Thus We Made A Journey More Than Eight Hundred
Miles Long, And Though Hardships And Perhaps Dangers Were
Encountered, The Great Wonderland Made Compensation Beyond Our Most
Extravagant Hopes.
Neither rain nor snow stopped us, but when the
wind was too wild, Kadachan and the old captain stayed on guard in
the camp and John and Charley went into the woods deer-hunting, while
I examined the adjacent rocks and woods.
Most of our camp-grounds
were in sheltered nooks where good firewood was abundant, and where
the precious canoe could be safely drawn up beyond reach of the
waves. After supper we sat long around the fire, listening to the
Indian's stories about the wild animals, their hunting-adventures,
wars, traditions, religion, and customs. Every Indian party we met we
interviewed, and visited every village we came to.
Our first camp was made at a place called the Island of the Standing
Stone, on the shore of a shallow bay. The weather was fine. The
mountains of the mainland were unclouded, excepting one, which had a
horizontal ruff of dull slate color, but its icy summit covered with
fresh snow towered above the cloud, flushed like its neighbors in the
alpenglow. All the large islands in sight were densely forested,
while many small rock islets in front of our camp were treeless or
nearly so. Some of them were distinctly glaciated even belong the
tide-line, the effects of wave washing and general weathering being
scarce appreciable as yet.
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