuk Creek, 152, ir>3; of AugUKt, 
 202-204,209,210; on Katherine's 
 I'eak, Jamaica, 2.'')1. 
 
 Flycatcher, Arkans.as, or Arkan- 
 sas kingbird {Tyrutimm ixrtv- 
 calls), 15. 
 
 Flycatcher, great crested (3/yi 
 archus crinittis), 138. 
 
 Flying-fish, 224, 225. 
 
 Forest, a buried, 50. 
 
 Foresting, Nature's manner of, 
 45. 
 
 Forget-me-not, 88, 111. 
 
 Fort Wrangell, 32, 33. 
 
 Fox, blue, 71, 124, 125. 
 
 Fox, Hall Island arctic, 123. 
 
 Fox, red, 154. 
 
 Fox, silver-black, 125. 
 
 Fox farms, 71, 72, 124, 125. 
 
 Frankfield, Jamaica, 239, 242. 
 
 Frederick Sound, 33. 
 
 Fringed-orchis, small purple, 201. 
 
 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, Va). 
 
 Fulmar, VAciRciFulmarusylacir 
 alls (/Irii)isrh(i), 124. 
 
 Fungi. See Mushrooms. 
 
 Gannett, Henrj', 22, 62, 76, 80. 
 
 Gardner River, 272. 
 
 George W. Elder, the steamer, 
 20, 21 ; breaks propeller, 75 
 caught in a strong tide, 77 
 mending her propeller, 77, 78 
 strikes a rock, l(i7. 
 
 Geranium, wild, at Kadiak, 88. 
 
 Gerardia, rose, 203. 
 
 GilTord, U. .«lwain. 12."). 
 
 Gilbert, (J. K.. 2'_', 44, 62. 65. 
 
 Ginger farming. 243, 244. 
 
 Girl, a little, mistakes the author 
 for .Santa ("laus, 226, 227. 
 
 Glacier liay. 39, 44. 
 
 Glaciers, .T.'>,.''>.3. .^7. 82: Patterxon, 
 33; Davidson, 36; Muir, 39-63; 
 
 281 
 
INDEX 
 
 Morse, 49, 59 ; Malaspina, 58, 66, 
 
 67 ; Turner, 59; Hubbard, 59, 62; 
 
 on mountain precipices, CO, 61, 
 
 73; Hidden, 62 ; Nunatak, 62 ; 
 
 Columbia, 71 ; on I'ort Wells, 73, 
 
 74; Barry, 75, 77; on Harriman 
 
 Fiord, 76, 77 ; Serpentine, 76 ; 
 
 Stairway, 76 ; Harriman, 77. 
 Golden Grove, Jamaica, 271, 272. 
 Goldfinch, American {Astnifja- 
 
 lintis trlstis), in winter, 179; the 
 
 bird of August, 207; notes of, 
 
 179 ; nest and eggs of, 207, 208. 
 Gold-seekers, privations of, 68-70; 
 
 returning, 124. 
 Good, John, 241,242. 
 Gorse, in Jamaica, 251. 
 Grackle {Quiscaliis crassirostris), 
 
 of Jamaica, 267. 
 Grackle, rusty, or rusty blackbird 
 
 {Eiq^hagus cai'oluius), notes of, 
 
 150. 
 Graham Reach, 26. 
 Grass, in the northern landscape 
 
 and in the tropics, 263. 
 Great Salt Pond, 252-258. 
 Green River, 7. 
 Grenville Channel, 128. 
 Grinnell, Dr. George Bird, 22, 
 
 66. 
 Grosbeak, Kadiak pine {Pinicola 
 
 enueleator flamrmda), 64, 89. 
 Grouse, ruffed {Bonasa umbel- 
 
 lus), 189. 
 Gulls, 75, 119. 
 
 Gunning for ducks, 148-150, 
 Gustavus Peninsula, 44, 45. 
 
 Haenke Island, 63. 
 
 Hall Island, 118-121. 
 
 Hares, 12, 
 
 Harriman, Edward H., 1, 10, 21, 
 65, 75, 76 ; kills a Kadiak bear, 
 90, 91 ; 107-109. 
 
 Harriman Alaska Expedition, 
 1-129; its composition, 1; its 
 outfit and personnel, 21, 22 ; so- 
 cial life and entertainments of, 
 65, 66; celebrates the Fourth of 
 July, 92. 
 
