damp but enthusiastic passengers to the ship, the stories of fish, and boasts of the great bear-tracks seen on shore, disturbed the tranquillity of the anchorage. The captain of the ship took his rifle and was rowed away to shallow waters, where he shot a salmon, waded in, and threw it ashore. While wandering along after the huge bear-tracks, that were twelve inches long by affidavit measure, he saw an eagle flying off with his salmon, and another fine shot laid the bird of freedom low. When the captain returned to the ship he threw the eagle and the salmon on deck, and at the size of the former every one marvelled. The outspread wings measured the traditional six feet from tip to tip, and the beak, the claws, and the stiff feathers were rapidly seized upon as trophies and souvenirs of the day. A broad, double rainbow arched over us as we left the lovely niche between the mountains in the evening, and then we swept back to Icy Straits and started out to the open ocean, and down the coast to Sitka, having a glimpse, on the way, of the vast glacier at the head of Taylor Bay, that Vancouver and his men visited while his ships lay at anchor in Port Althorp, just west of our Idaho Inlet. SITKA AT CHAPTER XI. THE CASTLE AND THE GREEK CHURCH. T six o'clock in the morning the water lay still and motionless as we rounded the point from which Mount Edgecombe lifts its hazy blue slopes, and threaded our way between clearly reflected islands into this beautiful harbor, which is the most northern on the Pacific Coast. In the mirror of calm waters the town lay in shimmering reflections, and the wooded side of Mount Verstovaia, that rises sentinel over Sitka, was reflected as a dark green pyramid that slowly receded and shortened as the ship neared the shore. By old traditions the ravens always gather on the gilded cross on the dome. of the Greek church when a ship is in sight, and one lone, early riser flapped his big black wings and croaked the signal before the ship's cannon started the echoes. A steam launch put out quickly from the man-of-war Adams to carry the mail bags to that ship, and a sleepy postmaster came down to look after his consignments. There were signs of life in the Indian village, or rancherie, further up shore, and one by one the natives assembled on the wharf with their baskets and bracelets for sale, or, wandering down with the blankets of the couch wrapped about them, and lying face downward with their heads propped on their hands, yawned and studied the scene. They sprawled there like seals, and some of the members of this leisure class remained on the wharf for hours and for nearly all day without stirring. The queer and out-of-the-way capital of our latest Territory seemed quite a metropolis after the unbroken wilderness we had been journeying through, and the rambling collection of weather-beaten and moss-covered buildings that have survived from Russian days, and the government buildings, in their coats of yellow-brown paint, smote us with a sense of urban vastness and importance. At a first look Sitka wears the air and dignity of a town with a history, and can reflect upon the brilliant good old days of Russian rule, to which fifteen years of American occupancy have only given more lustre by contrast. It is a straggling, peaceful sort of a town, edging along shore at the foot of high mountains, and sheltered from the surge and turmoil of the ocean by a sea-wall of rocky, pine-covered islands. The moss has grown greener and thicker on the roofs of the solid old wooden houses that are relics of Russian days, the paint has worn thinner everywhere, and a few more houses tumbling into ruins complete the scenes of picturesque decay. Twenty years ago there were one hundred and twenty-five buildings in the town proper, and it is doubtful if a dozen have been erected since. The aesthetic soul can revel in the cool, quiet tones of weather-worn and lichen-stained walls, and never be vexed with the sight of raw boards, shingles, and shavings in this far northern capital. A gravelled road leads straight from the wharf to the front of the Greek church, the board walk beside it |