More cañons followed, and no two alike; then came plain after plain, with buttes outlined in the distance; more plains, with nothing but their own excessive plainness to boast of. We soon grew vastly weary; for most plains are, after all, mere platitudes. And then Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital, with its lake shimmering like a mirage in the great glow of the valley; and a run due north through the well-tilled lands of the thrifty "saints," getting our best wayside meals at stations where buxom Mormon women served us heartily; still north and west, flying night and day out of the insufferable summer dust that makes ovens of those midland valleys. There was a rich, bracing air far north, and grand forests of spicy pine, and such a Columbia river-shore to follow as is worth a week's travel merely to get one glimpse of; and at last Portland, the prettiest of Pacific cities, and heaps of friends to greet me there.
Bright days were to follow, as you shall soon see; for I was still bound northward, with no will to rest until I had plowed the floating fields of ice and dozed through the pale hours of an arctic summer under the midnight sun.
Chapter V.
Off for Alaska.
If you are bound for Alaska, you can make the round trip most conveniently and comfortably by taking the steamer at Portland, Oregon, and retaining your state-room until you land again in Portland, three weeks later. Or you can run north by rail as far as Tacoma; there board a fine little steamer and skim through the winding water-ways of Puget Sound (as lovely a sheet of water as ever the sun shone on), debark at Port Townsend, and here await the arrival of the Alaska steamer, which makes its excursion trip monthly—at least it used to before the Klondyke hoards deranged the time-table and the times.
If this does not satisfy you, you may take passage at San Francisco for Port Townsend or Victoria, and connect at either port with the Alaska boat. Those who are still unsuited had better wait a bit, when, no doubt, other as entirely satisfactory arrangements will be made for their especial convenience. I went by train to Tacoma. I wanted to sniff the forest scents of Washington State, and to get a glimpse of the brave young settlements scattered through the North-western wilderness. I wanted to skirt the shore of the great Sounds, whose praises have been ringing in my ears ever since I can remember—and that is a pretty long time now.
I wanted to loaf for a while in Port Townsend, the old jumping-off place, the monogram in the extreme northwest corner of the map of the United States of America—at least such it was until the Alaskan annex stretched the thing all out of shape, and planted our flag so far out in the Pacific that San Francisco lies a little east of the centre of the Union, and the Hawaiian islands come within our boundaries; for our Aleutian-island arm, you know, stretches a thousand miles to the west of Hawaii—it even chucks Asia under the chin.
But now let me offer you a stray handful of leaves from my note-book—mere suggestions of travel.
At Portland took morning train for Tacoma, one hundred and forty-seven miles. Swarms of people at the station, and some ominous "good-byes"; the majority talking of Alaska in a superior fashion, which implies that they are through passengers, and they don't care who knows it. Alaska boat left Portland two days ago; we are to catch her at Port Townsend, and it looks as if we should crowd her. Train crosses the Columbia River on a monster ferry; a jolly and restful half hour in the cars and out of them.
A very hot and dusty ride through Washington State,—part of it pretty enough and part of it by no means so. Cars full of screaming babies, sweltering tourists, and falling cinders that sting like dumb mosquitoes. Rather a mixed neighborhood on the rail. An effusively amiable evangelist bobs up almost immediately,—one of those fellows whom no amount of snubbing can keep under. Old Probabilities is also on board, discoursing at intervals to all who will give ear. Some quiet and interesting folk in a state of suspense, and one young fellow—a regular trump,—promise better things.