176 ASPECTS OF ORE G OX. [July 



the lumber trade which makes itself most visible. The sawmill at 

 Port Townsencl is a large one, and can cut 40,000 feet of lumber a 

 day. At the head of the bay are some considerable ironworivs, owned 

 and worked by San Francisco capitalists. 



The entrance to Puget Sound is defended by a fort built on the 

 liillside, a mile or so beyond Port Townsend ; but the little square 

 clearing in the midst of the dark woods had so peaceful an aspect, 

 that it suggested love in a cottage and all idyllic joys rather than 

 the horrors of war. 



Behind the town the long unbroken range of the Olympian 

 Mountains stretches away westward to the Pacific Ocean, and forms 

 the southern shores of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. Bat the 

 grandest mountain scenery is to the east, on the other side of the 

 Sound, and of this there are magnificent views to be had from Port 

 Townsend. Mount Baker, the most northern peak of the Cascade 

 range, rising to a height of from ten to eleven thousand feet, and 

 crowned with eternal snow, is visible in all its stately majesty ; and, 

 farther south, other peaks of the Cascades rise above the dark and 

 thickly-wooded shores of Puget Sound. But soon after we left Port 

 Townsend, the more distant mountains were hidden by clouds, and 

 presently a light rain began to fall. Showers and sunshine succeeded 

 one another all day ; and all day we followed the winding course of 

 the great cliannel whose waters roll inland amid impenetrable 

 forests. 



During the morning we called at Port Ludlow, one of the largest 

 sawmills in the world ; and afterwards at one or two smaller saw- 

 mills along the coast. Many of the inlets of the Sound reminded 

 us of bays on the west coast of Scotland ; but instead of a little 

 fishing village, picturesque in its irregularity, with a glimpse of a 

 church and a decent manse in a sheltered position inland, and rough 

 stone cottages with overhanging thatch on the beach, in the midst 

 of boats drawn up out of reach of the tide, and fishing nets spread 

 out to dry, there is the inevitable sawmill, with its sheds and lumber 

 yard: the little store, where everything is sold, from brass rings and 

 coloured beads to whisky and pipes and tobacco ; and half-a-dozen 

 frame houses, all alike, new and unpainted. White labour is scarce 

 in the country, and so there are no groups of idlers to be seen 

 watching for the arrival of the boat, no bonnie lassies with kilted 

 iiikirts and bare feet, and no brown-faced children clinging to their 

 mothers, or paddling about in the water. 



There are very few birds on these northern shores ; but a flock 

 of sea-gulls followed us all day long, as years before they had 

 followed us up the Elbe, and as they followed us after we had said 

 good-bye to England, and had crossed the bar of the Mersey. 



