This page needs to be proofread.


over to the east side of the chasm gives a fine rainbow. The condensation forms numerous rills on the face of the almost perpendicular walls, which descend like threads of silver over the vividly green masses. There are rapids above and below the fall, and higher up the stream another cataract one hundred and twenty feet in height, the Indian name of which is Topan. In short, the Snoqualmie is a mountain stream above here, with a rapid current and jagged bed, and abounds in good fishing, as the woods do in game.

At Snoqualmie Station, where we dined, is a comfortable and pleasantly-situated summer hotel. Here the Hop-Growers' Association owns eleven hundred acres, three hundred and ten of which is in hops this season. The production of this farm is from eighteen hundred to two thousand pounds per acre. Fruit and root crops are successfully cultivated at Snoqualmie, giving evidence of what may be expected from the Valley in the future. I met a lady and her daughter going down to Seattle to witness the graduation of a daughter and a sister from some institution in the city, and who lived on a farm higher up the Valley, with which they appeared to be well satisfied.

I returned to the city in time to note from my hotel windows a charming evening scene: the Bay dotted with sail-boats, steamers coming and going, a fine veil of mist overhanging the Sound, the sun setting in a sea of golden cloud, from which flakes of gold fell off and floated away along the horizon. The level rays of departing day bring out the headland opposite with every building outlined, the surface of the Sound resembling for roughness a Canton crepe in pale blue, creased with the wakes of various water-craft, completed the first effect; then suddenly the heavens were flushed with a rosy radiance which was reflected from the placid water beneath, as if the day should kiss the earth good-night and blush in doing it. I thought about the Montana lady I had met in Tacoma, and hoped she was enjoying the picture as she was capable of doing.

The subject which absorbs most of the business brain of the Northwest, whether it be in Tacoma, Seattle, or some of the ocean ports, is how to obtain control of the trade of the Orient. A glance at the map shows us that so far as location is con