CHAPTER XXII.
DOWN THE SOUND.
We start down the Sound on an elegant steamer, called the Olympia, very early in the morning, in order to avail ourselves of the tide. It is too early to allow us to study the views which daylight affords; but wo feel assured that blue water, wooded headlands, and fair skies make up the panorama, and that the picture will be continued indefinitely throughout the day. Steilacoom is the first place of any importance we come to, and is really in a most beautiful location; being situated at the south end of the "Narrows," on a high, gravelly prairie, diversified with groves of fine timber, and gemmed here and there with small, clear lakes, bordered by a scattering growth of round-topped oak-trees. The scenery is unusually fine about Steilacoom, four snow-peaks being in view—Rainier, St. Helen, Adams, and Hood. It is said the finest view of Rainier to be obtained anywhere on the Sound, is to be had at this point. The Olympian Range across the Sound, is another fine feature of the landscape; while the Sound itself, together with the forests and valleys in sight from here, furnish a middle ground of great beauty.
The harbor at this place is a fine one, with plenty of water, and good anchorage. Steilacoom Creek furnishes a water-power which runs a flouring-mill and woolen mill, with plenty to spare for other manufacturing purposes; being the outlet of a lake situated two hundred feet higher, and only four miles distant. Springs also abound in the same neighborhood, some of them large enough to run the machinery of a mill. Little more than a mile to the east is old Fort Steilacoom, now abandoned. In the building once used as officers' quarters, the insane of the Territory are now confined, having been recently removed from Monticello. If a healthful location and pleasant surroundings can have any effect to "medicine a mind diseased," the location of the Asylum for the Insane is admirably chosen in this instance. The Penitentiary is also located at Steilacoom, but not on the main-land, a small island being devoted to this institution.
Steilacoom has only three hundred inhabitants, and is possessed of three churches and two school-houses. A boarding-school for girls is kept by the Sisters of Charity. The Masons, also, have a hall; the other public buildings being a Court-house and Jail—the latter built of brick, and very substantial. From Steilacoom east, via the Nachess Pass, to Wallula, on the Columbia River, is 225 miles. The altitude of this pass is 3,467 feet; but was opened and used as an emigrant road in 1853, and had $20,000 expended on it by the Government, in 1854. It is now, however, so blocked up by fallen timber as to be impassable for wagons. A recent discovery of valuable iron-ore on the Puyallup River, about fifteen miles from Steilacoom, has given additional importance to this place as a manufacturing point. Opposite to Steilacoom, on a small inlet, is an establishment for manufacturing oil from the dog-fish, before spoken of. This establishment is owned by Col. Pardee, an enterprising gentleman from New Haven, Ct.
Leaving Steilacoom, we steam up the "Narrows"—a strait four miles long by one in width, through which the water runs with great force at the ebb and flow of the tide—and pass by Point Defiance, a high bluff on which defensive fortifications may, at some future time, be erected by the Government. A few miles below Point Defiance is Commencement Bay, on which the town of Tacoma is situated—the first of the great lumbering establishments we come to after passing into that wider portion of the Sound known on the maps as Admiralty Inlet; Puget Sound being, in reality, only that portion of this great body of water south of the Narrows.
On the clearing away of the mists of early morning we find the air on the Sound very bright and bracing. A slight breeze just ripples the blue waters of this Mediterranean sea; the summer sky is delicately mottled with flecks of foam-white clouds; seals sport below; birds flit from shore to shore above; a golden silence, only broken by the paddle-wheels of our steamer, wraps all together in a dreamy unreality very charming to the tourist. Occasionally a white sail, gleaming in mid-distance, adds an interest to the scene; while it, at the same time, suggests what these waters will in time resemble, when palaces shall be reflected in their margins, and the winged messengers of commerce shall glide continually from point to point of these now fir-clad slopes, laden with the precious cargoes of the Orient, making this northern sea a second Bosphorus for beauty and magnificence.
