“all aboard!” at ten o’clock we steamed out of the harbor of seattle and headed toward alaska, the land of icebergs, glaciers and gold fields. seattle sat as serenely on her terraced slopes as rome on her seven hills. the sun shone bright and clear on the snow-capped peaks of the cascades. mt. tacoma stood out bold and clear against the sun-lit sky.
we steamed at full speed down admiralty inlet.
at noon we stop at port townsend, the port of entry for puget sound. one sees at all these coast towns many japanese, some dressed in nobby bicycle costumes, leading their wheels about the wharves, others wearing neat business suits and sporting canes. the less fortunate almond-eyed people are here too, dressed in the garb of the laborer, but it is to the former, the padrone, that the american employer goes for contract labor.
in any case the laborer pays his padrone a per cent. of his wages.
it holds true the world over that “some must follow and some command, though all are made of clay,” as longfellow puts it.
we are soon out on the ocean, where it is all sea and flood and long pacific swell.
all up and down the picturesque shores of puget sound live the silash indians, who to-day dress in american costumes and follow american pursuits. one sees them on the streets of the cities and towns. the silash, like the ancient greeks, peopled the unseen world with spirits. good and evil genii lived in the forest; every spring had its nereid and every tree its dryad. they believed the milky way to be the path to heaven; so believed the ancient greeks.
one beautiful day there gleamed and danced in the sunshine a copper canoe of wonderful design. down the sound it came. when the stranger whom it carried had landed he announced that he had a message for the red man, and sending for every silash, he taught them the law of love. the indian mind is slow to adjust itself to new thought. such ideas were new and strange to these children of nature. when this beautiful stranger about whose head the sun was always shining, told them of the new, the eternal life in the world beyond, they listened with deep interest, but the savage was stronger than the man in the red skins and they dragged the stranger to a tree, where they nailed him fast with pegs in his hands and feet, torturing him as they did their victims of the devil dance.
then they danced around him until the strange light faded from his beautiful eyes. slowly the radiant head dropped and life itself went out. a great storm arose that shook the earth to its very center. great rocks came tearing down the mountain side. the sun hid his face for three days.
they took the body down and laid it away. on the third day, when the sun burst forth, the dead man arose and resumed his teaching. the indians now declared him a god and believed in him.
year by year the silash grew more gentle and less warlike, until of all indians they became the most peaceful. my readers will readily see that this is a confused tale of the christ.
another fantastic tale of this region is that of an indian miser who dried salmon and jerked meat, which he sold for haiqua,—tusk-shells,—the wampum of the silash indians. like all misers, the more haiqua he got the more he wanted.
one cold winter day he went hunting on the slopes of mount rainier. every mountain has its tamanous, to which travelers and hunters must pay homage. now the miser, instead of paying devotion to the god of the mountain, only looked at the snow and sighed, “ah, if it were only haiqua.”
up, up he went, and soon reached the rim of the volcano’s crater, and hurrying down the inside of the crater he came to a rock in the form of a deer’s head. with desperate energy he flung snow and gravel about. presently he came to a smooth, flat rock; summoning all his strength, he lifted the rock. beyond was a wonderful cave where were stored great quantities of the most beautiful haiqua his eyes had ever beheld.
winding string after string about his body, until he had all the haiqua he could carry, he climbed out of the crater and started down the mountain side. but the tamanous was angry. wrapping himself in a storm cloud, he pursued the miser, who buffeted by the wind and blinded by the snow and darkness, stumbled on, grasping his treasure. the unseen hands of the god clutched him and tore strand after strand from his neck.
the storm lulled a moment, but returned with renewed energy; the thunder and lightning increased; again the unseen hands held him in a vice-like grasp. strand after strand the angry god tore from the miser’s grasp, until by the time he arrived at the timber line but one strand remained; this he flung aside and hurried on down the mountain. not one shell remained to reward him for his perilous journey. weary and foot-sore he fell fainting in the darkness. when he awoke his hair was white as the snow on the mountain’s brow. he looked back at the snow-crowned peak with never a wish for the treasures of the tamanous. when he arrived at his home an aged woman was there cooking fish. in her he recognized his wife, who had mourned him as dead for many long years. he dried salmon and jerked meat, which he sold for haiqua, but never again did he brave the tamanous of mount rainier. thus ends the weird tale of puget sound.
clearing this port, our course lay across the straits of juan de fuca, named for the greek explorer before mentioned. the green slopes of the beautiful san juan islands now came into view.
we landed at victoria, the capital of the province of british columbia, at eight o’clock in the morning. the city was still wrapt in slumber. a cow placidly munching grass in the street, looked at us inquiringly. we met a dejected looking dog and presently a laborer going to his work.
a handsome hotel occupies a commanding site, but the doors were closed. not a store was open. the government buildings, naval station and museum are the only places of interest.
the island of vancouver is composed of rock and sand. all along the shore are magnificent sea weeds, ferns and club mosses, growing fast to the rocky side and the bottom of the sea. many of these plants break loose and go floating about.
imagine a perfectly smooth, flexible parsnip, from twenty to fifty feet long, with leaves of the same length like those of the horse radish in form, but the color of sapless, water-soaked grasses, and you have a kelp. coming toward you head on, the long leaves floating back under it, you have a miniature man-of-war.
the fortifications for the protection of the harbor are submerged. you would never suspect that below that innocent looking daisy covered surface great guns were ready at a moment’s notice to blow you and your good ship to atoms should her actions proclaim her an enemy.
