Perhaps three miles away, as the crow flies, from the river, and seventeen hundred and fifty feet above it, as the aneroid gave it, we were already on the watershed, and everywhere in the direction we were travelling the wide-flung draws and gullies of the Fortymile River stretched out, so clear and beautiful a display of the beginnings of a great drainage system that my attention was arrested, notwithstanding my eagerness for the sight that awaited my turning around. But it was upon turning around and looking in the direction from which we had come that the grandeur and sublimity entered into the scene. There was, indeed, no one great dominating feature in this prospect as in the view of Denali from the Rampart portage, but the whole background, bounding the vision completely, was one vast wall of lofty white peaks, stretching without a break for a hundred miles. Enormous cloud masses rose and fell about this barrier, now unfolding to reveal dark chasms and glittering glaciers, now enshrouding them again. In the middle distance the Tanana River wound and twisted its firm white line amidst broken patches of snow and timber far away to either hand, and, where glacial affluents discharged into it, were finer, threadlike lines that marked the many mouths. The thick spruce mantling the slope in the foreground gave a sombre contrast to the fields of snow, and the yellow March sunshine was poured over all the wide landscape save where the great clouds contended with the great mountains. The boys had stopped to build a fire and brew some tea before leaving the timber, and I was glad of it, for it gave me the chance to gaze my fill upon the inspiring and fascinating scene in the pleasant warmth of the mountain top, with the thermometer at 30° in the shade and just 12° higher in the sunshine. [Sidenote: A NOBLE VIEW] How grateful I was for the clear bright day! What a disappointment it has been again and again to reach such an eminence and see--nothing! It was the most extensive view of the great Alaskan range I had ever secured--that long line of sharp peaks that stretches and broadens from the coast inland until it culminates in the highest point of the North American continent and then curves its way back to the coast again. Of course, what lay here within the vision was only a small part of one arm of the range; it stopped far short of Denali on the one hand and Mount Sanford on the other, though it included Mount Kimball and Mount Hayes; yet it was the most impressive sight of a mountain chain I had ever beheld. It was a sight to be glad and grateful for, to put high amongst one's joyful remembrances; and with this notable sight we bade farewell to the Tanana valley.