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tops and carried them away in the form of gray scud. Never before have I seen the sea in so hearty and exhilarating a motion. IT was all one white, howling, rampant, runaway mass of foam from side to side. We feared getting our decks swept. Caught as we were between the tide and the gale, therefore, we turned to seek shelter and wait better times. We found good anchorage in the lea of a red lava bluff near Cook’s harbor, a few miles to the westward of the mouth of the Pass. The sailors got out their cod-lines, and in a few minutes a dozen fine cod were flapping on the deck. They proved to be excellent fish, eaten fresh. But whether [they are] [Drawing - “Gl. E. end Unalaska Isld”] As good as the renowned Newfoundland article I cannot judge, as I never before had tested fresh cod. The storm sounding on over the mountains made fine music while we lay safely at anchor, and we enjoyed it all the more because we were in a wild nameless place that we had ourselves discovered. Next morning the storm abated and the clouds lifted from the highest mountains, revealing all the landscape robed in spotless white. How wild and silent and desolate it seemed; No trace of life on it all. Treeless, without the sign of any living thing - yet there is no lack of life about it. Water birds in myriads, and fishes - cod,
Date Original
1881
Source
Original journal dimensions: 11 x 18.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
MuirReel27Journal01P05-06.tif
Publisher
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Rights Management
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Keywords
John Muir, journals, drawings, writings, travel, journaling, naturalist
