Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist Part 2

"He reveled in the treasure, exulting. Deep as he could plunge his arm, there was still more hiaqua below. It was strung upon elk sinews, fifty sh.e.l.ls on a string. But he saw the noon was pa.s.sed, so he prepared to depart. He loaded himself with countless strings of hiaqua, by fifties and hundreds, so that he could scarcely stagger along. Not a string did he hang on the tamanous of the elk, or the salmon, or the kamas--not one--but turned eagerly toward his long descent. At once all the otters plunged back into the lake and began to beat the waters with their tails; a thick, black mist began to rise threateningly. Terrible are the storms in the mountains--and Tamanous was in this one. Instantly the fierce whirlwind overtook the miser. He was thrown down and flung over icy banks, but he clung to his precious burden. Utter night was around him, and in every crash and thunder of the gale was a growing undertone which he well knew to be the voice of Tamanous. Floating upon this undertone were sharper tamanous voices, shouting and screaming, always sneeringly, 'Ha, ha, hiaqua!--ha, ha, ha!' Whenever the miser attempted to continue his descent the whirlwind caught him and tossed him hither and thither, flinging him into a pinching crevice, burying him to the eyes in a snow drift, throwing him on jagged boulders, or lacerating him on sharp lava jaws. But he held fast to his hiaqua. The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded with perdition; the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish; the laughter more appalling; and the miser more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He at last thought to propitiate exasperated Tamanous, and threw away a string of hiaqua. But the storm was renewed blacker, louder, crueler than before. String by string he parted with his treasure, until at the last, sorely wounded, terrified, and weak, with a despairing cry, he cast from him the last vestige of wealth, and sank down insensible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROOSTER ROCK, COLUMBIA RIVER, ORE. On the Union Pacific Ry.]

"It seemed a long slumber to him, but at last he woke. He was upon the very spot whence he started at morning. He felt hungry, and made a hearty breakfast of the chestnut-like bulbs of the kamas root, and took a smoke. Reflecting on the events of yesterday, he became aware of an odd change in his condition. He was not bruised and wounded, as he expected, but very stiff only, and his joints creaked like the creak of a lazy paddle on the rim of a canoe. His hair was matted and reached a yard down his back. 'Tamanous,' thought the old man. But chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have lost their charm for him. Tacoma, s.h.i.+ning like gold and silver and precious stones of gayest l.u.s.tre, seemed a benign comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful, and he thought he had never wakened to a fresher morning. He rose and started on his downward way, but the woods seemed strangely transformed since yesterday; just before sunset he came to the prairie where his lodge used to be; he saw an old squaw near the door crooning a song; she was decked with many strings of hiaqua and costly beads. It was his wife; and she told him he had been gone many, many years--she could not tell how many; that she had remained faithful and constant to him, and distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. But little cared the sage for such things; he, was rejoiced to be at home and at peace, and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure buried in a place of security. He imparted whatever he possessed--material treasures or stores of wisdom and experience--freely to all the land.

Every dweller came to him for advice how to spear the salmon, chase the elk, or propitiate Tamanous. He became the great medicine man of the Siwashes and a benefactor to his tribe and race. Within a year after he came down from his long nap on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father, was born to him. The sage lived many years, revered and beloved, and on his death-bed told this history to my father as a lesson and a warning.

My father dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no son; I grow old, and lest this wisdom perish from the earth, and Tamanous be again obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the tale to thee, O Boston tyee. Mayst thou and thy nation not disdain this lesson of an earlier age, but profit by it and be wise!"

So far the Siwash recounted his legend without the palisades of Fort Nisqually, and motioning, in expressive pantomime, at the close, that he was dry with big talk and would gladly "wet his whistle."

The town of Tacoma contains about 15,000 inhabitants, and is in a highly prosperous condition. From here one may start on the grand Alaskan tour, winding up through all the wonders of sound and strait, bay and ocean, to the far North summerland--a trip of most entrancing interest. The return from Tacoma to Portland may be made by either rail or boat.

