THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 223 



with fright by the fish flapping against their legs! Up and 

 down a distance of two and a half degrees of latitude, the 

 Indians spear and net them in immense quantities. The 

 Hudson's Bay Company long exported them largely, smoked, 

 dried, and pickled. Salted salmon they sold at 810 per bar- 

 rel, for shipment to China, the Sandwich Islands, and the 

 South American coast. 



Of speckled trout in the cold streams that flow into Puget's 

 Sound, there is no end — even of eight-pounders. Not only 

 can they be netted by the wagon-load, but caught by the 

 hand by wading out into the stream. 



It has been generally believed that the salmon of the 

 Pacific never rise to a fl}', and repeated tests by expert 

 anglers have failed to controvert the opinion. Xevertheless, 

 had the experiments been made in the autumn, instead of 

 the summer months corresponding to the fishing season on 

 the Atlantic coast, this opinion would readily have been 

 found to be erroneous. The fact is, the Pacific salmon can 

 be caught with the fly at any time after the fall rains com- 

 mence. 



When the gi'eat railway routes now reaching toward 

 the Northwest — ihe Canadian Pacific, the Northern Pacific, 

 the Oregon and Idaho branch of the Union Pacific, and 

 the California and Oregon, fi'om Sacramento to Portland — 

 when these are completed, the great Columbia Eiver and the 

 rivers of Puget's Sound will be brought within easy access. 

 At present the overland journey to San Francisco and thence 

 by steamer to Portland and Victoria, Vancouver's Island, is 

 not tedious or difficult. 



