There is plenty of room in the great Northwest. For twenty-five years
to come Horace Greeley’s advice “Go west,” will hold good. Charles
Dickens once said that the typical American would hesitate to enter
heaven unless assured that he could go farther west. “Go west.” Surely
these are words to conjure with. “Go west,” thrills the blood of youth
and stirs the blood of age.
The tide of immigration is turning this way. No matter what your trade
or profession, there is room for you here.
Agriculture, the supporting pillar in the temple of wealth of any
nation, stands in the front rank in Washington and Idaho, the soil
being wonderfully productive. Stock raising, dairying and fruit farming
are carried on with great success. But the great mining interest must
not be forgotten. The annual rainfall varies from thirty-five to sixty
inches. A healthful climate meets one in almost every part of these
great states. Malaria is practically unknown. As to scenery one may
have here the sublime grandeur of Switzerland, the picturesqueness of
the Rhine and the rugged beauty of Norway.
The lava beds of eastern Washington are wild and barren as to rocks,
but the soil is very productive when irrigated. The lava is burned
red in many places. Castle after castle with drawbridge, turrets and
soldiers on guard, all of solid rock, greet the eye. Column after
column stand hundreds of feet high.
[Illustration: ENTERING THE CASCADE RANGE.]
The Cascade mountains surpass the Rockies in grandeur and ruggedness
of scenery. We crossed on the Switch Back. This is by “tacking,” as a
sailor would say. We had three engines, mammoth Moguls, one forward,
the other two in the rear. There are but two engines in the world
larger than these.
To explain more fully we went back and forth three times on the side
of the mountain until we reached the summit, then down on the other
side in the same manner. Going up we made snowballs with one hand
and gathered flowers with the other, tiger lilies, perfect ones one
and one-half inch from tip of petal to petal on tiny stalks five
inches high. Blackberry vines run on the ground to the summit of the
mountains. They creep along like strawberry vines. They are in bloom
now and the berries will ripen in time.
The snowfall last winter on the summit was one hundred and nine feet.
Miles of snowsheds are built over the road and men are kept constantly
at work keeping the tracks clear of snow and bowlders. Five huge
snow-plows are required, all working constantly to keep the sixty-six
highest miles clear. The fall of snow for one day is often four feet.
The Great Northern road is putting a tunnel through the mountains now,
and will thus do away with the Switch Back. Eight thousand men work in
the shafts night and day. They have been at work two years and expect
to finish in 1901.
For hours we traveled above the clouds and at other times we passed
through them and were deluged with rain. Magnificent ferns grow
everywhere on the mountain sides and towns and villages are to be seen
frequently.
[Illustration: LAVA BEDS IN WASHINGTON.]
Descending the mountains we came to the Flat Head valley, the scenery
of which is wild and rugged enough to suit the taste of the most
imaginative Indian. The Flat Head river, a wild, raging, roaring
torrent which sweeps everything before it as it comes leaping down the
mountains, flows peacefully enough in the valley. Here water nymphs
bathe in purple pools, yonder fairies and fauns dance on the green.
On the trees we see such signs as “Smoke Red Cloud,” “Chew Scalping
Knife,” “Drink Smoky Mountain Whisky,” “Chew Indian Hatchet,” “Chew
Tomahawk,” “Drink White Bear.”
Wenatchee valley is famous for its irrigated fruit farms. A great
variety of fruits is grown. Water is easily and cheaply obtained.
Mission District is another fine fruit valley. The interest in
agriculture is growing. Bees do well here. If you do not own all the
land you want come west where it is cheap, good and plenty. The country
is rapidly filling up with settlers. We passed fine wheat lands that
stretch away across the country to Walla Walla. Men are now coming in
to the wheat harvest just as in Illinois they come to cut broomcorn.
But they are a better looking class of men. One sees no genuine tramp.
There is no room for him here, there is too much work and he shuns
such districts as one would a smallpox infected region.
