198 Sporting Sketches 



tide had left. In front, a big, black coal hulk sul- 

 lenly tugged at her cables, and beyond spread a 

 noble expanse of shining water, a magnificent, 

 almost landlocked harbor. 



Away across on the farther shore, a white mass 

 flashed the Indian Mission and rude cottages of 

 that strange, west-shore remnant of a people who 

 claim not kindred with the dethroned bronze rulers 

 of the great plains. Above the Mission, and as far 

 as eye could range, towered a stately cordon of 

 softly rounded, densely forested mountains, mighty 

 masses of softening greens, grays, browns, and mist- 

 ing purples, their crests supporting the flawless blue, 

 their velvet shadows stretching far down into the 

 flood. These steeps are the seaward battlements of 

 those Titanic rockworks piled in such magnificent 

 disorder within the confines of British Columbia. 



To the south the panorama of peaks dwindled 

 and softened in grand distances to where that snow- 

 helmed giant, Baker, gleams above the good state 

 of Washington. To the north were " The Lions," 

 couched in everlasting stone above forests of stately 

 conifers ; and beyond them purple peak after peak 

 stern interrogation-points, solemnly questioning 

 the sky. Below, and much nearer, lay the rippling 

 Narrows, the harbor entrance, above which towered 

 the grimly hewn face of precipitous Brockton Point. 



This point is one of the features of one of the 

 loveliest reservations imaginable, Stanley Park, 

 Vancouver's special pride. Under a tangle of foliage 

 strangely suggestive of the tropics extend nine 

 miles of smooth shell road, the very thing for long 

 tramps. The enormous growth of the conifers, 



