STEEP TRAILS 



Tacoma are at present far in the lead of all 

 others in the race for supremacy, and these 

 two are keen, active rivals, to all appearances 

 well matched. Tacoma occupies near the head 

 of the Soimd a site of great natin-al beauty. 

 It is the terminus of the Northern Pacific 

 Raibroad, and calls itself the "City of Des- 

 tiny." Seattle is also charmingly located 

 about twenty miles down the Sound from 

 Tacoma, on Elliott Bay. It is the terminus of 

 the Seattle, Lake-Shore, and Eastern Raihoad, 

 now in process of construction, and calls it- 

 seK the "Queen City of the Sound" and the 

 "MetropoUs of Washington." What the pop- 

 ulations of these towns number I am not able 

 to say with anything like exactness. They 

 are probably about the same size and they 

 each claim to have about twenty thousand 

 people; but their figures are so rapidly chang- 

 ing, and so often mixed up with counts that 

 refer to the future that exact measurements of 

 either of these places are about as hard to 

 obtain as measurements of the clouds of a 

 growing storm. Their edges run back for miles 

 into the woods among the trees and stumps 

 and brush which hide a good many of the 

 houses and the stakes which mark the lots; 

 so that, without being as yet very large towns, 

 they seem to fade away into the distance. 



252 



