24 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



bushes ten feet high ; gaultheria berries, called 

 " sal-al " by the Indians ; salmon berries, an inch 

 in diameter, growing in dense prickly tangles, the 

 flowers, like wild roses, still more beautiful than 

 the fruit; raspberries, gooseberries, currants, 

 blackberries, and strawberries. The underbrush 

 and meadow fringes are in great part made up of 

 these berry bushes and vines ; but in the depths 

 of the woods there is not much underbrush of 

 any kind, — only a thin growth of rubus, huckle- 

 berry, and vine-maple. 



Notwithstanding the outcry against the reser- 

 vations last winter in Washington, that un- 

 counted farms, towns, and villages were included 

 in them, and that all business was threatened or 

 blocked, nearly all the mountains in which the 

 reserves lie are still covered with virgin forests. 

 Though lumbering has long been carried on with 

 tremendous energy along their boundaries, and 

 home-seekers have explored the woods for open- 

 ings available for farms, however small, one may 

 wander in the heart of the reserves for weeks 

 without meeting a human being, Indian or white 

 man, or any conspicuous trace of one. Indians 

 used to ascend the main streams on their way to 

 the mountains for wild goats, whose wool fur- 

 nished them clothing. But with food in abun- 

 dance on the coast there was little to draw them 

 into the woods, and the monuments they have 

 left there are scarcely more conspicuous than 



