From Portland to Port Townsend, Seattle, and Tacoma.
WASHINGTON
is 340 miles long by about 240 wide. The first actual settlement by Americans was made at Tumwater in 1845. Prior to this, the country was known only to trappers and fur traders. Territorial government was organized in 1853, and Washington was admitted as a State, November, 1889. The State is almost inexhaustibly rich in coal and lumber, and has frequently been called the "Pennsylvania of the Pacific Coast." The precious metals are also found in abundance in many districts. The yield of wheat is prodigious. Apples, pears, apricots, plums, prunes, peaches, cherries, grapes, and all berries flourish in the greatest profusion. Certain it is that there is no other locality where trees bear so early and surely as here, and where the fruit is of greater excellence, and where there are so few drawbacks. At the Centennial Exposition, Washington Territory fruit-tables were the wonder of visitors and an attractive feature of the grand display. This Territory carried off seventeen prizes in a competitive contest where thirty-three States were represented.
It is a pleasant journey of 150 miles through the pine forests from Portland to Tacoma. Any one of the splendid steamers of the Union Pacific may be taken for a trip to Victoria. Leaving Tacoma in the morning, we sail over that noble sheet of water, Puget Sound. The hills on either side are darkly green, the Sound widening slowly as we go. Seattle is reached in three hours, a busy town of 35,000 people, full of vim, push, and energy. Twenty million dollars' worth of property went up in flame and smoke in Seattle's great fire of June 6, 1889. The ashes were scarcely cold when her enthusiastic citizens began to build anew, better, stronger, and more beautiful than before. A city of brick, stone, and iron has arisen, monumental evidence of the energy, pluck, and perseverance of the people, and of their fervent faith in the future of Seattle. Then Port Townsend, with its beautiful harbor and gently sloping bluffs, "the city of destiny," beyond all doubt, of any of the towns on the Sound. Favored by nature in many ways, Townsend has the finest roadstead and the best anchorage ground in these waters, and this must tell in the end, when advantages for sea trade are considered. Victoria, B.C., is reached in the evening, and we sleep that night in Her Majesty's dominions. The next day may be spent very pleasantly in driving and walking about the city, a handsome town of 14,000 people.
A thorough system of macadamized roads radiates from Victoria, furnishing about 100 miles of beautiful drives. Many of these drives are lined with very handsome suburban residences, surrounded with lawns and parks. Esquimalt, near Victoria, has a fine harbor. This is the British naval station where several iron-clads are usually stationed. There is also an extensive dry-dock, hewn out of the solid rock, capacious enough to receive large vessels.
In the evening after dinner, one can return to the steamer and take possession of a stateroom, for the boat leaves at four in the morning. When breakfast time comes we are well on our return trip, and moving past Port Townsend again. The majestic straits of Fuca, through which we have passed, are well worth a visit; it is a taste of being at sea without any discomfort, for the water is without a ripple. As we steam homeward there is a vision which has been described for all time by a master hand. "One becomes aware of a vast, white shadow in the water. It is a giant mountain dome of snow in the depths of tranquil blue. The smoky haze of an Oregon August hid all the length of its lesser ridges and left this mighty summit based upon uplifting dimness. Only its splendid snows were visible high in the unearthly regions of clear, noonday sky. Kingly and alone stood this majesty without any visible comrade, though far to the north and south there were isolated sovereigns. This regal gem the Christians have dubbed Mount Rainier, but more melodious is its Indian name, 'Tacoma.'"
A LEGEND OF TACOMA.
Theodore Winthrop, in his own brilliant way, tells a quaint legend of Tacoma, as related to him by a frowsy Siwash at Nisqually. "Tamanous," among the native Indians of this section, is a vague and half-personified type of the unknown and mysterious forces of Nature. There is the one all-pervading Tamanous, but there are a thousand emanations, each one a tamanous with a small "t." Each Indian has his special tamanous, who thus becomes "the guide, philosopher, and friend" of every Siwash. The tamanous, or totem, types himself as a salmon, a beaver, an elk, a canoe, a fir-tree, and so on indefinitely. In some of its features this legend resembles strongly the immortal story of Rip Van Winkle; it may prove interesting as a study in folk-lore.
"Avarice, O, Boston tyee!" quoth the Siwash, studying me with dusky eyes, "is a mighty passion. Know you that our first circulating medium was shells, a small perforated shell not unlike a very opaque quill toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends. We string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we love—namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our hearts desire. Hiaqua, we call it, and he who has most hiaqua is wisest and best of all the dwellers on the Sound.
