kind, even if it were only in an old log cabin, where the
children were taken out of their bed to put us in.

We have seen no bark canoes here; they are all of cedar. No doubt there
is good canoe-birch on the river-banks, but something more durable is
needed. The North-west Fur Company, in early days, sent out a cargo of
birch from Montreal to London, to be shipped from there round Cape Horn
to the north-west coast of America, to be made into canoes for their men
to navigate the Columbia and its branches; in direst ignorance of the
requirements of the country, as well as of its productions.

VIII.

Voyage to San Francisco.--Fog-Bound.--Port Angeles.--Passing Cape
Flattery in a Storm.--Off Shore.--The "Brontes."--The Captain and
his Men.--A Fair Wind.--San Francisco Bar.--The City at
Night.--Voyage to Astoria.--Crescent City.--Iron-Bound
Coast.--Mount St. Helen's.--Mount Hood.--Cowlitz Valley and its
Floods.--Monticello.

SAN FRANCISCO, February 20, 1867.

We are here at last, contrary to all our expectations for the last ten
days. We left Puget Sound at short notice, taking passage on the first
lumber-vessel that was available, with many misgivings, as she was a
dilapidated-looking craft. We went on board at Port Madison, about
dusk,--a dreary time to start on a sea-voyage, but we had to accommodate
ourselves to the tide. The cabin was such a forlorn-looking place, that
I was half tempted to give it up at the last; when I saw, sitting beside
the rusty, empty stove, a small gray-and-white cat, purring, and rubbing
her paws in the most cheery manner. The contrast between the great,
cold, tossing ocean, and that little comfortable creature, making the
best of her circumstances, so impressed me, that I felt ashamed to
shrink from the voyage, if she was willing to undertake it. So I
unpacked my bundles, and settled down for a rough time. There were only
two of us as passengers, lumber-vessels not making it a part of their
business to provide specially for their accommodation.

The sky looked threatening when we started; and the captain said, if he
thought there was a storm beginning, he would not try to go on. But as
we got out into the Straits of Fuca, the next day, a little barque, the
"Crimea," came up, and said she had been a week trying to get out of the
straits, and thought the steady south-west wind, which had prevented
her, could not blow much longer. We continued beatin