78 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



surrounding mountains as clearly as though its 

 placid surface had been covered with quicksilver. 

 This lake is about forty miles long, is fed by the 

 Lillooet river and numerous smaller streams. Silver 

 creek, which comes in on the west side; twenty miles 

 north of the hot springs, is a beautiful mountain 

 stream of considerable size. A quarter of a mile 

 above its mouth, it makes a perpendicular fall of 

 over sixty feet. It is one of the most beautiful falls 

 in the country. Near the head of the lake, and in 

 full view from the springs, old Mount Douglass, clad 

 in perpetual snow and glacial ice, towers into the 

 blue sky until its brilliancy almost dazzles one's 

 eyes. Though forty miles away, one who did not 

 know would estimate the distance at not more than 

 five, so clearly are all the details of the grand picture 

 shown. It is said that from the glaciers on this peak 

 come the streams whose waters give their peculiar 

 milky cast to Harrison Lake and Harrison river. 

 Near the base of Mount Douglass is an Indian village 

 of the same name,. and the Hudson Bay Fur Com- 

 pany formerly had a trading post in the neighbor- 

 hood, which they called Fort Douglass. This Indian 

 village is the home of my prospective guide, and 

 from it he has adopted his unpoetic cognomen. 



Half a mile to the right of where we entered the 

 lake, the famous hot springs, already mentioned, boil 

 out from under the foot of a mountain, and discharge 

 their steaming fluid into the lake. The curative 

 power of these waters has been known to the natives 

 for ages past, and the sick have come from all direc- 

 tions, and from villages many miles away, to 

 bathe in the waters and be healed. All about the 



