four in the afternoon
She keeps a tea-shop and she is Chinese . '' With that he bolted into his own cabin , which was next mine , and as I heard him laughing , I concluded he was joking and thought no more about it . However , as the ship glided up over flat sheets of golden water to the landing-stage , he joined me again , and together we stood looking up the principal street of Sitka which runs down to meet the little quay . It was just four in the afternoon , and everything was vivid living gold , as the floods of yellow sunshine filled all the shining air . The green copper dome of the church alone stood out a soft spot of delicate colour in the dazzling burnished haze . At the sides of the street sat and crouched the small squat figures of the Alaskan Indians , each with a mat before it on which the owner had set out his little store of wares -- bottles of various-coloured sands , reindeer slippers beautifully embroidered in blue beads , carved walrus teeth . We stepped on the shore and the Indians looked up at us with quaint brown questioning eyes , like their own seals .