THE FAIRY-LIKE HARBOR OF THE BRITISH FLEET.
Our drive brought us about six o'clock to Esquimault, the fairy-like harbor of the British fleet of the North Pacific. What a little gem it is! A rounded patch of sea, a few hundred yards in diameter, lifted up and dropped thirty fathoms deep among well-wooded, sloping hills and connected by a short, deep channel less than a hundred feet wide, with the mighty ocean. This channel is in fact a gateway with smooth granite buttresses, of bowlder-like surface, lifting a few feet above high tide. These buttresses were built by no human hand, but were born of the molten mass poured up from the earth's fiery center. The very globe shook and reeled in volcanic spasms at their birth. Here, in this quiet little harbor, thoroughly protected from the outer sea, lay the fearful man of war Warspite, a sleeping Titan, surrounded by several others less formidable, but yet of ugly dimensions. Close by the entrance of the harbor is a great dry dock, in which American vessels have been courteously repaired. Near this is a little hamlet where one can get a fair meal and can take rowing boat to visit the great ships.
The drive from town to the harbor is very charming; through pretty woods, on good roads, overlooking green arms of the sea which run back into the hills, in crystal clearness. One can well say these sea-creeks run back into the hills, for the incoming tides send currents up them of great strength. Pretty villas are built along the well kept roads, and acres of wild roses scent the air, while the red barked Arbutis leans over the cool streams with knarled bronze like arms and branches. The excursion steamers all anchor at Victoria long enough to permit tourists to take this and other drives.
When we reached the neighborhood of the man-of-war, it was so late that we had no expectation of going aboard, but our hackman desirous of putting in as much time as possible, and a boatsman in want of a job assured us we would be received aboard the Warspite. A large number of her 600 complement were leaning over the bulwarks, and gold lace and brass buttons shone upon the eyes of our two young girls. Their little hearts fluttered as no glacier of the Arctic zone could have made them do. Ah! what a wondrous spell the glitter on the shoulders of soldier or sailor works upon the female heart! Even the married woman of our party had a heightened color as we approached the gangway of the mighty ship. Fancy the two broken hearts of the girls and the composed, sad face of the matron when a sailor came down the gangway to inform us the hour for visitors was past, that no one was received after five o'clock. One of the men of our party told him the next time we came we would board his ship from the deck of the "Chicago." He laughed. There is no taint of a quarrel between the brave tars of an English and an American man-of-war. We rowed slowly away. The music from the band poured down upon us from the decks and was caught in sweet echo by the hills around. How I pitied the girls! They are just on the edge of society, and what tales they could have told their schoolmates! Chicago's late representative at the Court of the Shah of Persia smiled as only one who had been at a court could smile. But the girls uttered sighs which smote the writer's too sympathetic soul.
WHEN WE GOBBLE UP CANADA.
The Warspite lies at Esquimault (up here called Squimal) ready to shake the icebergs of Behring Sea. A word to President Harrison and Secretary Blaine: Don't tell England that our blood is up to fighting heat, until we are ready to gobble down Canada and the Canadian Pacific railway at a mouthful. It can be done and not at the expense of a very wry face. Then let England roam about the oceans to her hearts content, while we Yankees will play base-ball with a continent for our grounds, with basemen and shortstops between the two oceans, and out-fielders on the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic seas.
SAILING THROUGH THE ISLES OF THE PACIFIC.
We are now on our tenth day from Tacoma. The ship will reach her home Tuesday, the twelfth day, having sailed over 2,100 miles; some ten hours of this was in the open Pacific, from Glacier Bay to Sitka, and then from that port south to Clarence Strait. The remainder of the distance was in the interior channels, and across perhaps a half-dozen short openings into the sea. The several channels have fixed names and are of various breadths, from 200 or 300 yards to four or five miles. Sometimes we were next the broad continent, but often small islands lay between the straits and the mainland, with large islands or smaller ones several deep, towards the sea. The sailing along the watery road was plain and easy except in two narrow straits, where the ship had to slow up frequently, while she bent in and out to avoid rocks. These are taken partly as cut-offs and partly for the beauty of the scenery. The islands are all mountains lifted from the water; all are more or less tree-clad, with peaks on the tallest, rocky, jagged, and oftentimes with streamers of snow stretching downward in their upper gorges.
Vancouver Island is 300 miles long, covered by a broad, lofty range of mountains in pile behind pile, broken and in some instances with heads wrapped in perpetual snow. North of this along the way are four irregularly shaped long islands, around each of which a good steamer would require nearly a day to sail. These, too, are a mass of rugged, jagged, sharply pointed and peaked mountains in very confused mass, with no valleys, but with narrow gorges and small flats, along many of which pour pellucid streams from snowy heights. Seen from the south, the mountains are green up to a height of two or more thousand feet, with rocky summits flecked with snow or banded in the long downward gorges. Viewed from the north, the snow often lies in broad fields and always is in greater profusion then when seen from other points of the compass. The smaller island mountains are not so lofty, but are beyond the dignity of hills, being from 1,500 to 2,000 and some of them 3,000 feet high.
AWE-INSPIRING MOUNTAINS.