"Now, in old times there dwelt here an old man, a mighty hunter and fisherman. And he worshipped hiaqua. And always this old man thought deeply and communed with his wisdom, and while he waited for elk or salmon he took advice within himself from his demon—he talked with tamanous. And always his question was, 'How may I put hiaqua in my purse?' But never had Tamanous revealed to him the secret. There loomed Tacoma, so white and glittering that it seemed to stare at him very terribly and mockingly, and to know of his shameful avarice, and how it led him to take from starving women their cherished lip and nose jewels of hiaqua, and give them in return tough scraps of dried elk-meat and salmon. His own peculiar tamanous was the elk. One day he was hunting on the sides of Tacoma, and in that serene silence his tamanous began to talk to his soul. 'Listen!' said tamanous—and then the great secret of untold wealth was revealed to him. He went home and made his preparations, told his old, ill-treated squaw he was going for a long hunt, and started off at eventide. The next night he camped just below the snows of Tacoma, but sunrise and he struck the summit together, for there, tamanous had revealed to him, was hiaqua—hiaqua that should make him the greatest and richest of his tribe. He looked down and saw a hollow covered with snow, save at the centre, where a black lake lay deep in a well of purple rock, and at one end of the lake were three large stones or monuments. Down into the crater sprang the miser, and the morning sunshine followed him. He found the first stone shaped like a salmon head; the second like a kamas root, and the third, to his great joy, was the carven image of an elk's head. This was his own tamanous, and right joyous was he at the omen, so taking his elk-horn pick he began to dig right sturdily at the foot of the monument. At the sound of the very first blow he made, thirteen gigantic otters came out of the black lake and, sitting in a circle, watched him. And at every thirteenth blow they tapped the ground with their tails in concert The miser heeded them not, but labored lustily for hours. At last, overturning a thin scale of rock, he found a square cavity filled to the brim with hiaqua.
"He was a millionaire.
"The otters retired to a respectful distance, recognizing him as a favorite of Tamanous.
"He reveled in the treasure, exulting. Deep as he could plunge his arm, there was still more hiaqua below. It was strung upon elk sinews, fifty shells on a string. But he saw the noon was passed, so he prepared to depart. He loaded himself with countless strings of hiaqua, by fifties and hundreds, so that he could scarcely stagger along. Not a string did he hang on the tamanous of the elk, or the salmon, or the kamas—not one—but turned eagerly toward his long descent. At once all the otters plunged back into the lake and began to beat the waters with their tails; a thick, black mist began to rise threateningly. Terrible are the storms in the mountains—and Tamanous was in this one. Instantly the fierce whirlwind overtook the miser. He was thrown down and flung over icy banks, but he clung to his precious burden. Utter night was around him, and in every crash and thunder of the gale was a growing undertone which he well knew to be the voice of Tamanous. Floating upon this undertone were sharper tamanous voices, shouting and screaming, always sneeringly, 'Ha, ha, hiaqua!—ha, ha, ha!' Whenever the miser attempted to continue his descent the whirlwind caught him and tossed him hither and thither, flinging him into a pinching crevice, burying him to the eyes in a snow drift, throwing him on jagged boulders, or lacerating him on sharp lava jaws. But he held fast to his hiaqua. The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded with perdition; the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish; the laughter more appalling; and the miser more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He at last thought to propitiate exasperated Tamanous, and threw away a string of hiaqua. But the storm was renewed blacker, louder, crueler than before. String by string he parted with his treasure, until at the last, sorely wounded, terrified, and weak, with a despairing cry, he cast from him the last vestige of wealth, and sank down insensible.
"It seemed a long slumber to him, but at last he woke. He was upon the very spot whence he started at morning. He felt hungry, and made a hearty breakfast of the chestnut-like bulbs of the kamas root, and took a smoke. Reflecting on the events of yesterday, he became aware of an odd change in his condition. He was not bruised and wounded, as he expected, but very stiff only, and his joints creaked like the creak of a lazy paddle on the rim of a canoe. His hair was matted and reached a yard down his back. 'Tamanous,' thought the old man. But chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have lost their charm for him. Tacoma, shining like gold and silver and precious stones of gayest lustre, seemed a benign comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful, and he thought he had never wakened to a fresher morning. He rose and started on his downward way, but the woods seemed strangely transformed since yesterday; just before sunset he came to the prairie where his lodge used to be; he saw an old squaw near the door crooning a song; she was decked with many strings of hiaqua and costly beads. It was his wife; and she told him he had been gone many, many years—she could not tell how many; that she had remained faithful and constant to him, and distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. But little cared the sage for such things; he, was rejoiced to be at home and at peace, and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure buried in a place of security. He imparted whatever he possessed—material treasures or stores of wisdom and experience—freely to all the land. Every dweller came to him for advice how to spear the salmon, chase the elk, or propitiate Tamanous. He became the great medicine man of the Siwashes and a benefactor to his tribe and race. Within a year after he came down from his long nap on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father, was born to him. The sage lived many years, revered and beloved, and on his death-bed told this history to my father as a lesson and a warning. My father dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no son; I grow old, and lest this wisdom perish from the earth, and Tamanous be again obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the tale to thee, O Boston tyee. Mayst thou and thy nation not disdain this lesson of an earlier age, but profit by it and be wise!"