AMONGST THE WILD GOATS OF THE CASCADES. 299 



Being now experienced in discovering goats, what 

 I should previously have taken for small patches of 

 reddish snow were now resolved into specimens of the 

 wild goat, as the heights were scanned, like groups of 

 small white points of equal size and always in the 

 most inaccessible positions, hemmed in by giddy 

 walls of rock, which would repulse a Himalayan ape. 



The rain continued to fall, and created numberless 

 cascades, falling in long silver threads across the 

 green from the upper sky-line, where the vegetation 

 served but to conceal the cliffs which lay ready to 

 oppose man's too familiar advances. 



The old camping-place at Fawn Bluff was the best 

 in such weather, near the entrance of Bute Inlet, 

 though on the way we passed one other strip of beach 

 which appeared to offer area enough for the spreading 

 of a tent, "Weary as we were of rowing, the Indians 

 looked longingly at the streamlet which foamed across 

 the gravel, but were too proud to give any sign of 

 their desire to halt, for our old camp was still far 

 distant. 



Our camp at the mouth of Bute Inlet was so cha- 

 racteristic that it deserves a description. Two days 

 were passed here, while the rain descended in columns, 

 and the dark, draggled masses of cloud streamed past 

 overhead, driving steadily out of the south-east, which 

 is the rainy quarter for the whole coast from California 

 to the Aleutian Islands. A cove, snug and protected 

 from the winds and waves, was formed by a deep, but 

 not very abrupt, ravine, down which two small brooks 