Seventy-two miles from Olympia, by steamer, we come to Seattle, the most important commercial town on the Sound. It is situated upon an inlet six and a half miles long by two wide, with a general direction of east by south, known as Dwamish, or Elliot Bay. This inlet has a depth of water through the middle, ranging from forty to eighty-eight fathoms, with from ten to twenty fathoms on the anchoring grounds. It receives the waters of the Dwamish River, a stream which has only a length of ten miles, and is the outlet merely of the Black, Green, White, and Cedar rivers; all of them having rich agricultural valleys, making, in conjunction with the commerce of Seattle, King County the richest county of Western Washington.
Three miles immediately east of Seattle is Lake Washington (or Dwamish), connected with the bay by the Dwamish River. This lake lies but eighteen and a half feet above tide-water, making it a matter of trifling expense to open continuous navigation for small steamers into it. On the borders of Lake Washington, about nine miles from Seattle, is a coal-mine of excellent quality, and inexhaustible quantity. A company is working it, who have barges and steam-tugs on the lake, for its transportation in cars to the tramway which conducts to tide-water. A canal is talked of as an outlet to the lake. Should the United States Government conclude to erect a naval station on Lake Washington, as it may, the question of an outlet suitable for large vessels will no longer be in doubt. Probably no better locality for naval purposes could be selected than this; combining, as it does, fresh water of sufficient depth, exhaustless supplies of ship-building timber within easy distance, and extensive deposits of coal and iron—the latter alone being distant some thirty or forty miles, on the line of the projected railroad through the Snoqualmie Pass.
This famous pass is 2,600 feet above the sea, and only sixty-one miles, in an easterly direction, from Seattle. It is on this ground that this town has so loudly asserted its claim to become the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad—a grade of eighty feet to the mile being all that is required to construct the road through the Cascades from this point east. A wagon-road is now open, via this pass, to the plains on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, and the Yakima Valley. This is the route by which cattle and sheep are driven from the great pastures of Eastern Washington to the markets of the Sound and Vancouver's Island.
Seattle is built upon the face of rather a steep slope; is pleasant and cheerful-looking, and contains about twelve hundred inhabitants. The Territorial University is located here, and is a fine structure—so situated that it can be seen for a long distance up and down the Sound. Seattle has a great extent of wharfage, which impresses us with the conviction of its business capacities. And, indeed, the harbor swarms with every description of water-craft, from the handsome steamer Olympia and the tall three-masted lumber ships, to the little, wheezy tug and graceful "plunger."
On the opposite side of the Sound are Ports Blakely and Freeport; the one a high, round promontory, and the other a long, low neck of land, projecting into the Sound so as to form a small bay with the first. Across the Sound, and nearly abreast of Seattle, is Port Madison, distant twelve miles, also situated on an inlet, so narrow as to compel our steamer to back out—there being no room for "rounding out." All these ports, like Seattle, are great lumbering establishments, and have each a village of from one to three hundred people depending on the mills for employment. Probably one-half the lumbering business of the Sound concentrates within twenty-five or thirty miles of Seattle. The hay, vegetables, fruits, and provisions generally, that are consumed by the non-agricultural portion of these communities, are furnished by the county of which Seattle is the county-seat.
Port Madison is more handsomely situated than Seattle. It lies on a smooth hill-side, and the residences all have an air of cozy comfort quite prepossessing. One charming feature of the scenery here is the magnificent growth of maple-trees, reserved for ornament and shade. Those trees are as large in proportion to others of their species as are the immense firs of the Sound to theirs: a fact which suggests something with regard to the soil bordering the waters of Washington Territory.
The Port Madison mill is one of the largest on the Pacific Coast. It is 334 feet long by 60 wide; and its machinery is propelled by two engines with eight forty-two-inch flues. Sixty men are employed about the mill, besides the many engaged in logging, rafting, etc. There are shops of every description necessary to a complete establishment, including a foundry and machine-shop. The Company own six vessels for transporting their manufactured lumber; and a steam-tug for towing rafts or vessels, as required.
