Looking down the hatches
without seeing any whites, they at once drew their knives and began to
plunder. The whites dashed up the hatchway and drove the {191}
plunderers over the rails at sword point. East and north the small
boats skirted the mist-draped shores, returning at midnight with word
the inlet was a closed shore. There was no Northeast Passage. They
called the spider-shaped bay Prince William Sound; and at ten in the
morning headed out for sea.
Here a fresh disappointment awaited them. The natives of Prince
William Sound had resembled the Eskimos of Greenland so much that the
explorers were prepared to find themselves at the westward end of the
American continent ready to round north into the Atlantic. A long
ledge of land projected into the sea. They called this Cape Elizabeth,
passed it, noted the reef of sunken rocks lying directly athwart a
terrific tidal bore, and behold! not the end of the continent--no, not
by a thousand miles--but straight across westward, beneath a smoking
volcano that tinged the fog ruby-red, a lofty, naked spur three miles
out into the sea, with crest hidden among the clouds and rock-base
awash in thundering breakers.
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