34 THE VOYAGE. 



announcement welcome to all. Being near dark, 

 it was deemed advisable to stand off until morn- 

 ing, and enter the Straits of Juan de Feuca with 

 a good light. It appeared a longer night than 

 I ever remember, so impatient was I once more 

 to see and tread on terra firma; what in the 

 mist and distance seemed but a dark undefined 

 shadow, was in reality the lighthouse, standing 

 grey and lonely on the wild wave-lashed rocks 

 of Cape Flattery. The wind was dead aft, and 

 blowing freshly, as we dashed up the straits, 

 faster far than we had ever gone during the long 

 tedious voyage. 



Nowhere is this curious inlet more than twelve 

 miles in width : on the right, seen over an ocean 

 of dark-green forest, sloping to the shore, were 

 the snowy summits of the Olympian range of 

 mountains ; on the left the more rounded and 

 lower metamorphic hills, quite as densely tim- 

 bered, but broken along the coast-line into open 

 glades and grassy slopes, like well-kept lawns, 

 reaching to the water-line. About sixty miles 

 from the entrance we round the dreaded ' race 

 rocks,' and with scarce time for even a hasty 

 look at the new land, glide round a rocky point, 

 on which is a house, and people anxiously watch- 

 ing our movements. The sails are clewed up ; 



