interesting
experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we
penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of
water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of
surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive
resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet
individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake
Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island,
blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy
reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring
advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature
and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future
battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and
little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it
should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake,
ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle,
and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which
undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having
tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand
natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so
called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite
said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the
remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The
local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases.
Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the
sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor
of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates
an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake
Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the
canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of
movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected,
therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly
well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an
anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound.
There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the
two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent
out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured
than we had advised.

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