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Thousands of cataracts, clear as crystal, flashed against the mountain
sides; and in places the rock wall rose sheer two thousand feet from the
roaring tide. Inlets, gloomy with forested mountain walls where
impetuous streams laden with the milky silt of countless glaciers tore
their way through the rocks to the sea, could be seen receding inland
through the fog. Then the foul weather settled over the sea again; and
by the first {51} week of August, with baffling winds and choppy sea, the
_St. Paul_ was veering southwestward where Alaska projects a long arm
into the Pacific. Chirikoff had passed the line where forests dwarf to
willows, and willows to sedges, and sedges to endless leagues of rolling
tundras. Somewhere near Kadiak, land was again sighted. When the fog
lifted, the vapor of far volcanoes could be seen hanging lurid over the
mountain tops.
Wind was followed by dead calm, when the sails literally fell to pieces
with rain-rot in the fog; and on the evening of September 8 the becalmed
crew were suddenly aroused by the tide-rip of roaring breakers.


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