 Uarriman Fiord, 7&-77, 80. 
 
 Harriman Glacier 77. 
 
 Harvard Glacier, 73. 
 
 Hawk, broad-winged (Buteo plor 
 
 typterus), cry of, 158, 159; nest 
 
 and young of, 158, 159. 
 Hawk, Cooper's {Accipiter coo- 
 
 2j>'rU), irj8. 
 Hawk, duck {Falco peregrinus 
 
 anaturti), 158. 
 Hawk, red-tailed {Buteo borea- 
 
 lis), 157, 251. 
 Hawk, sharp-shinned (Accipiter 
 
 velox), 158. 
 Hawk, sparrow (Falco sparve- 
 
 rius), 158. 
 Hawks, 9, 157, 158; in August, 208, 
 
 209. 
 Hawkweed, orange-colored, 202. 
 Hector's River, 246. 
 Heron, green (Butorides vires^ 
 
 cens), 237. 
 Hidden Glacier, 62. 
 Highhole, western, or northwest- 
 ern flicker (Colaptes ca/er satur 
 
 ratinr), 23, 
 Hix, Colonel, 243, 
 Howling Valley, 43, 44, 
 Hubbard Glacier, 59, 62, 
 Hudson River, a house by, 131, 
 
 132; algai in, 210, 211; August 
 
 on, 213, 214. 
 Hummingbird, long -tailed, or 
 
 " doctor " (Aithurus polytvius), 
 
 2G8. 
 Hummingbird, mango (Lampor- 
 
 nis mango), 268. 
 Hummingbird, rufous (Selaspho' 
 
 rus ru/us), 128, 
 
 Iliuliuk, 98. 
 
 Indian Point, 112. 
 
 Indian River, 55. 
 
 Indians, Alaskan, 28 ; at Metlakah- 
 
 tla, 29, 30; characteristics of, 30, 
 
 31 ; an encampment of, 63, 64 ; 
 
 summer life of, 63, 64; a deserted 
 
 village of, 127. 
 Indigo-bird, or indigo bunting 
 
 {Cyanospiza cyanea), song of, 
 
 205. 
 Iris, 88. 
 
 282 
 
INDEX 
 
 Irrigation, 15. 
 iBanotski Volcano, 97, 98. 
 
 Jacob's ladder, 88, 
 
 Jaeger {Slercorarhis sp.), 64, 121. 
 
 Jamaica, visit to, 2'J3-277 ; a coun- 
 try cursed with perpetual sum- 
 mer, 223; arrival at, 22G; road- 
 Sides in, 228, 229; streams in, 
 230-232; roads in, 233, 274; stars 
 in, 249, 256 ; hospitality in, 253 ; 
 woods in, 2G2, 2G3; grasses in, 
 2<>3 ; leaves of the trees in, 204 ; 
 the landscape in, 204, 205; mam- 
 mals of, 265, 269; birds of, 265- 
 268 ; future of, 273 ; taxation in, 
 273, 274; agriculture in, 274, 275; 
 labor in, 275, 276 ; road-making 
 in, 276 ; return from, 277. See 
 also Negroes, Jamaican. 
 
 Jay, blue {Cyanocitta cristata), 
 thieving propensity of, 166, 167; 
 183-185. 
 
 Jay, Steller's {Cyanocitta stel- 
 leri), 33, 128. 
 
 John Crow Mountains, 269. 
 
 Joseph, a colored servant, 248. 
 
 Judas Vale, Jamaica, 236, 237. 
 
 Junco, Oregon {Junco hyemalis 
 oreganus), 33, 45. 
 
 Juneau, 34, 126. 
 
 Kachemac Bay, 80. 
 
 Kadiak, the village, 85-87, 124. 
 
 Kadiak Island, 81-92, 124. 
 
 Katherino's Peak, 248-251. 
 
 Katydid, 208. 
 
 Keeler, Charles A., 66, 91, 92. 
 
 Kelly, Captain, 64. 
 
 Kendal, Jamaica, ^43. 
 
 Kingbird, gray (Tyrannus domi- 
 
 nicetisis), 267. 
 Kinglet, golden-crowned {Regulus 
 
 satrapa), 174, 178, 183, 184. 
 Kinglet, golden-crowned {liegiclus 
 
 satrapa subsp.), 45, 55, 128. 
 Kinglet, ruby-crowned {liegidus 
 
 calendula), rivalries of the 
 
 males, 178, 179. 
 Kinglet, ruby-crowned {Regulus 
 
 calendula subsp.), 45. 
 
