I am ready to bear witness, very pretty indeed; but surely an emigrant would think twice before he established himself either there or at Toutle.  Seattle is sufficiently barbarous; Steilacoom is no better; and I suspect that the Northern Pacific Railroad terminus has been fixed at Tacoma—­if it is fixed there—­because that is one of the few places on Puget Sound whose name does not inspire horror and disgust.

[Illustration:  NANAIMO, VANCOUVER’S ISLAND.]

Olympia, which lies on an arm of Puget Sound, and was once a town of great expectations, surprises the traveler by its streets, all shaded with magnificent maples.  The founder of the town was a man of taste; and he set a fashion which, being followed for a few years in this country of abundant rains, has given Olympia’s streets shade trees by the hundred which would make it famous were it an Eastern place.

Unluckily, it has little else to charm the traveler, though it is the capital of the Territory; and when you have spent half an hour walking through the streets you will be quite ready to have the steamer set off for Victoria.  The voyage lasts but about thirty-six hours, and would be shorter were it not that the steamer makes numerous landings.  Thus you get glimpses of Seattle, Steilacoom, Tacoma, and of the so-called saw-mill ports—­Port Madison, Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, and Port Townsend—­the last named being also the boundary of our Uncle Samuel’s dominions for the present, and the port of entry for this district, with a custom-house which looks like a barn, and a collector and inspectors, the latter of whom examine your trunk as you return from Victoria to save you from the sin of smuggling.

From Port Townsend your boat strikes across the straits of San Juan de Fuca to Victoria; and just here, as you are crossing from American to English territory, you get the most magnificent views of the grand Olympian range of mountains and of Mount Regnier.  Also, the captain will point out to you in the distance that famous island of San Juan which formed the subject or object, or both, of our celebrated boundary dispute with great Britain, and you will wonder how small an object can nearly make nations go to war, and for what a petty thing we set several kings and great lords to studying geography and treaties and international law, and boring themselves, and filling enterprising newspapers with dozens of columns of dull history; and you will wonder the more at the stupid pertinacity of these English in clinging to the little island of San Juan when you reach Victoria, and see that we shall presently take that dull little town too, not because we want it or need it, but to save it from perishing of inanition.