So much has already been said in preceding pages about Puget Sound that it would seem the subject might be somewhat overdone. But it still remains to be said that justice can never be done to the scenic glories of this beautiful inland sea. The views from different points, and from almost every point on the Sound, are of sublime grandeur. On the east are the Cascade Mountains, ranging from 5,000 to 14,444 feet in height, Mount Rainier for Tacoma, (as it is also called) being of the latter alt.i.tude, and only third in height of the mountains of the United States. On the west are the Olympic Mountains, the highest peaks of which reach up to 8,000 feet. Both ranges, brilliantly snow-crowned, are within view at the same time from various points, and the scenery in its entirety, with its continual changefulness and features of sublimity, can not be excelled.

Strangers and travelers who have visited every part of the world never leave the deck of the steamers while going through the waters of the Sound country. In noting a single feature, Mount Rainier, Senator George F. Edmunds wrote as follows: "I have been through the Swiss mountains, and am compelled to own that there is no comparison between the finest effects exhibited there and what is seen in approaching this grand and isolated mountain. I would be willing to go 500 miles again to see that scene. The Continent is yet in ignorance of what will be one of the grandest show places, as well as sanitariums. If Switzerland is rightly called the play-ground of Europe, I am satisfied that around the base of Mt. Rainier will become a prominent place of resort, not for America only, but for the world besides, with thousands of sites for building purposes that are nowhere excelled for the grandeur of the view that can be obtained from them, with topographical features that would make the most perfect system of drainage both possible and easy, and with a most agreeable and health-giving climate."

A more enthusiastic writer says: "Puget Sound scenery is the grandest scenery in the world. One has here in combination the sublimity of Switzerland, the picturesqueness of the Rhine, the rugged beauty of Norway, the breezy variety of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, or the Hebrides of the North Sea, the soft, rich-toned skies of Italy, the pastoral landscape of England, with velvet meadows and magnificent groves, ma.s.sed with floral bloom, and the blending tints and bold color of the New England Indian summer. Features with which nothing within the vision of another city can be placed in comparison are the Olympic range of mountains in front of Seattle, and the sublime snow peaks of the Rainier, Baker, Adams, and St. Helens, with their glaciers and robes of eternal white, and the great falls of the Snoqualmie, 280 feet high, near by."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUNT ST. HELENS, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, FROM NEAR MOUTH OF THE WILLAMETTE RIVER. Reached via the Union Pacific Ry.]

The geography and topography of this sheet are alone a wonder and a study. Glance upon the map. The elements of earth and water seem to have struggled for dominion one over the other. The Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Gulf of Georgia to the south narrow into Admiralty Inlet; the inlet penetrates the very heart of the Territory, cutting the land into most grotesque shapes, circling and twisting into a hundred minor inlets, into which flow a hundred rivers, fed in their turn by myriads of smaller creeks and bayous--a veritable network of lakes, streams, peninsulas, and islands which, with the mountain ranges backing the landscapes on either hand, can not fail to be picturesque in the extreme. Here on the placid bosom of this inland sea, the pleasure seeker can enjoy all the delights and exhilarating influences of ocean travel without its inconveniences. No sea sickness, no p.r.o.neness to reflect on "to be or not to be," but, amid the bracing breezes, the steady, easy glide of the commodious steamer over pleasant waters, takes him through scenes as fair as the poet's brightest dreams. This "Mediterranean of the Pacific" throughout its length and breadth is adorned with heavily-wooded and fantastically-formed islands. The giant firs are the tallest and straightest in the world. Here the "Great Eastern" came for her masts, and here thousands of s.h.i.+ps obtain their spars yearly.

To repeat, the scenery is indeed something unsurpa.s.sed. A ride over these placid waters, in and out, around rocky headlands, among woody mountains, along beautiful beaches and graceful tongues of velvety meadows--all 'neath the shadows of towering, snow-clad peaks, is a delight worth days of travel to experience. It enraptures the artist and enthuses even ordinarily prosy folks. There is no single feature wanting to make of such places as Tacoma, Seattle, and Port Townsend, the most delightful and agreeable watering places in the world. Surrounded by magnificent and picturesque scenery, with beautiful drives and lovely bays for yachting purposes, with splendid fis.h.i.+ng and sport of every description to be had, with a climate that would charm a misanthrope, why should they not become the favorite resorts on the Great West Coast? These facts led to the building of the magnificent Hotel Tacoma, at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. Other such caravansaries will follow, and in time Puget Sound will be famous the world over for its incomparable attractions for the health and pleasure seeker.