 Kingston, a wlntorday In, 227,228; 
 231, 247; seen from Kalhcriue'a 
 IVak, 248; 252; a dull, hot, unin- 
 viting place, 'JTiO ; tho r<K)st«'ni 
 of, 259, 200 ; the dogs of, ::00; 
 275. 
 
 Kling-kling, 230. 
 
 Kondakoir, Strpan, 9L 
 
 Kukak Bay, 82, 93. 
 
 Lady's-slijtper, at Kadiak, 88. 
 
 Lady's- tresses {.Spiranlhcs cer- 
 nua), 204. 
 
 Laramie plains, the, 5. 
 
 Lark, horned {Otocorls alpcstrU 
 subsp.), 4, 9, 12. 
 
 Lark, i)rairie homed (Otocorls 
 aljicstrls praticola), 165, 16G. 
 
 Larkspur, 11. 
 
 Leucosticte, Hepburn's. See 
 Finch, rosy. 
 
 Lice, grass, 229, 230. 
 
 Lizards, in Jamaica, 228. 
 
 Locomotive, riding on, 8, 9. 
 
 Logwood, 233. 
 
 Long Island, near Kadiak, 124, 
 125. 
 
 Longspur, Lapland, or Alaska 
 longspur (Ca/car/?/5 lajyponiexia 
 alaticensis), 98, 90 ; versos ad- 
 dressed to, 99; 100, HI, 115; song 
 of, 98, 99, 120. 
 
 Loosestrife, purple, 152, 153, 209, 
 210. 
 
 Lowe Inlet, 27. 
 
 Lupine, 11, 10, 64,88. 
 
 Lynn Canal, 35. 
 
 Machete, the ubiquitous, 249. 2.'iO. 
 Magpie, black-billed {J'ica pica 
 
 hudsonia), 16, 85, 125. 
 Malaspina (Ilacier, ."W, 06, 67. 
 Meadow-beauty, or rhexia, 202. 
 Meadow lark, western (SturnfUa 
 
 magnu mglecta),\2\ song of, 4. 
 Merriam, Dr. C. Hart, 22. 
 Metlakahtia, 29-31. 
 Middleton Island, 67. 
 :Milbank Sound. 26. 
 Milkweed, sw.amp, 209. 
 Mill, an old sugar, 242. 
 
 283 
 
INDEX 
 
 Mines, the Treadwell, 34. 
 
 Mirage, a, 93. 
 
 Moeliingbird, Antillean {Mmius 
 
 2^oiy(/lottos orplieus), song of, 
 
 245, 25.5, 256, 268. 
 Mongoose, 269. 
 Morning-glory, wild, in Jamaica, 
 
 229. 
 Morse Glacier, 49, 50. 
 Mosquitoes, of the tundra, 115; in 
 
 Jamaica, 255. 
 Mountain-climbing in Jamaica, 
 
 248-2.51. 
 Mountain peak, sublimity of a, 
 
 58, 59. 
 Mt. Fairweather, 53. 
 Mt. Iliamna, 80, 81. 
 Mt. Palmei-ston, 25. 
 Mt. Redoubt, 80. 
 Mt. St. Elias, 58, 125, 126. 
 Mt. Vancouver, 03. 
 Mt. Whipple, 32. 
 Mt. Wright, 51. 
 Muir, John, 20, 22, 39, 43, 44, 66, 76, 
 
 80. 
 Muir Glacier, 39-53. 
 Multnomah Falls, 18-20. 
 Murre, Pallas's {Uria lomvia 
 
 arra), 103, 119, 120. 
 Murrelet, marbled (Brachyram- 
 
 pluis niarmorattis), 75. 
 Mushrooms, 211-213. 
 
 Nature, in the tropics, 230, 262, 
 264; the fauged side of tropical, 
 257. 
 
 Negroes, Jamaican, homes of, 233, 
 234; on the road, 234, 244; 237; 
 going to market, 239-241, 244; 
 photographing, 240, 241 ; John 
 Good and his family, 241, 242 ; 
 returning from market, 242; on 
 Sunday, 243; Joseph, a servant, 
 248 ; at work, 271 ; laziness of, 
 275; childishness of, 276 ; women 
 and girls the real beasts of bur- 
 den, 276. 
 
