from two to three inches in diameter, and more fragrant than any other

wild rose I ever saw excepting the sweetbriar. This rose and three
species of spiraea fairly fill the air with fragrance after a shower.

And how brightly then do the red berries of the dogwood shine out from
the warm yellow-green of leaves and mosses!

But still more interesting and significant are the glacial phenomena
displayed hereabouts. All this exuberant tree, bush, and herbaceous

vegetation, cultivated or wild, is growing upon moraine beds outspread
by waters that issued from the ancient glaciers at the time of their

recession, and scarcely at all moved or in any way modified by post-glacial
agencies. The town streets and the roads are graded in

moraine material, among scratched and grooved rock bosses that are as
unweathered and telling as any to be found in the glacier channels of

Alaska. The harbor also is clearly of glacial origin. The rock
islets that rise here and there, forming so marked a feature of the

harbor, are unchanged roches moutonnees, and the shores are grooved,
scratched, and rounded, and in every way as glacial in all their

characteristics as those of a newborn glacial lake.
Most visitors to Victoria go to the stores of the Hudson's Bay

Company, presumably on account of the romantic associations, or to
purchase a bit of fur or some other wild-Indianish trinket as a

memento. At certain seasons of the year, when the hairy harvests are
gathered in, immense bales of skins may be seen in these unsavory

warehouses, the spoils of many thousand hunts over mountain and plain,
by lonely river and shore. The skins of bears, wolves, beavers,

otters, fishers, martens, lynxes, panthers, wolverine, reindeer,
moose, elk, wild goats, sheep, foxes, squirrels, and many others of

our "poor earth-born companions and fellow mortals" may here be found.
Vancouver is the southmost and the largest of the countless islands

forming the great archipelago that stretches a thousand miles to the
northward. Its shores have been known a long time, but little is

known of the lofty mountainousinterior on account of the difficulties
in the way of explorations--lake, bogs, and shaggy tangled forests.

It is mostly a pure, savagewilderness, without roads or clearings,
and silent so far as man is concerned. Even the Indians keep close to

the shore, getting a living by fishing, dwelling together in villages,
and traveling almost wholly by canoes. White settlements are few and

far between. Good agricultural lands occur here and there on the edge
of the wilderness, but they are hard to clear, and have received but

little attention thus far. Gold, the grand attraction that lights the
way into all kinds of wildernesses and makes rough places smooth, has

been found, but only in small quantities, too small to make much
motion. Almost all the industry of the island is employed upon lumber

and coal, in which, so far as known, its chief wealth lies.
Leaving Victoria for Port Townsend, after we are fairly out on the

free open water, Mount Baker is seen rising solitary over a dark
breadth of forest, making a glorious show in its pure white raiment.

It is said to be about eleven thousand feet high, is loaded with
glaciers, some of which come well down into the woods, and never, so

far as I have heard, has been climbed, though in all probability it is
not inaccessible. The task of reaching its base through the dense

woods will be likely to prove of greater difficulty than the climb to
the summit.

In a direction a little to the left of Mount Baker and much nearer,
may be seen the island of San Juan, famous in the young history of the

country for the quarrels concerning its rightfulownership between the
Hudson's Bay Company and Washington Territory, quarrels which nearly

brought on war with Great Britain. Neither party showed any lack of
either pluck or gunpowder. General Scott was sent out by President

Buchanan to negotiate, which resulted in a joint occupancy of the
island. Small quarrels, however, continued to arise until the year

1874, when the peppery question was submitted to the Emperor of
Germany for arbitration. Then the whole island was given to the

United States.
San Juan is one of a thickset cluster of islands that fills the waters

between Vancouver and the inland" target="_blank" title="n.大陆；本土">mainland, a little to the north of Victoria.
In some of the intricate channels between these islands the tides run

at times like impetuous rushing rivers, rendering navigation rather
uncertain and dangerous for the small sailing vessels that ply between