The average traveler has but a faint idea of the wonderful resources of this grand empire. Puget Sound has about 1,800 miles of sh.o.r.e line, and all along this long stretch is one vast and almost unbroken forest of enormous trees. The forests are so vast that, although the saw-mills have been ripping 500,000,000 feet of lumber out of them every year for the past ten years, the s.p.a.ces made by these inroads seem no more than garden patches. An official estimate places the amount of standing timber in that area at 500,000,000,000 feet, or a thousand years' supply, even at the enormous rate the timber is now being felled and sawed.

In the vicinity of Olympia, the capital of Was.h.i.+ngton, are a number of popular resorts for sportsmen and campers--beautiful lakes filled with voracious trout, and streams alive with the speckled mountain beauties.

The forests abound in bear and deer, while grouse, pheasants, quail, and water-fowl afford fine sport to the hunter of small game.

THE NEW EMPIRE OF EASTERN WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

The recent extensions of the Union Pacific System have aided in the most important way the development of the richest and most fertile lands of Eastern Was.h.i.+ngton. The great plains of the Upper Columbia, stretching from the river away to the far north, are incomparably rich, the soil of great depth and wondrous fertility, rainless harvests, and a luxuriance of farm and garden produce which is almost tropical in its wealth. This favored region has been for years known as the

PALOUSE COUNTRY,

And is reached from Portland via Pendleton, on the main line of the Union Pacific Ry. From Pendleton to Spokane Falls on the north the soil is rich beyond belief; a black, loamy deposit so deep that it seems well-nigh inexhaustible. This heavy soil predominates in the valleys, and while the uplands are not so rich, still immense crops of wheat are raised. For hundreds of miles on this new division of the Union Pacific the country is a perfect garden land of wheat and fruit, and these farms are often of mammoth proportions. Here are 13,000,000 acres of land possessing all the requirements and advantages of climate and soil for the making of one vast wheat-field. The enormous yield of 7,000,000 bushels of wheat has been harvested in one valley.

The authentic figures of the crop yield in this splendid country seem almost incredible. Fifty thousand bushels of wheat have been raised on 1,000 acres of land. As low as 35 bushels and as high as 74-1/4 bushels of wheat to the acre have been harvested in this section. The average covered seems to be from 47 to 55 bushels per acre, and no fertilizers of any sort being required. The berry in its full maturity is very solid, weighing from 65 to 69 pounds per bushel, this being from five to nine pounds over standard weight. While wheat is the staple product, oats are also grown, the yield being very heavy. Rye, barley, and flax are also successfully cultivated. Clover, bunch-gra.s.s, and alfalfa grow finely.

In the growing of fruits and vegetables this grand empire of Eastern Was.h.i.+ngton is quite unsurpa.s.sed. At one of the recent agricultural fairs a farmer exhibited 109 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. These included the best qualities of Yellow Nansemond sweet potatoes, mammoth melons of all varieties, eggplant, sorghum and syrup cane, broom-corn, tobacco, grapes, cotton, peanuts, and many other things, some of which do not attain to so high a degree of excellence elsewhere farther north than the Carolinas. Peaches, apples, and prunes of superior quality delighted the eye. Peaches had been marketed continuously, from, the same orchards, from the 15th of July to the 15th of October. There were hanging in the pavilion diplomas awarded at the New Orleans Exposition to citizens in this valley for exhibits of the best qualities and greatest varieties of corn, wheat, oats, barley, and hops.

The advantage to the farmer of rainless harvesting months is obvious. The wheat is all harvested by headers, leaving the straw on the ground for its enrichment. Thus binding, hauling, and sacking are largely dispensed with.

The grain, when threshed, is piled on the ground in jute sacks, saving the expense of granaries and hauling to and from them. These jute sacks cost for each bushel of grain about 3 cents, which is far less than farmers elsewhere are subjected to in hauling their grain to and from granaries and through a system of elevators until it reaches s.h.i.+pboard.

Here, as well as in Western Was.h.i.+ngton, most vegetables grow to an enormous size, and are of superior quality when compared with the same varieties grown in the East. Those kinds that require much heat, as melons, tobacco, peppers, egg-plants, etc., grow to great perfection. The root crops--beets, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, turnips, etc.--yield prodigiously on the fertile bottom-land soils, without much care besides ordinary cultivation. The table beet soon gets too large for the dinner-pot. It is nothing unusual for a garden beet to weigh ten pounds, and they often grow to eighteen or twenty pounds' weight. Mangel wurzel, the stock beet, sometimes grows to forty and fifty pounds' weight, if given room and proper cultivation. They may easily be made to produce twenty-five tons per acre on good soil. All other vegetables, such as parsnips, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, celery, and cauliflower, are perfectly at home on every farm of Eastern Was.h.i.+ngton.