 Nelson, Rev. Dr. George F., 66. 
 
 New Castle, Jamaica, stay at, 247- 
 252, 265. 
 
 Nunatak Glacier, 62. 
 
 Nuthatch (Sitta sp.), 173, 174. 
 Nuthatch, red-bellied (ASittacaTio- 
 doisis), 177. 
 
 Opossum, 154. 
 
 Orca, 68, 77-79. 
 
 Orchis. See Fringed-orchis. 
 
 Oregon, journey through, 17. 
 
 Oriole (Icterus leucopteryx) of 
 
 Jamaica, 267. 
 Oriole, Baltimore {Icterus gal- 
 
 biila), dying of grief, 169; 206; 
 
 nest and young of, 168, 169. 
 Oriole, orchard {Icterus S2ntrius), 
 
 markings of, 167, 168 ; notes of, 
 
 107, 168; nest of, 167, 168. 
 Otter, 153, 154. 
 Ouzel, water, or American dipper 
 
 (Cinclus mexicanus), song of, 
 
 55. 
 Oven-bird (Seiunis aurocapillus), 
 
 appearance of, 192; 265; flight- 
 song of, 143, 144, nest of, 191, 
 
 192. 
 Owl, screech {Megascops asio), 
 
 mobbed by small birds, 177. 
 Owl, snowy {Nyctea nyctea), nest 
 
 of, 121. 
 Oxen, East Indian, in Jamaica, 
 
 272. 
 Oxford Cave, 246, 247. 
 Oyster-catcher, black {Hcemaio- 
 
 2)us bachmani), 25, 75. 
 
 Palache, Dr. Charles, 22, 44. 
 Palms, 258 ; cocoanut, 260-262 ; 
 
 characteristics of, 260, 261. 
 Parrots, green, 237. 
 Patterson Glacier, 33 
 Paviof Volcano, 95. 
 Pedicularis, 114, 122. 
 Pelican, brown (Pelecanus ocdr 
 
 dcntalis), 252, 259, 271. 
 Phalaroi)es, 24. 
 Phlox, 11. 
 Phoebe-bird or phoebe (Sayornig 
 
 phcebe), 204; nest of, 141. 
 Photographing in Jamaica, 240, 
 
 241, 272, 275. 
 Pinnacles, the, Alaska, 32. 
 Pipit, American, or titlark {An- 
 
 284 
 
INDEX 
 
 thus pensilvanicus), 37, 101; 
 
 song of, 52 ; nest of, 62. 
 Plover, golden (Charadrius do- 
 
 viinicus), 116; notes of, 115. 
 Plover Bay, 108-111. 
 Poets, mistakes of, 204, 206. 
 Police otticer, a Jamaican, 238, 
 
 239. 
 Pond-lily, 152, 153, 203. 
 Poplar, Lombardy, 16. 
 Popof Island, 9-i. 
 Poppy, yellow, 106, 111, 122. 
 Port Antonio, 226, 227. 
 Port Clarence, 112-117. 
 Port Henderson, Jamaica, 252, 
 
 253. 
 Port Morant, Jamaica, 269. 
 Port Royal, Jamaica, 252. 
 Port Wells, 73-77. 
 'Possum. See Opossum. 
 Pribilof Islands, 104-106. 
 Price River, 8. 
 Primrose, 111, 114. 
 Prince of Wales Island, 32. 
 Prince William Sound, 66, 68-80, 
 
 82. 
 Prospector, a, in Alaska, 72, 73. 
 Ptarmigan {Lagopus sp.). 75. 
 Ptarmigan, white-tailed {Lagopxis 
 
 leucurus), 52. 
 Puffin, 119. 
 
 Quail, Spanish, of Jamaica, a tan- 
 ager {Spindalis nigricephala), 
 267. 
 
 Queen Charlotte Sound, 26. 
 
 Quit, blue, 268; nest of, 236. 
 
 Quit, grass, song of, 268 ; nest of, 
 268. 
 
 Quit, orange, nest of, 268. 
 
