ery, to miniature continents upbearing blue mountain-peaks crested with snow. These islands seem to leap into the very path of the steamer as if challenging its right to pass, but a dexterous. turn regains the channel and the good ship sails magnificently on. Very narrow and shallow is the channel in some parts, but the "natural beacon," kelp, that floats near submerged rocks throughout the passage, gives timely warning, and skilful seamanship avoids the hidden dangers. In the circuitous course of the steamer, vista after vista opens to view; the far distance is sometimes cut off by a veil of mist, but the ethereal haze only enhances the sublimity of the scene and makes it more impressive, for the eye, forbidden to rove, perceives more definitely the foreground in all its picturesqueness of detail.

The first port of interest the steamer makes after leaving Victoria is New Metlakatlah, the island home of the devoted missionary, Mr. Duncan, and his people. Here is a thriving settlement with frame cottages, town-hall, and church, and incoming steamers are greeted by intelligent, well- clothed, happy-looking Indians that flock to the wharf to welcome tourists who wish to visit their village. They speed the traveller on his way as the time of depart

ure draws near by strains of music, for they boast a brass band that discourses in joyous notes " My Country," "Hail Columbia," and "Yankee Doodle."

The work of the missionaries in Alaska is much hampered by lack of funds and the co-operation and sympathy that could further their efforts in behalf of the degraded people they are striving to lift to a higher plane of life.

It has taken forty of the best years of Mr. Duncan's life to achieve the work he consecrated himself to, and his reward can never be a material one.

The steamer makes but a brief stay at Fort Wrangel-a dilapidated village that, since the failure of the gold mines in its vicinity, decay has marked for its own. Some tottering totem poles and an opportunity to view the interior of a chief's house are the only attractions of this place, and the steamer goes on its way to the Taku Inlet, meeting on its way waifs and strays of bergs that have broken from the vertical walls of the glacier here, and are floating off to sea, on their own account.

These entrancingly beautiful, colossal gems are irregular, broken masses of ice carved by the sun and water into strange and lovely shapes,-snow-white where the frozen foam enwraps them in its lace-like folds, crystal-clear at the edges, and of the deepest azure in the crevasses.

The top of the glacier presents an irregular billowy surface far as the eye can reach, broken here and there by deep clefts or crevasses that "look as if broken by bolts of thunder riven and driven by turbulent time." One glance into these terrible chasms, and the thought of the horrible fate attending an unwary step stills the heart and tightens the grasp on the alpenstock as one moves on over the slippery surface. But no accident has been authentically recorded.

The tourist having visited Muir Glacier feels that the culminating interest of the varied voyage is at an end. But Sitka is yet to see. Sitka was New Archangel in the old Russian days, and then, as now, the capital of the country. In the far-off time before San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Portland

lands and tempt him with their wares. Their baskets are curious, often beautiful; they are woven of the strong fibres of the spruce roots, that sometimes grow to six feet in length. These are colored and sized, then deftly woven, so closely sometimes that they will hold water, and the patterns and coloring prove that the artistic sense is not lacking in these poor savages. Their silver-work also shows much ingenuity and skill, and the blankets of some of the Alaskan tribes are marvels of handiwork in their fine texture, intricate designs, and rich coloring.

The Indians have many curious customs-among them that of plastering their faces with seal-oil and soot; various reasons are assigned for this. Some maintain that it is merely to protect the face from the glare of the sun

when on the water; others assert that it is a mourning custom, while many say it is considered a mark of beauty. Rings or buttons between the lower lip and chin seem to be also a mark of distinction.

Beautiful for situation is Sitka, sentinelled by noble Vostovia, facing fair Edgecumbe, its shores creeping to the limpid water of the bay through tangles of golden-brown sea-weed.

The city occupies a crescent-shaped stretch of land, its main street running from the wharf through an arcade of warehouses over which is the Opera House. On one side of the street are

a few stores, the green-domed Greek Church confronts the pedestrian a little farther on as it thrusts itself ostentatiously into the middle of the street, the most pretentious building here, since the destruction by fire of Baranoff Castle, and containing rare treasures in pictures and gems. On the other side are the Protestant Church and school-house; straggling away from this on one arm of the crescent is the squalid Indian village, with "an ancient and fish-like smell" not inviting to fastidious visitors. The other arm of this crescent is occupied by the group of buildings belonging to the Industrial School, scrupulously clean and well

But

conscious that night has been. the mid-winter days of six hours only of daylight are the penalty for the nightless summer.

Although Sitka is really on the homestretch, it is from here that the traveller feels that the return voyage actually begins; like the out-going one it is a constant succession of ever-changing, ever-beautiful scenes. But it is a repetition without sameness or satiety, lacking perhaps the anticipatory excitement of the outward - bound trip, but full of reposeful luxury and opportunity to interpret to the soul this lotus-dream of travel by the delightful inland sea to our distant colony.