Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-01-08
sIrKA AND THE VOYAGE TO 1T.
Picturesque and Impressive scenes
Along the way.

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Along the way.
| Congressman Reed In the North American no
yiew.l
The delights OF the voyage to Sitka
have become known to many, and the
journey is destined to take the place OF
many foreign trip. Whoever seeks the
highest charm OF wild and wonderful
scenery will turn from Switzerland and
Norway to the charms OF the Alexander
Archipelago and to the frozen rivers which
cover the seaside valleys OF Alaska. On
board O comfortable steamer, without
the worry of change, with no chances OF
bad hotels, in serene pleasure, the ira
weller voyages 1000 miles as if in a mar
row inland sea, forever changing and
always wild, startling, and unexpected.
You seem TO be passing, and, indeed, you
are passing through mountain valleys,
with mountain peaks almost within
touch on either hand. Where there are
low hills wooded to the SUBMITS and
sloping to the waters edge the tall peaks
behind show their snow-capped heads
shrouded in endless variety of shifting
cloud and moving mist. Where
the mountain hangs almost precipi-
tous over the channel streams
of water fed by the exhaustless
SHOWS pour down visible here and there
through the breaks in the forests, some
times in great torrents with broad ava
lanches of foam and the roar of angry
waters, and sometimes in slender threads
so steady and fine that it needs the ire
NOR of glsty wind to assure you that
they are not motionless streaks OF color
on the rock. Whoever has seen an
Alaska glacier has felt to the full that
sense of awe which comes Of being in the
visible presence of one of the great forces
of nature. The glaciers of Switzerland
melt in the MONDAY sun high up on the
mountain side, while the glaciers OF
Alaska march in unbroken column ma
jestic to the sea, facing the bay with
an icy cliff reaching hundreds OF feet
into the air and stretching for
miles from shore to shore. When in the
sombre twilight of an Alaskan midsum-
mer midnight you look across the gray
distance under o clouded sky, unbroken
by sun or moon or star, at two great
rivers Of ice meeting at the base of the
mountain which lies like black island
between and speeding massive and wide
TO the waters edges, and think of the
centuries which have seen that vast mass,
motionless to every human eye, move
with ceaseless progress from the cold
SHOWS above to the cold waters below,
helping to make world, you will have
some conception of the weary years the
world has seen and the weary years the
world is vet to see. AT the Yellowstone
Park and in Alaska you can see some OF
the ways in which the world was made
and is still making.
Sitkan Alaska will have at least two
beautiful villages, one to be and the
other already beautiful. AS the steamer
approaches Juneau, on the Gastineaux
channel, there comes into view most
striking picture. The new town spreads
its little cottages over low hillock, at
what seems the base of broad perpen-
dicular height covered with evergreen
trees and stretching away into the sky
overhead Down the beetling cliff play
slender cascades of waving water, which
brighten and vivify the whole mountain
side. On the hillock the streets are in
cipient. rich with mud, and sloppy with
daily rainfall but sidewalks are begin
ming to emerge from chaos, and one can
see in the near future well-ordered and
decent town.
Sitka, the old viceregal seat, is already
a beautiful spot. One may travel far
and never see a nobler or more varied
picture than spreads before his eye who
stands on the roof of the old Russian
"castle on the summit of high knoll
at the waters edge. 1t was not bright
day, but from the north to the east and
away round to the south was half cir
Gle of mighty hills, snow-capped and
mist-crowned. Away off at sea, melting
into indistinctness in the haze of the dis
lance, were the great mountains which
cover the quarter Of the compass from
north to west. At our feet on the sea-
ward side was the harbor, dotted with
scores of beautiful islands and islets
bright with vivid green, and in the
furthest distance was glimpse Of the
edge of the great ocean itself. At the
base Of the castle" the two wings Of
the town spread ont at right angles with
each other. The Indian village lies on
the shore to the north, parallel with the
low bluffs where are the graves
OF the dead and the quaint little
huts which mark their last resting
places. Nearby the weather-stained
blockhouses bring back the lonesome
memories OF the conflicts with the
savages in the earlier days. The white
village lies on the other shore, strongly
marked to the eye by the Greek church,
with its green roofs. Beyond the village
the Indian river, gathering itself from
the SHOWS Of the mountain, flows over a
rocky bed through n grove charming
with its sauntering places and in July
rich with vegetation which seems little
short OF tropical in its luxuriance.