 Rabbit, gray, 154; nest and young 
 
 of, 219-222. 
 Raccoon. Sec Coon. 
 Radcliffe Glacier, 73. 
 Raven, northern (Cnrvuft corar 
 
 princijxilis), 28; abundance in 
 
 Alaska, 31 ; 91 ; notes of, 31, 55. 
 Redstart, American (Setophar/a 
 
 ruticiUa), 45, 265. 
 Rhexia. See Meadow-beauty. 
 
 Rhododendron, a dwarf, W. 
 
 Ridgway, Uobert, SJ, 45, lul. 
 
 Rio Cobre, 231. 
 
 Kio .Minho, 232. 2:i'{, 237, 240-243. 
 
 Hitter, Prof. William E., 22, G5, 
 66. 
 
 River, living on the bank of a 
 great, 131, 132. 
 
 Robin, AuK'rioan (Afenila viiyrti' 
 tor id), at Shibsides, lXi-\M\ 144; 
 young fed by a chipping upar- 
 row, 103, 104; 176; nest and young 
 of, 134-130. 
 
 Robin, Oregon. See Thrush, va- 
 ried. 
 
 Robin, western {Mrrvda migra- 
 toria propiiupia), 45. 
 
 Rocky Mountains, the, crossing, 
 4,5. 
 
 Roses, wild, 124. 
 
 Russell Fiord, 59-63. 
 
 Sagebrush, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16. 
 
 St. Elias Range, 57, 58, 66, 125. 
 
 St. Lawrence Island, 117, 118. 
 
 St. Matthew Island, 118, 121-123. 
 
 St. Paul, Kadiak. 85. 
 
 St. Paul Island. 1(H-106. 
 
 Salmon, canning, 78 ; seining, 126, 
 
 127. 
 Salmon-berries, 126, 128. 
 Sand Point, 94. 
 Sandpiper, Aleutian (Arqiiatolla 
 
 couesi), call of, 120. 
 San Salvador, 226. 
 Saunders, De Alton, 22, 65. 
 Saxifrage, ss, 111, 114, 121. 
 Seal, fur, 1(>4-106. 
 Sea-lion, 103, 104. 
 Sea.sons, changes of the, 264. 
 Seattle, 20, 128. 
 Sensitive plant, 234. 235. 
 S«'ri)entin(* CJlacifr, 76. 
 Seymour Narmws, 24. 
 Sliattcga Creek, the stream and 
 
 its wild neighbors, 147 ir»3 ; a 
 
 bhu-bird's n.'st on. 215 219. 
 Ship. See (leorge W. Elder. 
 Shishablin Volcano, 97, 98. 
 Shooting-star, 114. 
 Shoshone, 9, 16. 
 
 285 
 
INDEX 
 
 Shoshone Falls, visit to, 9-14. 
 Shrike {La n his sp.), attacking a 
 
 flock of snow buntinp:s, 181, 
 Shumagin Islands, 94, 95, 124. 
 Siberia, visit to, 107-112. 
 Silene, 122. 
 
 Siskin, pine {Spinus piiius), 128. 
 Sitka, 54-56. 
 Skagway, 35, 36. 
 Skagway River. 36. 
 "Slabsides," the location and 
 building of, 131, 132; life at, 133- 
 156. 
 Smith Glacier, 73. 
 Snake River, 9-17. 
 Snowbird, hyperborean. See Bun- 
 ting, hyperborean snow. 
 Snowflake. See Bunting, snow. 
 Snowflake, McKay's. See Bun- 
 ting, hj7)erborean snow. 
 Snowflake, Pribilof . See Bunting, 
 
 snow. 
 Solitaire {Myadestes soUtnrius), 
 appearance of, 2G6; notes of, 245, 
 26G, 267. 
 Southern Cross, the, 256. 
 Sparrow, English (Passer domes- 
 tints), its effect on the abun- 
 dance of native birds, 161; im- 
 posing on a do^vny woodpecker, 
 161, 162; getting rid of, 162; an 
 instance of persistence, 163. 
 Sparrow, fox ( PassereZZa iliaca), 
 
