Part 8 (1/2)

At night we reached Steilacoom, where there was formerly a military post. It has an imposing situation, with a fine mountain view; and there are some excellent military roads leading from it in various directions.

We spent a pleasant day at Olympia, which lies at the southern extremity of the Sound, and resembles a New-England village, with its maples shading the streets, and flower-gardens. It has an excellent cla.s.s of people, as have the towns upon the Sound in general; and the evidences of taste and culture, which are continually seen, are one of the pleasantest characteristics of this new and thinly settled part of the country.

There are no sawmills on the Straits of Fuca, and the slight settlements along its sh.o.r.es have scarcely marred their primitive wildness and beauty. The original forest-line is hardly broken; the deer still come down to the water's edge; and the face of the country has apparently not changed since Vancouver, nearly a hundred years ago, stooped to gather the May roses at Dungeness; or Juan de Fuca, two centuries earlier, ”sailed into that silent sea,” and looked round at the mountains,--not less beautiful, though more imposing, than those that lay about his own home on the distant Mediterranean.

DECEMBER 10, 1869.

We have just seen an English gentleman who came over to this country for the purpose of ascending Mount Baker, first called by the Spaniards _Montana del Carmelo_. He was three years in trying to get a small company to attempt the expedition with him. Indians do not at all incline to ascending mountains; they seem to have some superst.i.tious fear about it. I believe this mountain has never been explored to any extent. He describes the colors of the snow and ice as intensely beautiful. He has travelled among the Alps, but saw an entirely new phenomenon on the summit of Mount Baker,--the snow like little tongues of flame. In the deep rifts was a most exquisite blue. On the last day's upward journey, they were obliged to throw away all their blankets,--as they were not able to carry any weight,--and depend on chance for the night's shelter. How well Fate rewarded them for trusting her! They happened at night upon a warm cavern, where any extra coverings would have been quite superfluous. It was part of the crater, but they slept quietly notwithstanding.

JANUARY 15, 1870.

We have now a little Chinese boy to live with us; that is, he represents himself as a boy, but he seems more as if he were a most ancient man. He might have stepped out of some Ninevite or Egyptian sculpture. He is like the little figures in the processions on the tombs, and his face is perfectly grave and unchanging all the time. I feel about him, as I do about some of the Indians,--as if he had not only his own age, but the age of his race, about him.

There never could be any thing more inappropriate than that he should be named ”Wing,” for no creature could be farther from any thing light or airy. One reason, I think, why he seems so different from any of his countrymen that we have seen, is because he has never lived in a city, but only in a small village, which he says has no name that we should understand.

He works in the slowest possible way, but most faithfully and incessantly, and never shows the slightest desire for any recreation or rest. Even the antic.i.p.ation of the great national Chinese feast, which is to be celebrated next month, and which occurs only once in a thousand years, has failed to arouse any enthusiasm in him, and he is apparently quite indifferent to it.

Our goat has taken a great dislike to him,--I think just because he is so different from herself. She is always making thrusts at him with her horns, and trying to b.u.t.t him over. But he preserves, even toward her, his uniform sweet manner; calls her a ”sheep,” entirely ignoring her rude, fierce ways; leads her to pasture every day, under great difficulties; and attempts to milk her, at the risk of his life. The serenity of these people is really to be envied; they go on their way so perfectly undisturbed, whatever happens.

APRIL 30, 1870.

The tides are very peculiar here. Every alternate fortnight they run very low, and then the beach is uncovered so far out that we can take long rides on it, as far as the head of the bay.

We are very much entertained with seeing the old Indian crones digging clams. They appear to be equally amused with us, and chuckle with delight as we pa.s.s. It seems very strange to see human beings without the least approach to any thing civilized or artificial, with the single exception of the old blankets knotted about them with pieces of rope; but when I compare them with civilized women of the same age, who are generally helpless, I see that they have a great advantage over them.

They are out everywhere, in all weathers, and do always the hardest of the work. We meet them often in the woods, so bowed down under the loads of bark on their backs, that it looks as if the bark itself had a stout pair of legs, and were walking. Our horse is always frightened, and can never get used to them.

We can ride now for hours on the beach, looking at the water on one side, and on the other at the densely wooded bluffs, now most beautifully lighted up by the pink flowering currant. It is like the rhodora at home, in respect to coming very early,--the flowers before the leaves. At first it is of a delicate faint pink; but as the season advances it becomes very deep and rich in color, and contrasts most beautifully with the drapery of light-gray moss, and the dark fir-trees.

This flower attracts the humming-bird, and furnishes its earliest food.

This delicate, tropical-looking little creature is the first bird to arrive; coming often in March from its winter home in California, where it lives on another species of flowering currant that blooms through the winter.

In making some excavations here, there have been found the bones and teeth of the American elephant, and with them a bone made into a wedge, such as the Indians here use in splitting wood; which seems to imply great antiquity for their race.

AUGUST 10, 1870.

We have a new China boy, Ah Sing, who is very impulsive and enthusiastic, quite a different character from the unemotional Wing. He is almost too zealous to learn. R. began to teach him his letters, to make him contented. I hear him now repeating them over and over to himself, with great emphasis, while he is was.h.i.+ng the clothes. He is so big and strong, that they come out with great force. A few nights ago, after everybody had gone to bed, he came down past our room, and went into the kitchen. R. followed him to see what was the matter, and, as the boy looked a little wild, thought perhaps he was going into a fit.

He had seized the primer, and was flouris.h.i.+ng it about and gesticulating with it; and finally R., who has a wonderful faculty for comprehending the Chinese, divined that he had gone to bed without a lesson, and could not sleep until he had learned something.

XI.

Rocky-mountain Region.--Railroad from Columbia River to Puget Sound.--Mountain Changes.--Mixture of Nationalities.--Journey to Coos Bay, Oregon.--Mountain Canon.--A Branch of the Coquille.--Empire City.--Myrtle Grove.--Yaquina.--Genial Dwellers in the Woods.--Our Unknown Neighbor.--Whales.--Pet Seal and Eagle.--A Mourning Mother.--Visit from Yeomans.

PORT TOWNSEND, November 18, 1872.

We had quite a pleasant journey back from the East, and saw some things we must have pa.s.sed in the night on our trip thither. About the Rocky-mountain region we saw what appeared to be immense ruins; but they were really natural formations, resembling old castles, with ramparts and battlements and towers. I could not help feeling as if they must belong to some gigantic extinct race. On the wide, solitary plains they were most imposing.