farther up the coast exquimalt, the most formidable fortress on the american continent, occupies a commanding site.
we were glad to retrace our steps to the steamer and shake from off our feet the dust of that sleepy old town, which never felt a quiver when “freedom from her mountain height unfurled her standard to the air,” and shake off too that strange feeling which possesses one when treading a foreign shore.
all day long mount baker of the cascade range has stood like an old sentinel, white and hoary, to point us on our way.
fair haven and new whatcomb, the terminus of the great northern railway for passenger traffic, are delightfully located on the coast. these towns are growing rapidly. the population is now twelve hundred. the largest[53] shingle mill in the world is located here. it turns out half a million shingles every ten hours. the saw-mill turns out lumber enough every day to build five ten-room houses, while a tin can factory turns out a half million cans a day.
in time fair haven and new whatcomb will be two of the most beautiful towns in washington. the streets are broad. green lawns surround handsome homes and pretty cottages.
at noon we passed the forty-ninth parallel, the boundary line between the united states and the british possessions. what a vast expanse of territory had been ours had we adhered to our determination to maintain the fifty-fourth parallel. “fifty-four, forty or fight,” we said, but gave it up without a blow.
forty miles across from vancouver lies the busy collier town of nanaimo. the indians discovered the coal fifty years ago. on the knoll near the coal wharves, there is a beautiful grove of madronas. in the surrounding forest gigantic ferns and strange wild flowers grow in great profusion. berries are plentiful and game abundant.
at cape mudge we bid farewell to the silash tribes. cape mudge potlatches are famous for their extravagance. in 1888 a neighboring tribe was worth nearly five hundred thousand dollars. the british columbia legislature prohibited potlatches and in one year their wealth decreased four-fifths. the prohibition of potlatches quenched their desire to accumulate property.
the wild gorge of homathco is the result of the relentless glaciers.
in jervis inlet is a great tidal rapid, the roar of which can be heard for miles. it is considered the equal of the famous malstrom and salstrom of norway.
at point robert we pass the last light house on the american coast. the stars and stripes floated from the flag staff. with a dash and a roar the white crested waves tumbled on the beach. with a last farewell to old glory, we steam ahead and for six hundred miles plow the british main.
the scenery becomes more wild, savage, grand and awful. snow-clad mountains guard the waterway on either side. such oh’s and ah’s when some scene of more than usual grandeur bursts upon our view. a canoe shoots out from yonder overhanging ledge. the glasses reveal the occupants to be four indians out on a fishing expedition.
nearly every one of our three hundred passengers was interested in the first whale sighted. “o yonder he goes, a whale;” “o, see him spout;” “now look, look!” “ah, down he goes.” then everyone questions everyone else. “did you see the whale?” “did you see our whale?” “o, we had whales on our side of the boat,” and adds some one, “they were performing whales, too.” then the gong sounds for dinner and the whale is forgotten in the discussion of the menu.
many of our passengers are bound for dawson city, juneau and other alaskan points. one hears much discussion of the dollar, not the common american dollar, but the alaskan dollar, which seems to be more precious as it is more difficult to obtain.
here are young men bound for the frozen field of gold who could carry a message to garcia and never once ask, “where is he ‘at?’” “who is he?” or “why do you want to send the message, anyway?” young men with backbone, muscle and brains, who would succeed in almost any field.
from queen charlotte’s sound to cape calvert we were out on the pacific. old neptune tossed us about pretty much as he liked, although captain wallace, who, by the way, is a genial gentleman and a charming host, assured us that we had a smooth passage across this arm of the old ocean. many suffered from mal de mer.
wrapped in furs and rugs, we sit on deck, enjoying the panorama of sea and sky. sun-lit mountains, white with the snows of a thousand years and green-clad foot hills covered with pines as thick as the weeds on a common. here and there in a wild, dreary nook the glasses revealed an indian trapper’s cabin. here he lives and hunts and fishes. when he has a sufficient number of skins he loads his canoe and skims across the water, it may be eighty or a hundred miles, to a town, where he trades his furs and fish for sugar, coffee, tea, and the many things which he has learned to eat from his white brother. he is very fond of tea and rum. he does not bury his dead, but wraps them in their blankets and lays them on the top of the ground, that they may the more easily find their way to the happy hunting ground. then he builds a tight board fence five or six feet high about the lonely grave and covers it tightly over the top to keep out the wild animals which roam the mountain sides. a tall staff rises from the grave and a white cloth floats from its pinnacle. we sighted one of these lonely graves on the top of a small island on our second day out, and were reminded of that other lonely grave in the vale of the land of moab.
bella bella is an indian town located on hunter island. the houses are all two-story and nicely painted. there is nothing in the aspect of the town to indicate that it is other than a white man’s town, though the indians who reside here were once the most savage on the coast. on a smaller island near by is a cemetery. small, one-roomed houses are the vaults in which the bodies are placed after being wrapped in blankets. here we saw the first grave stones. they stand in front of these vaults and are higher. on them are carved the owner’s name and his exploits in hunting or war in picture language.
the silash indians are very gentle and kind. if you are hungry they will divide their last crust with you. if you are cold they will give you their last blanket. they wear civilized dress, fish and hunt and are quite prosperous. many hops are grown in the state of washington and in the fall these indians go down in their canoes to pick hops. they are preferred to white pickers, because of their industry and honesty.
saturday night we crossed “fifty-four forty or fight” and sunday morning found us in alaska.