Port Gamble, thirty miles farther down the Sound, on the west side also, is situated near the head of Tukalet Bay; and is reached by the steamer going fourteen miles out of her course. In its general features Port Gamble is not unlike the other milling establishments, though it is perhaps the most important in respect of the amount of lumber produced. There are two mills at this place, and quite a village of their employees. In passing up this inlet we get a peep into that remarkable arm of the Sound called Hood's Canal, which is between forty and fifty miles in extent, yet whose entrance looks scarcely too wide for the passage of a ship. On this narrow strait is situated Seabeck, another large lumbering establishment; making in all four of these great lumber factories, whose assessed valuation for 1870 was as follows: Port Blakely, $91,705; Port Madison, $173,191; Puget Mill Company (Port Gamble), $282,327; Washington Mill Company (Seabeck), $128,186. Probably the real value of the milling property in Kitsap County far exceeds the figures which appear on the assessment-roll.
Port Ludlow, seven miles below Port Gamble, and Port Discovery, ten miles south-west of Port Townsend, at the extremity of another of the countless narrow bays by which the Sound is fringed, are the most northern of the milling towns. This latter bay is twelve miles long, and opens into the Sound at its junction with the Strait of San Juan de Fuca.
Port Townsend is situated on the peninsula formed by Port Discovery Bay on one side, and Port Townsend Bay on the other. This peninsula is ten miles long, and about three wide. The shore here is high and abrupt, without trees, and shows a level country beyond. The business portion of the town is located on low ground, only fairly above the reach of the tide, while the residences are nearly all upon the bluff. Though the water is deep, and there is plenty of room in this harbor, it is too much exposed to winds from all points of the compass to be a good one, or to compare favorably with very many others on the Sound.
This is the port of entry for this district; and we make quite a lengthened call, having an opportunity to take a critical look at the group of ladies and gentlemen who have come down to the wharf to give us "hail and farewell." And it must be testified that these people over on the Sound are by no means in a state of darkness or depression, notwithstanding their isolation; but wide-awake, intelligent, courteous, and modish. The population of Port Townsend is about five hundred.
Two miles and a half south-west of the town is the site of a United States military post, now abandoned. The prospect from this high bluff is remarkably fine. To the north-east, and nearly on the 49th parallel, is Mount Baker, with its ragged, double peak fretting the heavens. Far to the south-east is Mount Rainier, the most beautiful peak of the northern Andes; on the west, the Olympian Range; on the east, Whidby's Island, spread out like a garden; and across the straits, San Juan and Vancouver's islands dimly visible.
Leaving Port Townsend, we soon get a view of New Dungeness Light-house on the south, and the San Juan Archipelago on the north—the latter of which recalls the dispute about boundaries: the United States claiming that the English channel should be to the westward of the principal island, and Great Britain that it should be to the eastward. Looking back to the east, across the straits, we see still our mighty snow-peaks towering over a blue mountain-range, with an archipelago of islands intervening. On the southern view, the Olympian Ranges seem to bathe their feet in the waters of the strait, surpassingly beautiful in outline, delicately colored, tipped and rimmed with silvery lines and crests of snow—a marvel of aerial effect—a poet's dream—a vision of the air. Turning from this exquisite sublimity, we see on the north the rocky, but picturesque shores of Vancouver's Island, belonging to the possessions of Her Britannic Majesty. Neither high nor low, but rising handsomely out of the water; indented with numerous coves, bays, and arms of the sea; its shore being dotted with trees, rather than heavily wooded, with some handsome villas in sight from the steamer, Vancouver's Island makes a good impression at the moment of approach—has, in fact, one of the handsomest approaches to its principal city of any country fronting on the Pacific.
