the world over for the surpassing size and
excellence and abundance of its timber, is a long, many-fingered arm of
the sea reaching southward from the head of the Strait of Juan de
Fuca into the heart of the grand forests of the western portion of
Washington, between the Cascade Range and the mountains of the coast. It
is less than a hundred miles in length, but so numerous are the branches
into which it divides, and so many its bays, harbors, and islands,
that its entire shoreline is said to measure more than eighteen hundred
miles. Throughout its whole vast extent ships move in safety, and find
shelter from every wind that blows, the entire mountain-girt sea forming
one grand unrivaled harbor and center for commerce.

The forest trees press forward to the water around all the windings of
the shores in most imposing array, as if they were courting their fate,
coming down from the mountains far and near to offer themselves to the
axe, thus making the place a perfect paradise for the lumberman. To the
lover of nature the scene is enchanting. Water and sky, mountain and
forest, clad in sunshine and clouds, are composed in landscapes
sublime in magnitude, yet exquisitely fine and fresh, and full of
glad, rejoicing life. The shining waters stretch away into the leafy
wilderness, now like the reaches of some majestic river and again
expanding into broad roomy spaces like mountain lakes, their farther
edges fading gradually and blending with the pale blue of the sky. The
wooded shores with an outer fringe of flowering bushes sweep onward
in beautiful curves around bays, and capes, and jutting promontories
innumerable; while the islands, with soft, waving outlines, lavishly
adorned with spruces and cedars, thicken and enrich the beauty of the
waters; and the white spirit mountains looking down from the sky keep
watch and ward over all, faithful and changeless as the stars.

All the way from the Strait of Juan de Fuca up to Olympia, a hopeful
town situated at the head of one of the farthest-reaching of the fingers
of the Sound, we are so completely inland and surrounded by mountains
that it is hard to realize that we are sailing on a branch of the
salt sea. We are constantly reminded of Lake Tahoe. There is the same
clearness of the water in calm weather without any trace of the ocean
swell, the same picturesque winding and sculpture of the shoreline and
flowery, leafy luxuriance; only here the trees are taller and stand much