thrown back mutilated and dying into the water. Even when they have killed sufficient to last them for years, they still go to the falls and catch and spear all they can, leaving the beautiful silvery salmon to rot on the stones.

Salmon ought certainly to have 'Excelsior' for a motto. Always moving higher and higher, they are never content, but continue the ascent of the river as far as it is possible. They go on till they drop, or become so weak and torn from rubbing against the rocks and against one another, that they are pushed into shallows by the stronger ones and die from want of water.

Out of the hosts that ascend the rivers, it is generally supposed that a very small proportion indeed ever find their way back to the sea.

Just below the Great Salmon Falls the whole volume of the stream rushes through a channel hardly one hundred and fifty feet in width.

At the falls themselves the river is nearly a mile across, and pours over a rocky wall stretching from shore to shore and about twenty feet high. It is fascinating in the extreme to watch the determined creatures as they shoot up the rapids with wonderful agility. They care neither for the seething torrent nor for the deep still pools, and with a rush-and with clenched teeth, perhaps they dart up like a silver arrow, and defying rock and fall, are at length safe in the smooth haven above.

Sometimes a speckled beauty, too weak to take the grand leap, falls back into the rapid—wounded by the sharp stones and dying. This is the opportunity for the great white-headed fish-eagle, which is as fastidious in his tastes as an Indian, and prefers a fresh-killed, or rather dying fish, to any other. With one fell swoop he seizes the victim in his talons and carries him off. Now and then a tall crane may be seen standing on a rock or in the shallow water, and out of mere spite pecking at a poor exhausted fish.

I never see a heron or crane fishing without thinking of the clergyman who sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact that God takes care of all His creatures. Happening one day to see a crane wading in search of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the bird to his mode of getting his living. 'Look!' said he, how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He causes no ripple, and is thus able to approach the fish without giving them notice of his arrival. My son,' continued he, it is impossible to look at that bird without recognising the goodness of God in thus providing him with the means of obtaining his subsistence.' 'Yes,' replied the boy, 'I think I see the goodness of God as far as the crane is

concerned; but, after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little hard on the fish?'

With the Salmon Falls my trip up the Columbia ended, and I returned to Portland, to resume my journey to Victoria-the chief town of British Columbia, and situated on the southern extremity of Vancouver's Island.

CHAPTER XIX.

KALAMA TO VICTORIA.

A tedious journey-A terrible threat-An epithet-Olympia-Puget Sound-Snokomish City-An Indian cemetery-Flat-heads-Use of Indians-American diplomacy-Washington Territory-Salmon not taking a fly-San Juan-Victoria-Dull times-Terminus-A viewClimate-Roads-Esquimalt harbour-Sport-Indians-A red admiral-Superstition-Hospitality.

Down the Columbia for some miles to Kalama, a little village, in Washington Territory; thence, by the new Northern Pacific Railway for fifty miles, to Sinino. I think we must have been over five hours doing that fifty miles. In some places the trees were so near the newly-laid line that it was like pushing one's way through a growth of brushwood, and now and then the removal of a branch, or perhaps the whole tree, fallen across our road, would afford pleasant occupation for half an hour or so. It was, in fact, a primeval forest, thick with cedar, spruce, arbor vitæ, and firs; the trunks covered with orange-green moss, the branches hung with brown Spanish moss, and the marshy ground brilliantly coloured with yellow and purple flowers.

Our journey was enlivened by a brief wordy war

fare between an irascible old gentleman and a man whom he accused of having taken his seat in the carriage. After an exchange of very doubtful compliments the elderly gentleman produced a little pistol, saying, 'Do you see that? Now, don't speak to me, or touch me, or even look at me again, or I'll blow your head off.' Upon which the other coolly retorted, 'Do you see that umbrella settin' thar? Now, you touch that umbrella, or even look at that umbrella, and I'll ram it down your throat-and then I'll spread it.' This terrible threat had the effect of somewhat appeasing the old gentleman, but not before he had vented his wrath on an inoffensive clergyman who had endeavoured to assuage his anger, and whom he effectually silenced, after a round of abuse, by designating him 'an ecclesiastical old pelican.'

From Sinino a pleasant drive of fifteen miles brought us to Olympia, a small town, situated at the head of Puget Sound. Great dissatisfaction and anger reigned there, because it had just been decided that Tacoma, instead of Olympia, was to be the terminus of the new railway. The Olympians poured down their wrath on the railway, the new site, and on everything and everybody outside their own domains. Such a storm in a tea-cup' could never have been witnessed before!

Puget Sound is one of the loveliest sheets of water