i9i3" I 9 I 4-] British Columbia and Washington. 107 



There are many long-furred wood-rats, whistling marmots, and 

 porcupines throughout the range, but few large animals except 

 black bears, which are common enough. 



After some days spent in Vancouver, Victoria, and Tacoma, 

 we began our expedition into the Olympic range of Washing- 

 ton. A glance at the map will show how these mountains 

 fill that north-west corner of Washington which terminates 

 in Cape Flattery, discovered and named by Captain Cook. 

 Fourteen years ago I made an expedition into the range 

 from the south ; again, seven years ago, I camped for a week 

 in one of its unknown southern valleys. On this occasion 

 we went in from the north, up the Elwha river, which, rising 

 in the main ridge, debouches opposite the southern end of 

 Vancouver Island into the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The 

 river, like all those of that country, is full of fine rainbow 

 and ' Dolly Vardon ' trout, and we lived on the fish we 

 caught during our trip. A guide and horses met us six miles 

 from Port Angeles where we landed from the steamer, and we 

 soon were wandering in Indian file up a trail beside the river, 

 through groves of the great maple {Acer macrophyllwm),the tallest 

 of all poplars, P. triclwcarpa, and the most graceful of alders, 

 A. oregona. Here and there a huge Thuya gigantea, 30 feet or 

 more in girth and 250 feet high, reared its head above the 

 deciduous trees, and everywhere as far as eye could see, mile 

 after mile, were Douglas firs and hemlock spruces. Indeed 

 that country has never been surveyed owing to the impene- 

 trability of the forests, which densely clothe it from end to 

 end. I can imagine nothing more beautiful than those moss- 

 covered stems of the maples, poplars, and alders rising from 

 rocky ground, where the great fronds of the ferns Aspidium 

 munitum and the ' maiden - hair ' Acliantum pedatum find 

 foothold among the crannies and dead wood. 



The wapiti, or ' elk ' as the Americans insist on miscalling 

 it, is abundant, and we saw many of their huge antlers lying 

 where they had been cast a few months earlier. The 

 strangest of the fauna is the sewellel, a mysterious rodent of 

 nocturnal habits, which lives in holes in the boggy ground and 

 gathers neat bunches of leaves which he lays down carefully 

 and in order at the mouth of his burrow. He is a little- 

 known fellow, weighs about four or five lbs., and has forefeet 