Victoria and the settlements on the coast of British Columbia and the
larger islands. The water is generally deep enough everywhere, too

deep in most places for anchorage, and, the winds shifting hither and
thither or dying away altogether, the ships, getting no direction from

their helms, are carried back and forth or are caught in some eddy
where two currents meet and whirled round and round to the dismay of

the sailors, like a chip in a river whirlpool.
All the way over to Port Townsend the Olympic Mountains well maintain

their massive, imposinggrandeur, and present their elaborately carved
summits in clear relief, many of which are out of sight in coming up

the strait on account of our being too near the base of the range.
Turn to them as often as we may, our admiration only grows the warmer

the longer we dwell upon them. The highest peaks are Mount Constance
and Mount Olympus, said to be about eight thousand feet high.

In two or three hours after leaving Victoria, we arrive at the
handsome little town of Port Townsend, situated at the mouth of Puget

Sound, on the west side. The residential portion of the town is set
on the level top of the bluff that bounds Port Townsend Bay, while

another nearly level space of moderateextent, reaching from the base
of the bluff to the shoreline, is occupied by the business portion,

thus making a town of two separate and distinct stories, which are
connected by long, ladder-like flights of stairs. In the streets of

the lower story, while there is no lack of animation, there is but
little business noise as compared with the amount of business

transacted. This in great part is due to the scarcity of horses and
wagons. Farms and roads back in the woods are few and far between.

Nearly all the tributary settlements are on the coast, and
communication is almost wholly by boats, canoes, and schooners. Hence

country stages and farmers' wagons and buggies, with the whir and din
that belong to them, are wanting.

This being the port of entry, all vessels have to stop here, and they
make a lively show about the wharves and in the bay. The winds stir

the flags of every civilized nation, while the Indians in their long-beaked
canoes glide about from ship to ship, satisfying their

curiosity or trading with the crews. Keen traders these Indians are,
and few indeed of the sailors or merchants from any country ever get

the better of them in bargains. Curious groups of people may often be
seen in the streets and stores, made up of English, French, Spanish,

Portuguese, Scandinavians, Germans, Greeks, Moors, Japanese, and
Chinese, of every rank and station and style of dress and behavior;

settlers from many a nook and bay and island up and down the coast;
hunters from the wilderness; tourists on their way home by the Sound

and the Columbia River or to Alaska or California.
The upper story of Port Townsend is charmingly located, wide bright

waters on one side, flowing evergreen woods on the other. The streets
are well laid out and well tended, and the houses, with their

luxuriant gardens about them, have an air of taste and refinement
seldom found in towns set on the edge of a wild forest. The people

seem to have come here to make true homes, attracted by the beauty and
fresh breezy healthfulness of the place as well as by business

advantages, trusting to natural growth and advancement instead of
restless "booming" methods. They perhaps have caught some of the

spirit of calm moderation and enjoyment from their English neighbors
across the water. Of late, however, this sober tranquillity has begun

to give way, some whiffs from the whirlwind of real estate speculation
up the Sound having at length touched the town and ruffled the surface

of its calmness.
A few miles up the bay is Fort Townsend, which makes a pretty picture

with the green woods rising back of it and the calm water in front.
Across the mouth of the Sound lies the long, narrow Whidbey Island,

named by Vancouver for one of his lieutenants. It is about thirty
miles in length, and is remarkable in this region of crowded forests

and mountains as being comparatively open and low. The soil is good
and easily worked, and a considerableportion of the island has been

under cultivation for many years. Fertile fields, open, parklike
groves of oak, and thick masses of evergreens succeed one another in

charming combinations to make this "the garden spot of the Territory."
Leaving Port Townsend for Seattle and Tacoma, we enter the Sound and

sail down into the heart of the green, aspiring forests, and find,
look where we may, beauty ever changing, in lavish profusion. Puget

Sound, "the Mediterranean of America" as it is sometimes called, is in
many respects one of the most remarkable bodies of water in the world.

Vancouver, who came here nearly a hundred years ago and made a careful
survey of it, named the larger northern portion of it "Admiralty

Inlet" and one of the long, narrow branches "Hood's Canal'" applying