It is impossible to have seen Victoria, the capital of the British possessions on the Pacific, and not give it a passing notice at least. It is so in our way when traveling on the North-west Coast, as not only not to be avoided, but to seem as one of our own proper belongings. The ocean steamers from San Francisco and Portland, though they no longer make this a point of destination as they did in the times of mining excitement on Frazer's River, still call here. The Sound steamers run direct between Olympia and Victoria. There is a large American element in the place, and its contiguity to American soil very strongly suggests identical interests.
The harbor of Victoria is very small, with a narrow and crooked entrance. The site of the town was not selected with reference to a future metropolis, but only as a supply-station of the Hudson's Bay Company, after their removal from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. The beauty of the location probably had its proper weight with the gentlemanly managers of the Hudson's Bay Company. Should the future of the city ever demand it, Esquimault Harbor could be opened into Victoria Harbor by a canal across the peninsula on which the city stands, in which case there would be ample room and depth of water.
The discovery of gold, in 1858, caused the British Government to revoke its grant of exclusive right to trade in the North-west Territories, which for so many years had been held by the Hudson's Bay Company, and to erect a new colony, under the name of British Columbia. Under the stimulant of this act, and the repeated new gold discoveries, Victoria suddenly arose from a trading-post to a handsome city of several thousand inhabitants. But her career was brief, owing to several causes, some of which were local and physical, while others were political and traditional. The physical causes for the reverses at Victoria were the severity of the winters in the richest mining region; the cost of getting there, and of subsistence after getting there—the scant agricultural resources of Vancouver's Island not affording provision for the large population which suddenly poured in upon British Columbia. The political ones were those which usually beset a Crown colony, with an expensive Government to maintain, and none but second-hand representation. This brief history will explain why fully one-third of the houses stand vacant in this beautiful city, and point the meaning of such an advertisement as this, in the morning paper: "Wanted—a small family to occupy a house. Rent free."
We also learn by the colonial papers, that railroad schemes, confederation schemes, and annexation schemes are popular topics in Victoria. While one paper declares the "Canadian Pacific Railway a necessity, a possibility, and a certainty," its opponent doubts these assumptions, and sees plenty of obstacles in the way of the proposed railroad. The impartial observer may admit the feasibility of a railroad from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Georgia, and its seeming benefit to the British colonies—supposing the British Government willing to furnish the means of building it. But its real benefit would still be dependent upon certain political conditions not yet effected. In the present state of the colony, it can not take advantage of the credit of the home Government, nor even extricate itself from the embarrassments which prevent its doing so. To ameliorate this condition, two plans are proposed: confederation with the Eastern Provinces, or annexation to United States territory. Property owners on the island are generally in favor of annexation. But Government officials, and a class of freshly imported young men who have nothing to lose, are opposed to it. That is about the way it stands. Official integrity, patriotism, and British pride are opposed to annexation; and every other interest is in favor of it.
They have not been able always to afford a line of steamers for themselves, and were compelled to see the American steamers pass on up the Sound, only touching at their wharves. This year, however, a line has been put on between San Francisco and Victoria, carrying Her Majesty's mails, and connecting with the Sound steamers, which run to that port. They are forced, too, to buy a great share of their provisions from American dealers. But, in return, they sell their coal (Nanaimo) to American purchasers. Of the retail trade in miscellaneous articles, American merchants in Victoria control a large proportion. We can not help thinking, if it were annexed, what a glorious city Victoria might become. But remaining as she is, she is too near to American enterprise not to be injured by it; and the same is true of British Columbia all the way to the Lake of the Woods. The Northern Pacific Railroad will draw to itself the agricultural and mineral wealth of a large extent of territory, whose resources are as ample, as they are at present little understood by Americans.
There is little good land on Vancouver's Island, the largest body of it lying on the east side, toward the Gulf of Georgia. Sheep-raising is carried on to a considerable extent; the fleeces being reported light, but the mutton excellent. Fruit, so far as cultivated, does well. But the wealth of the island lies in the heavy forests of the interior, in its coal, and in its fisheries; to which will ultimately be added gold, copper, and salt.