 116. 
 Sparrow, golden-crowned {Zono- 
 trichia coronata), 37, 94; song 
 of, 52, 89. 
 Sparrow, sage {Amphispisa belli 
 
 nevadensis), 12. 
 Sparrow, social, or chipping spar- 
 row {SplzeUa, socialis), feeding 
 young robins, 163, 16-t; nest of, 
 134. 
 Sparrow, song (Melospiza cinerea 
 
 melodia), 134. 
 Sparrow, song (Melospiza cinerea 
 subsp.), 45; varjing tj'pes of, 
 in Alaska, 85 ; 94 ; song of, 85 ; 
 nest of, 31. 
 Sparrow, Townsend's fox, or 
 Townsend's sparrow (PowsereZZa I 
 
 iliaca nnalaschcensis), 33, 94; 
 song of, 52. 
 Sparrow, western savanna {Pas- 
 so'ciUvs saiidwichensis alaudi- 
 niis), 45, 115. 
 Sparrow, western tree (Spizella 
 
 monticola ochracea), 116. 
 Sparrow, white-crowned (Zono- 
 trirhia lencophrys subsp.), 23. 
 Sparrow, white-throated {Zono- 
 
 trichia alblcollis), 205. 
 Sparrow, yellow-winged, or grass- 
 hopper sparrow {i'otiirniculus 
 savannaruin passerinus), song 
 of, 169-171; nest and eggs of, 169- 
 171. 
 Spider-webs, 209. 
 Spruce, forests about Sitka, 55. 
 Stairway G lacier, 76. 
 Starling, red-shouldered, or red- 
 winged blackbird {Agelaius 
 p)h(£niceus), song of, 150, 151. 
 Strawberries, wild, in Jamaica, 
 
 251. 
 Strawberries, Yakutat, 125, 126. 
 Sugar-cane, a substitute for water, 
 
 235. 
 Sugar plantation, a, 236, 237. 
 Sunflower, wild, 16. 
 Sunsets, 25, 32. 
 Swallow, barn {Hirxindo erythro- 
 
 gastra), 62, 63, 85, 206, 
 Swallow, cliff (Petrochelidon lu- 
 
 nifrons), 18, 160, 206. 
 Swallow, tree (Iridoprocne bico- 
 
 lor), 206. 
 Swallow, violet-backed (Tachyci- 
 
 neta thalassina lepida), 13. 
 Swallows, poets and, 206. 
 Swan (Olor sp.), 117. 
 Swift, chimney (Chcetura pelor 
 gica), a captured bird, 140; out- 
 riding storms, 140, 141; nest and 
 young of, 139, 140. 
 Swift, palm (Cypselus phoenico- 
 
 bivs), 228, 
 Swift, white- throated {J'eronautei 
 
 melayioleucus) , 13, 
 Swimming, in Jamaica, 241, 258. 
 
 Tanager. See Quail, Spanish. 
 
 286 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tanager, scarlet {Piranga ery- 
 thromelas), 144. 
 
 Tattler, wandering {Ileteractitis 
 incanus), 75. 
 
 Tern, Arctic {Sterna paradiscea), 
 &4, G7, 75. 
 
 Thrush, Alaska hermit {Hylocir 
 chla guttata), 45, 72, 80, 89, S)4; 
 song of, 3G, 52, Gl. 
 
 Thrush, gray-cheeked {Ilylocichla 
 allcke^, 89, IIG. 
 
 Thrush, hermit {llylocichla gut- 
 tata pallasii), 143, 161. 
 
 Thrush, russet-backed (//i/^oe/c/i/a 
 listulata), 23, 31, 33, 45, 55, 128. 
 
 Thrush, varied, or Oregon robin 
 (Ixoreus ncevius), 55; verses ad- 
 dressed to, 89 ; song of, 45, 89, 91. 
 
 Thrush, wood {Hylodchla muste- 
 Ihia), song of, 144. 
 
 Ticks, in Jamaica, 229, 230. 
 
 Titlark. See Pipit, American. 
 
 Tlinkit Indians, 29-31. 
 
 Toad, 126. 
 
 Tody, green ( Todus t^ridis), 267. 
 
 Tongass Narrows, 126. 
 
 Totem poles, 127, 128. 
 
 Tree-cricket, 208. 
 
 Trelease, Dr. "William, 22. 
 
 Tropics, nature in the, 230, 2G2- 
 264; no chance for poetry in the, 
 264. 
 
 Trumpet-weed, 209. 
 
 Tundra, 72, 113-116. 
 
 Turner, Rev. Mr., a Baptist cler- 
 gj-raan, 244, 245. 
 
 rumer Glacier, 59. 
 
 Unalaska Island, 98-103, 124. 
 
 Unimak Island, 97, 98. 
 
