certain boundary lines. Now and again smoke is seen winding upwards from some rude but comfortable cabin on the shore, where a white settler and his Indian wife live in semi-civilized style. A rude garden patch adjoins the cabin, carpeted with thriving root crops, bordered by currant and gooseberry bushes, while numerous wooden frames are reared close by on which to dry salmon, cod, and halibut for winter use. Three or four half-breed children, with a marvelous wealth of hair, and clothed in a single garment reaching to the knees, watch us with open eyes and mouths as we glide along the smooth water-way. At last the father’s attention is called to us by the exclamations of the papooses, and he waves us a salute with his slouchy fur cap. It is only a little spot on the lonely shore, but it is all the world to the squatter and his brood. One pauses mentally for an instant to contrast this type of lonely existence with the fierce and furious tide of life which exists in populous cities. Steamers, sailing craft, or native canoes have no storms to encounter here; the course is almost wholly sheltered, while coal or wood can be procured at nearly any place where the steamer chooses to stop. The fierce swell of the Pacific, so very near at hand, is completely warded off by the broad and beautiful islands of Vancouver, Queen Charlotte, Prince of Wales, Baranoff, and Chichagoff, which form a matchless panorama as they slowly pass, day after day, clad in thrifty verdure, before the eyes of the delighted voyager. Throughout so many hours of close observation one never wearies of the charming scene. The trip between Victoria and Pyramid Harbor, in many of its features, recalls the voyage from Tromsöe, on the coast of Norway, to the North Cape, where the traveler beholds the grand phenomenon of the midnight sun,—passing over deep, still waters, winding through groups of lovely islands, covered with primeval forests and veined with minerals, amidst the grandest of Alpine scenery, where the nearer mountain peaks are clad in misty purple and those far away are wrapped in snow shrouds, where signs of human life are seldom seen, and the deep silence of the passage is broken only by the shrill cry of some wandering sea-bird. In both of these northern regions, situated in opposite hemispheres, grand mountains, volcanic peaks, and mammoth glaciers form the guiding landmarks. The glaciers of Alaska are not only many times as large as anything of the sort in Switzerland, but they have the added charm of the ever-changing beauties of the sea, thus altogether forming scenery of peculiar and incomparable grandeur. One often finds examples of the Scotch and Italian lakes repeated again and again on this inland voyage, where the delightful tranquillity of the waters so adds to the appearance of profound depth. It requires but little stretch of the imagination to believe one’s self upon the Lake of Como or Lake Maggiore.