SEATTLE.--The first white men to explore this coast was an expedition
under command of Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot in the service of the
Viceroy of Mexico. They explored the coast as far north as Vancouver
island in 1592. Two hundred years later Captain George Vancouver, of
the British navy, made extensive explorations along this same coast.
The first overland expedition was commanded by Lewis and Clarke.
The next was also a military expedition and was commanded by John
C. Fremont. The first people to settle in the country were the fur
traders. The first mission was established by Dr. Marcus Whitman at
Walla Walla in 1836. It was Dr. Whitman who rode to Washington, D.
C., leaving here in December, and informed the government of the
conspiracy of England to drive out all the American settlers and seize
the country. The first town was Tumwater, founded in 1845 by Michael
Simmons. These are some of the people who helped make Washington.
General Sherman said, that God had done more for Seattle than for
any other place in the world. It is destined to be the Chicago of
the West. The largest saw-mills in the world are located here. The
population is about eighty thousand and the increase is rapid. The
University of Washington, supported by the state, is grandly located
in Seattle. The Federal government has a fine military station twelve
miles out of the city.
[Illustration: TANGLE OF WILD FERN IN A WASHINGTON FOREST.]
At every turn Indian names meet the eye. We steamed down the bay on
the Skagit Chief to the city park, where we lunched at the Duramash
restaurant. In the shop windows Umatilla hats, Black Eagle caps and
Ancelline ties are offered for sale.
Ancelline was an Indian princess, daughter of Seattle. Seattle was
chief of the Old Man House Indians. These Indians had a big wigwam in
which the entire tribe lived during the winter. They called this the
Old Man House and the tribe took its name from this house. There is but
one family of these Indians left.
The Indians on this side of the mountains have never received any
support from the government. They are much more industrious than their
red brothers on the other side. There are many tribes here and many
of them are quite well to do in the way of lands and money. All talk
English but prefer to speak Chinook.
Nokomis was an old Indian woman who did laundry work for a family in
Seattle with whom I have become acquainted. Nokomis was exceedingly
stubborn. She would permit no one to tell her how to wash for had she
not washed in the creeks and rivers all her life? This old woman was
somewhat deaf and when directions were being given her she could not
possibly hear and continued the work her own way. But when the mistress
would say, “Come Nokomis, have some coppe (Chinook for coffee) and muck
amuck (Chinook for ‘something to eat’),” she never failed to hear,
though this was often said in a low tone of voice to test Nokomis’s
ears.
Wheat in this section easily goes fifty bushels per acre. The root
crops, potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, beets and parsnips yield
enormously, with prices fair to good. The fruits are fine and prices
good. Strawberries sell here now three quarts for twenty-five cents.
The fruits go to Alaska, Canada and east to Montana and Minnesota.
Stock and poultry do well here and supply eastern markets at good
prices. Another industrial resource in which many are engaged is
fishing. The cod, halibut, oyster, crab, shrimp, whale and fur seal
yield fine profits. Canned fish go to the Eastern States, to Europe,
Asia and Australia. The timber, coal, iron, gold and silver industries
are well represented.
There is one industry that is not represented here at all, and that is
the window-screen industry. There is but one fly in Seattle; at any
rate I have seen but one. Meat markets and fruit markets stand open.
The temperature has averaged sixty-two in the shade for several days.
It is quite hot in the sun, however.
If you are out of a fortune and would like to make one, come to
Washington.
[Illustration: MOUNT RAINIER.]
Mount Rainier is the highest peak of the Cascade Range and the most
beautiful. Though standing on American soil it bears an English name,
that of Rear Admiral Rainier of the English navy. The local name was
for years Tacoma, but in 1890 the United States board of geographic
survey decided that Rainier must stand on all government maps.
The people of Washington speak lovingly of this splendid peak which was
smoking so grandly when the Pathfinder found his way into this country
fifty years ago.
