The great fault of the inland passage as a resort for tourists is in the constant dread of fogs that may at any time during certain months of the year completely obscure the grand scenery that tempted the travelers thither. The waters of the Pacific Ocean on the seaboard of Alaska are but a deflected continuation of the warm equatorial current called the Kuro Siwo of the Japanese; from these waters the air is laden with moisture, which being thrown by the variable winds against the snow-clad and glacier-covered summits of the higher mountains, is precipitated as fog and light rain, and oftentimes every thing is wrapped for weeks in these most annoying mists. July, with June and August, are by far the most favorable months for the traveler. The winter months are execrable, with storms of rain, snow and sleet constantly occurring, the former along the Pacific frontage, and the latter near the channels of the mainland. Milbank Sound gave us another taste of the ocean swells which spoiled the flavor of our food completely, for although we were only exposed for less than an hour that hour happened to come just about dinner time; after which we entered Finlayson Passage, some twenty-five miles long. This is a particularly picturesque and bold channel of water, its shores covered with shaggy conifers as high as the eye can reach, and the mountains, with their crowns of snow and ice, furnishing supplies of spray for innumerable beautiful waterfalls. At many places in the inland passage from here on, come down the steep timbered mountains the most beautiful waterfalls fed from the glaciers hidden in the fog. At every few miles we pass the mouths of inlets and channels, leading away into the mountainous country no one knows whither. There are no charts which show more than the mouths of these inlets. Out of or into these an occasional canoe speeds its silent way perchance in quest of salmon that here abound, but the secrets of their hidden paths are locked in the savage mind. How tempting they must be for exploration, and how strange that, although so easy of access, they still remain unknown. After twisting around through a few "reaches," channels and passages, we enter the straightest of them all, Grenville Channel, so straight that it almost seems to have been mapped by an Indian. As you steam through its forty or fifty miles of mathematically rectilinear exactness you think the sleepy pilot might tie his wheel, put his heels up in the spokes, draw his hat over his eyes and take a quiet nap. In one place it seems to be not over two or three hundred yards wide, but probably is double that, the high towering banks giving a deceptive impression. The windrows through the timber of former avalanches of snow or landslides, now become thicker and their effects occasionally picturesque in the very devastation created. Beyond Grenville Channel the next important stretch of salt water is Chatham Sound, which is less like a river than any yet named.