At every landing made by the steamer on our meandering course among the islands Indians come to the wharves to offer their curios or home-made articles, only valuable as souvenirs of the visit. As they mass themselves here and there, either on the shore or the ship’s deck, they form picturesque groups, made up of bucks, squaws, and papooses, presenting charming bits of color, while they amuse the stranger by their peculiar physiognomy and manners. During the excursion season they must reap quite a harvest by the sale of baskets and various domestic trinkets. After leaving Fort Wrangel we are soon in the wild, picturesque, and sinuous narrows which bear the same name. The water is shallow; here and there are many dangerous rocks in the channels. Inlets or fjords are often passed, so quiet and inviting in their appearance as to tempt the traveler to diverge from the usual route. Some of these marine nooks are deep enough to float the largest ship, yet far down through the clear water one can see gardens of zoöphytes invaded by myriads of curiously shaped fish, large and small. The bottom of these waters, like the land and sea of Alaska, teems with animal life. A few hours’ dredging would supply the most enthusiastic naturalist with ample material for a year’s study. In the many stops of the steamer to take or deliver freight, brief boat excursions can be enjoyed. On one of these occasions we saw the first live octopus, or devil-fish, with two of its fatal arms encircling a small fish, which, after squeezing out its life, the octopus would devour. The one which was seen on this occasion was not very large, the rounded body being, perhaps, eighteen or twenty inches across, but its vicious looking tentacles, six in number, two of which securely clasped its victim, were each three times that length. The large eyes seemed out of proportion to the animal’s size, and were placed on one side like those of the flounder. The Patterson glacier is the first of the many which come into view on this part of the voyage, but they multiply rapidly as we steam northward. It is vast in proportions, though partly hidden behind the moraine which it has raised. Three or four miles back from its front rises a wall of solid ice nearly a thousand feet in height. The whole was rendered marvelously beautiful, lighted up as we saw it by bright noonday sunshine, which brought out its frosty and opaline colors of white, scarlet, and blue, in brilliant array. Little has been written about the Patterson glacier, but it is one of the most remarkable in size and other characteristics in all Alaska. Vessels from San Francisco have taken whole cargoes of ice from these Alaskan glaciers and transported the same for use in California. There seems to be no reason why the gathering of such a supply should not be both possible and profitable, though ice can now be so easily manufactured by artificial means.