 United Fruit Company, the, 272, 
 
 273, 275, 276. 
 Uyak Bay, 83, W. 
 
 Vancouver Island, 22-26. 
 
 Vassar Glacier, 73. 
 
 Veery, or Wilson's thrush {HyJn- 
 
 cichla fuscescens), song of, 144. 
 Vegetable Hades, a, 257, 258. 
 Vegetation in the far north, 79, 
 
 80. 
 
 Vermontcr, a, at Kadl.'ik, 8«. 
 
 Victoria, B. C. 'il, 23. 
 
 Violets, in Ala-ska, 04. 
 
 Vireo, riMl-t'yed ( yireo oliv<ic«\u\ 
 
 song of, 2(1'). 
 Virgin Bay, 71, 77. 
 Volcanoes, Alxskan, 95-98. 
 Vulture, turkey. See Buzzard, 
 
 turkey. 
 
 Wagtail, Siberian y eWov ( Rudyte* 
 Jlacus leucostriutus), 111. 
 
 Walrus Island, 108. 
 
 Warbler, black and white creep- 
 ing {Mniotilta varia), 205; nest 
 of, 142. 
 
 Warbler, Canada ( Wilsonia cana- 
 densis), 152, 205. 
 
 Warbler, lutescent {/Irlmintho- 
 pliila cclafa lutescent), 33, 45. 
 
 Warbler, Nashville (Ihlmint/io- 
 p/iila ruhricapilla), 141. 
 
 Warbler, Avorm-eating (Ilrlmin- 
 thcrus verm i varus), in the cabin, 
 142; song-llight of, 142, 143; ap- 
 pearance of, 199 ; songs of, 142- 
 141, l'.X); nest of, 197-199. 
 
 Warbler, yellow {/Jetulroica 
 wstiva subsp.>, 23, 64, 94. 
 
 Washington (the State), journey 
 through, 17. 
 
 Wa te r-l i 1 y . See l»on d-1 i 1 y . 
 
 Waters, " blossoming " of. 210. 
 
 Water-thrush, large-billed, or 
 Louisiana wator-thrusb (Sriit- 
 rus mot aril In), ajipearancL" and 
 habits of, 192, 193 ; notes of, 151, 
 192, 193; nest of, 151, 152, 191- 
 197. 
 
 Water-thrush, New York (.9^/wn<* 
 uovcboracensis), 192 ; song of, 
 151. 
 
 Waxwing, cedar. See Cedar-bird. 
 
 Wea-sel. l.>4. 
 
 Wellesley (Glacier. 73. 
 
 West, tlio, farms an«l farmhou«ei 
 in, 2. 3; geology of, 8. 
 
 Wbal.'s. .33. 
 
 Whaling Meet. a. 112. 11.1. 
 
 Whip-poor-will (Antro»tnmua fo- 
 cij'vru6), a muther and yuung« 
 
 287 
 
INDEX 
 
 146 ; song of, 145, 146, 205; eggs 
 and young of, 147. 
 
 White Pass, 36-38. 
 
 Woman, an old, and her eggs, 240, 
 241. 
 
 Woodchuck, 154. 
 
 Wood Island, 91. 
 
 Woodpecker, downy (Dryobates 
 pubescens medianns), 173, 174, 
 183 ; relations of male and fe- 
 male in winter, 186, 187 ; court- 
 ship of, 187 ; mystery of hopping 
 up and down trunks, 188. 
 
 Woodpecker, hairy {Dryobates 
 viUostis), 139. 
 
 WToodpecker, Harris's {Dryobates 
 vUlosus harrisii), 33. 
 
 Worthy Park, 236, 237. 
 
 Wrangell Bay, 33. 
 
 Wren, house {Troglodytes aedon\ 
 
 163. 
 Wren, western winter {Olbioi-chi- 
 
 his hiemalis pacijicus), 23 ; song 
 
 of, 91. 
 Wren, winter {Olbiorchllus hie- 
 
 malis), in winter, 174-176 ; song 
 
 of, 143, 144. 
 Wyoming, the plains in, 5, 6. 
 
 Yakutat, 58. 
 
 Yakutat Bay, 57-66, 82, 125, 126. 
 Yale Glacier, 73. 
 
 Yellow- throat, Maryland ((700- 
 thlypis trichas subsp.), 266. 
 
i! lU 
 
 North Caro,^ 
 
 FAR AND NEAR