From its summit eight glaciers radiate like the spokes of a wheel down
from which flow as many rivers. Its ice caverns formed by sulphur vent
holes in the crater, its steam jets, its moss draped pines, its dainty
vines and hemlocks, its grassy vales, where wild flowers are swayed
by the breath of the glaciers, its beautiful lilies, remind one of
“Aladdin’s” journey through the wonderful cave in search of the magic
lamp.
Here blows the heather and the shamrock.
“With a four-leafed clover, a double-leafed ash, and a greentopped
seave,
You may go before the queen’s daughter without asking leave.”
There stands fair Daphne, changed to a laurel tree.
In the legends of the Silash Indians Mount Rainier has always been
held as a place of superstitious regard. It was the refuge of the last
man when the waters of Puget Sound swept inland, drowning every living
thing except one man. Chased by the waves, he reached the summit, where
he was standing waist deep in the water when the Tamanous, the god of
the mountain, commanded the waters to recede. Slowly they receded, but
the man had turned to stone. The Tamanous broke loose one of his ribs
and changing it to a woman, stood it by his side, then waving his
magic wand over the two, bade them to awake. Joyfully this strange Adam
and Eve passed down the mountain side, where they made their home on
the forested slopes. These were the first parents of the Silash Indians.
In the very center of the Cascade range stands another mountain of
equal beauty, Mount St. Helens.
Washington is the home of the genuine sea serpent. He makes his
headquarters in Rock Lake, where he disports himself in the water,
devouring every living thing that ventures into it or dares to come on
the shore. Only a few years ago he swallowed an entire band of Indians.
Expansion seems to be the law of our national and commercial life.
Beyond the placid Pacific are six hundred million people who want the
things we produce. China and Japan furnish a market for our wheat. The
cry now is for more ships to carry our produce to Asia, Australia, to
islands of the Pacific and to Alaska, not to speak of the Philippines.
Manila is the center of the great Asiatic ports, including those of
British India and Australia. Our trade with the Orient is growing and
Manila will make a fine distributing depot. These eastern countries use
annually over eighty-six million dollars’ worth of cotton goods and
nearly forty million dollars’ worth of iron and steel manufactures.
This we can produce in this country as cheap if not cheaper than in any
other country. Seattle is the best point from which to export, as the
route is shorter than from San Francisco.
The battleship Iowa is in dry dock here. I should liked to have been a
marine myself and have stood behind one of those big guns when Cervera
left the harbor of Santiago. And now I’d like to train that same gun on
the anti-expansionist and send him to the bottom of the sea, there to
sleep with the Spaniards and other useless things. Officers and marines
alike are proud of their ship and delighted to explain the mechanism of
the guns.
We took a steamer over to Tacoma one morning, where we had the pleasure
of seeing the North Pacific steamship Glenogle, which had just arrived
from Japan, unload her cargo. She brought two thousand tons of tea,
over two thousand pounds of rice, two thousand and twelve bails of
matting, two hundred and eighty-six bails of straw braid, one
hundred and thirty-nine cases of porcelain, two hundred and eighty-five
packages of curios, three thousand packages of bamboo ware, silk goods
and a multitude of small articles made the load. She had forty Japanese
passengers for this port, and left forty-five at Victoria.
[Illustration: STREET IN TACOMA, WASHINGTON.]
The air was fragrant with the odor of roses and beautiful pinks.
On the street we met a party of Indians in civilian dress, wearing
closely cropped hair and moustaches.
Tacoma pays ninety dollars per ton for copper ore from Alaska.
Returning across the bay we met a flock of crows on the flotsam and
jetsam which floats down from the saw-mills. Their antics reminded me
of a party of school boys playing tag. At the steamer’s approach the
leader gave a warning caw and they were up and away before the steamer
struck their floating playground and scattered it to the waves.
At sunset the reflection of the sun-lit clouds on the waves and the
fire and glow of the sparkling water, now ruby red, changing to
turquoise blues and emerald greens, make a scene delightful to the eye
of one who loves the sea.