INTRODUCTION
How cold it is this morning! How it blows and snows! It is not "the wolf's long howl on Unalaska's shore," as Campbell has it, but the wind's long howl. A more sustained, prolonged, screeching, raving howl I never before heard. But the little Corwin rides on through it in calm strength, rising and falling amid the foam-streaked waves like a loon. The cabin boy, Henry, told me this morning [May 16] early that land was in sight. So I got up at six o'clock—nine of your time—and went up into the pilot-house to see it. Two jagged black masses were visible, with hints of snow mountains back of them, but mostly hidden beneath a snow-storm.
After breakfast we were within two miles of the shore. Huge snow-peaks, grandly ice-sculptured, loomed far into the stormy sky for a few moments in tolerably clear relief; then the onrush of snowflakes, sweeping out into the dark levels of the sea, would hide it all and fill our eyes, while we puckered our brows and tried to gaze into the face of it all.
We have to proceed in the dimness and confusion of the storm with great caution, stopping frequently to take soundings, so it will probably be one or two o'clock before we reach the harbor of Unalaska on the other side of the island. I tried an hour ago to make a sketch of the mountains along the shore for you, to be sent with this letter, but my fingers got too cold to hold the pencil, and the snow filled my eyes, and so dimmed the outlines of the rocks that I could not trace them.
Down here in the cabin it is warm and summerish, and when the Captain and Doctor are on deck I have it all to myself. ... I am glad you thought to send my glasses and barometer and coat. We
