60 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



learned their destination I inquired if he were 

 among them, but they said he was not. He had 

 come aboard before we left, but for some reason had 

 decided to go on another boat that left half an hour 

 ahead of the Adelaide. The voyage proved intensely 

 interesting. The Frazer is from a quarter to half a 

 mile wide, and is navigable for large steamers for a 

 hundred miles above its mouth. There are portions 

 of the valley that are fertile, thickly settled, and 

 well cultivated. The valleys of some of its tribu- 

 taries are also good farming districts, and grain, 

 fruits, and vegetables of various kinds grow in 

 abundance. At the mouth of the Chilukweyuk I 

 saw fine peaches that had grown in the valley, with- 

 in ten miles of perpetual snow. The river became 

 very crooked as we neared the mountains, and 

 finally we entered the gorge, or canon, where the 

 rocky-faced mountains rise, sheer from the water's 

 edge, to heights of many hundreds of feet, and just 

 back of them tower great peaks, clad in eternal 

 snows. The little camera was again brought into 

 requisition and, as we rounded some of these pic- 

 turesque bends and traversed some of the beautiful 

 reaches, I secured many good views, though the day 

 was cloudy and lowery. The boat being in motion, 

 I was, of course, compelled to make the shortest 

 possible exposures, and was, therefore, unable to get 

 fine details in the shadows; yet many of the prints 

 turned out fairly well. 



We saw several seals in the river on the way up, 

 a,nd the captain informed me that at certain seasons- 

 they were quite plentiful in the Frazer and all the 

 larger streams in the neighborhood. They go up 



