The Log Bridge I Crossed
Was, I Think, The Most Beautiful Of The Kind I Ever Saw.
The massive
log is plushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of three
or four
Species, their different tones of yellow shading finely into
each other, while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in
exquisite order, inclining outward and down the sides in rich,
furred, clasping sheets overlapping and felted together until the
required thickness is attained. The pedicels and spore-cases give a
purplish tinge, and the whole bridge is enriched with ferns and a row
of small seedling trees and currant bushes with colored leaves, every
one of which seems to have been culled from the woods for this
special use, so perfectly do they harmonize in size, shape, and color
with the mossy cover, the width of the span, and the luxuriant,
brushy abutments.
Sauntering back to the beach, I found four or five Indian deck hands
getting water, with whom I returned aboard the steamer, thanking the
Lord for so noble an addition to my life as was this one big
mountain, forest, and glacial day.
Next morning most of the company seemed uncomfortably
conscience-stricken, and ready to do anything in the way of
compensation for our broken excursion that would not cost too much.
It was not found difficult, therefore, to convince the captain and
disappointed passengers that instead of creeping back to Wrangell
direct we should make an expiatory branch-excursion to the largest of
the three low-descending glaciers we had passed. The Indian pilot,
well acquainted with this part of the coast, declared himself willing
to guide us. The water in these fiord channels is generally deep and
safe, and though at wide intervals rocks rise abruptly here and
there, lacking only a few feet in height to enable them to take rank
as islands, the flat-bottomed Cassiar drew but little more water than
a duck, so that even the most timid raised no objection on this
score. The cylinder-heads of our engines were the main source of
anxiety; provided they could be kept on all might yet be well. But in
this matter there was evidently some distrust, the engineer having
imprudently informed some of the passengers that in consequence of
using salt water in his frothing boilers the cylinder-heads might fly
off at any moment. To the glacier, however, it was at length decided
we should venture.
Arriving opposite the mouth of its fiord, we steered straight inland
between beautiful wooded shores, and the grand glacier came in sight
in its granite valley, glowing in the early sunshine and extending a
noble invitation to come and see. After we passed between the two
mountain rocks that guard the gate of the fiord, the view that was
unfolded fixed every eye in wondering admiration. No words can convey
anything like an adequate conception of its sublime grandeur - the
noble simplicity and fineness of the sculpture of the walls; their
magnificent proportions; their cascades, gardens, and forest
adornments; the placid fiord between them; the great white and blue
ice wall, and the snow-laden mountains beyond. Still more impotent
are words in telling the peculiar awe one experiences in entering
these mansions of the icy North, notwithstanding it is only the
natural effect of appreciable manifestations of the presence of God.
Standing in the gateway of this glorious temple, and regarding it
only as a picture, its outlines may be easily traced, the water
foreground of a pale-green color, a smooth mirror sheet sweeping back
five or six miles like one of the lower reaches of a great river,
bounded at the head by a beveled barrier wall of blueish-white ice
four or five hundred feet high. A few snowy mountain-tops appear
beyond it, and on either hand rise a series of majestic, pale-gray
granite rocks from three to four thousand feet high, some of them
thinly forested and striped with bushes and flowery grass on narrow
shelves, especially about half way up, others severely sheer and bare
and built together into walls like those of Yosemite, extending far
beyond the ice barrier, one immense brow appearing beyond another
with their bases buried in the glacier. This is a Yosemite Valley in
process of formation, the modeling and sculpture of the walls nearly
completed and well planted, but no groves as yet or gardens or
meadows on the raw and unfinished bottom. It is as if the explorer,
in entering the Merced Yosemite, should find the walls nearly in
their present condition, trees and flowers in the warm nooks and
along the sunny portions of the moraine-covered brows, but the bottom
of the valley still covered with water and beds of gravel and mud,
and the grand glacier that formed it slowly receding but still
filling the upper half of the valley.
Sailing directly up to the edge of the low, outspread, water-washed
terminal moraine, scarce noticeable in a general view, we seemed to
be separated from the glacier only by a bed of gravel a hundred yards
or so in width; but on so grand a scale are all the main features of
the valley, we afterwards found the distance to be a mile or more.
The captain ordered the Indian deck hands to get out the canoe, take
as many of us ashore as wished to go, and accompany us to the glacier
in case we should need their help. Only three of the company, in the
first place, availed themselves of this rare opportunity of meeting a
glacier in the flesh, - Mr. Young, one of the doctors, and myself.
Paddling to the nearest and driest-looking part of the moraine flat,
we stepped ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe; for the
gray mineral mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept
unstable by the tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us
feet foremost with becoming glacial deliberation.
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