Market gardening is becoming quite an important pursuit, and holds out particularly high inducements to the farmer, because of the superb market now afforded by the non-producing mineral and timber regions, easily accessible in this and adjacent Territories.

There are over 2,000 square miles of arable land in this magnificent region, and there has never been a crop failure since its settlement.

Outside of Government lands prices range at from $4 to $10 per acre for unimproved, and from $12 to $20 for improved lands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HORSE TAIL FALLS, ORE.

On the Union Pacific Ry.]

Along the line of Union Pacific in this grand new empire will be found many energetic, thriving young towns, all possessing those social and educational facilities which are now a part of every Western village.

Pendleton, on the main line, is a wide-awake, bustling young city, situated in a fine agricultural district. Walla Walla, Athena, Weston, Waitsburg, Dayton, Pullman, Garfield, Latah, Tekoa, Colfax, Moscow, Farmington, and Rockford are all thriving towns, and are already good distributing centers. The last-named town enjoys the advantage of being in the center of a fine lumber district, and within a circuit of five miles from Rockford there are ten saw-mills, besides an inexhaustible supply of mica. Crossing the border into Idaho, rich silver and lead mines are found along the Coeur d'Alene River.

Rockford is twenty-four miles from Spokane Falls, and has about 1,000 population; its elevation is 2,440 feet. Four miles distant is the boundary of the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, a lovely tract, thirty by seventy miles in extent, embracing beautiful Coeur d'Alene Lake and the three rivers, St. Joseph, St. Marys, and Coeur d'Alene, which empty into it. There about 250 Indians on this reservation, and they enjoy the proud distinction of being the only tribe who refuse Government aid. They have been offered the usual rations, but preferred to remain independent. They live in houses, farm quite extensively, and use all kinds of improved farm machinery; many of them are quite wealthy. The lake is one of the prettiest sheets of water on the continent; its waters are full of salmon, and in the heavy pine woods are many varieties of game, from quail to grizzly bear and elk. The town of Rockford will in the near future a.s.sume importance as a tourist point, both from its own healthy and picturesque location, and its nearness to Coeur d'Alene Lake. A Government Commission is now at work on a settlement with the Indians, whereby the whole or a part of this n.o.ble domain will be thrown open to the public. The peculiar attractions of Coeur d'Alene must in a short time render it a much sought for resort.

SPOKANE FALLS

Is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West.

When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow around him.

This far-sighted pioneer is still living within earshot of those rumbling falls, and they make a cheerful music for him. The city is there with him, 22,000 people, and he can draw a check to-day good for $1,000,000.

For several years his eyes fell on nothing but gravel-beds and foamy waters. Now, as he looks around, he sees mills and factories, railroad lines to the north, south, east, and west, churches, theatres, school-houses, costly dwellings and stores, paved streets, and all that makes living easy and comfortable. The greater part of this has come within his vision since 1883. But even then there was quite a village.

After this pioneer had spent a lonely year or two on his homestead, two other men came along. They were friends, who, upon an outing, had chanced to meet. They were captivated by the waterfall, and by what the pioneer told them of the fine fanning lands in the adjacent country, and they offered each to take a third of his holding. Then they began to advertise, and to place adventurous farmers on homestead claims. They were wise in their day and generation, and they worked harder to fill the country with grain-producers than to sell real estate around the falls.

They soon had their reward. The merchants were quickly provided with store-houses, rental values were kept low, every inducement was offered that could possibly stimulate building activity, and in three years the farming country was made to perceive that Spokane was its natural point of entry and of s.h.i.+pment. The turbulent waters of the Spokane River, a clear and beautiful mountain stream, were caught above the falls, and directed wherever the factories and mills that had been established above them required their services. Four large flouring-mills quickly took advantage of the rich opportunity growing out of this unique situation.

From two enormous agricultural areas they are enabled to draw their supplies of grain, flour, therefore, being manufactured for the farmers more cheaply at Spokane: than anywhere else. This circ.u.mstance alone exercised a large influence in giving the new town a hold upon the country districts. These const.i.tute more than a region--they are really a grand division of the State, and form what is known as the Great Plain of the Columbia River.

THE COEUR D'ALENE MINES

Have reached a high and profitable state of development. These mines extend over a comparatively limited area. They are close together, and their ores, producing gold, silver, and lead, are all similar. Their output for the last three years has been quite remarkable, and has placed the Coeur d'Alene district among the foremost lead-producing regions in the country. Gold, a.s.sociated with iron, and treated by the free-milling process, is largely found in the northern part of the district, but the greatest amount of tonnage is derived from the southern country, where the Galena silver mines, a dozen or more in number, have been discovered.

That minerals in large quant.i.ty existed in this country has been known for years. But the want of railroad facilities for a long while prevented any serious effort to get at them. The matter of transportation is now laid at rest, and within the last three years $1,000,000 has been spent in development. The returns have already more than justified the investment.

Tributary to Spokane, and reached by the various railroads now in operation, are five other mining districts, at Colville, Okanagan, Kootenai, Metaline, and Pend d'Oreille. They are in various stages of development, but their wealth and availability have been clearly ascertained. Spokane's population, in a degree greater than that of most all these new cities, consists of young men and young women from the New England and Middle States. They have enjoyed a remarkable and wholly uninterrupted period of prosperity. Some of them have grown quickly and immensely rich from real estate operations, but the great majority have yet to realize on their investments because of the large sacrifices they have made in building up the city. They are to-day in an admirable position. As they have made money they have spent it; spent it in street railroads, in the laying out of drives, in the building of comfortable houses, in the establishment of electrical plants, and in a large number of local improvements, every one of which has borne its part in making the city attractive.

WONDERFUL VITALITY.

It has been well said of Spokane Falls, that "it was another fire-devastated city that did not seem to know it was hurt."

If Was.h.i.+ngton can stand the loss of millions of dollars in its four great fires of the year, at Cheney, Ellensburg, Seattle, and Spokane, it is the strongest evidence that its recuperative powers have solid backing. It does seem to stand the loss, and actually thrive under it.

The great fire at Spokane Falls on the 4th of August, 1889, burned most of the business portion of the city. Four hundred and fifty houses of brick, stone, and wood were destroyed, entailing a loss, according to the computation of the local agent of R.G. Dun & Co., of about $4,500,000.

The insurance in the burned district amounted to $2,600,000.

No people were ever in better condition to meet disaster, and none ever met it with braver hearts or with quicker and more resolute determination to survive the blow.

The city was in the midst of a period of marvelous prosperity. Its population was increasing rapidly, many fine buildings were in process of construction, its trade was extending over a vast region of country which was being penetrated by new railroads centering within its limits, and there were flowing to it the rich fruits of half a dozen prosperous mining districts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONEONTA GORGE, COLUMBIA RIVER, ORE. On the Union Pacific Ry.]

Its working people were all employed at good wages, and money was abundant with all cla.s.ses.

Hardly had the sun of the day following the fire risen upon the scene of smoking desolation, when preparations began for rebuilding. It was felt at once that the city would be rebuilt more substantially and more handsomely than before.

The rebuilding of Spokane commenced on a very extensive scale; the city will be entirely restored within twelve months, and far more attractively than ever before. The cla.s.s of buildings erected are of a very superior character. The new Opera House has been modeled after the Broadway Theatre, New York; the new Hotel Spokane, a structure creditable not only to the city, but to the entire Pacific Northwest; five National Bank buildings, at a cost of $100,000 each; upon the burned district have arisen buildings solid in substance, and beautiful architecturally, varying from five to seven stories in height, and costing all the way from $60,000 to $300,000. This st.u.r.dy young giant of the North arises from her ashes stronger, more attractive, more substantial, than before.

And there is abundant reason for solid faith in the future of Spokane Falls.

It is the metropolis of a region 200,000 square miles in extent, including 50,000 square miles of Was.h.i.+ngton, or all that portion east of the Cascade Mountains, more than half of Idaho, the northern and eastern portions of Oregon, a large part of Montana, and as much of British Columbia as would make a State as large as New York.

It is the distributing point for the Coeur d'Alene, the Colville, the Kootenai, and the Okanagan mining districts, all of which are in a prosperous condition, and all of which are yielding rich and growing tributes of trade.