A very different man, seen now and then at long intervals11 but usually invisible, is the free roamer of the wilderness12—hunter, prospector13, explorer, seeking he knows not what. Lithe14 and sinewy15, he walks erect16, making his way with the skill of wild animals, all his senses in action, watchful17 and alert, looking keenly at everything in sight, his imagination well nourished in the wealth of the wilderness, coming into contact with free nature in a thousand forms, drinking at the fountains of things, responsive to wild influences, as trees to the winds. Well he knows the wild animals his neighbors, what fishes are in the streams, what birds in the forests, and where food may be found. Hungry at times and weary, he has corresponding enjoyment18 in eating and resting, and all the wilderness is home. Some of these rare, happy rovers die alone among the leaves. Others half settle down and change in part into farmers; each, making choice of some fertile spot where the landscape attracts him, builds a small cabin, where, with few wants to supply from garden or field, he hunts and farms in turn, going perhaps once a year to the settlements, until night begins to draw near, and, like forest shadows, thickens into darkness and his day is done. In these Washington wilds, living alone, all sorts of men may perchance be found—poets, philosophers, and even full-blown transcendentalists, though you may go far to find them.
Indians are seldom to be met with away from the Sound, excepting about the few outlying hop3 ranches6, to which they resort in great numbers during the picking season. Nor in your walks in the woods will you be likely to see many of the wild animals, however far you may go, with the exception of the Douglas squirrel and the mountain goat. The squirrel is everywhere, and the goat you can hardly fail to find if you climb any of the high mountains. The deer, once very abundant, may still be found on the islands and along the shores of the Sound, but the large gray wolves render their existence next to impossible at any considerable distance back in the woods of the mainland, as they can easily run them down unless they are near enough to the coast to make their escape by plunging19 into the water and swimming to the islands off shore. The elk20 and perhaps also the moose still exist in the most remote and inaccessible21 solitudes22 of the forest, but their numbers have been greatly reduced of late, and even the most experienced hunters have difficulty in finding them. Of bears there are two species, the black and the large brown, the former by far the more common of the two. On the shaggy bottom-lands where berries are plentiful23, and along the rivers while salmon24 are going up to spawn25, the black bear may be found, fat and at home. Many are killed every year, both for their flesh and skins. The large brown species likes higher and opener ground. He is a dangerous animal, a near relative of the famous grizzly26, and wise hunters are very fond of letting him alone.
The towns of Puget Sound are of a very lively, progressive, and aspiring27 kind, fortunately with abundance of substance about them to warrant their ambition and make them grow. Like young sapling sequoias, they are sending out their roots far and near for nourishment28, counting confidently on longevity29 and grandeur30 of stature31. Seattle and Tacoma are at present far in the lead of all others in the race for supremacy32, and these two are keen, active rivals, to all appearances well matched. Tacoma occupies near the head of the Sound a site of great natural beauty. It is the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and calls itself the "City of Destiny." Seattle is also charmingly located about twenty miles down the Sound from Tacoma, on Elliott Bay. It is the terminus of the Seattle, Lake Shore, and Eastern Railroad, now in process of construction, and calls itself the "Queen City of the Sound" and the "Metropolis33 of Washington." What the populations of these towns number I am not able to say with anything like exactness. They are probably about the same size and they each claim to have about twenty thousand people; but their figures are so rapidly changing, and so often mixed up with counts that refer to the future that exact measurements of either of these places are about as hard to obtain as measurements of the clouds of a growing storm. Their edges run back for miles into the woods among the trees and stumps34 and brush which hide a good many of the houses and the stakes which mark the lots; so that, without being as yet very large towns, they seem to fade away into the distance.
But, though young and loose-jointed, they are fast taking on the forms and manners of old cities, putting on airs, as some would say, like boys in haste to be men. They are already towns "with all modern improvements, first-class in every particular," as is said of hotels. They have electric motors and lights, paved broadways and boulevards, substantial business blocks, schools, churches, factories, and foundries. The lusty, titanic35 clang of boiler36 making may be heard there, and plenty of the languid music of pianos mingling37 with the babel noises of commerce carried on in a hundred tongues. The main streets are crowded with bright, wide-awake lawyers, ministers, merchants, agents for everything under the sun; ox drivers and loggers in stiff, gummy overalls38; back-slanting dudes, well-tailored and shiny; and fashions and bonnets39 of every feather and color bloom gayly in the noisy throng40 and advertise London and Paris. Vigorous life and strife41 are to be seen everywhere. The spirit of progress is in the air. Still it is hard to realize how much good work is being done here of a kind that makes for civilization—the enthusiastic, exulting42 energy displayed in the building of new towns, railroads, and mills, in the opening of mines of coal and iron and the development of natural resources in general. To many, especially in the Atlantic States, Washington is hardly known at all. It is regarded as being yet a far wild west—a dim, nebulous expanse of woods—by those who do not know that railroads and steamers have brought the country out of the wilderness and abolished the old distances. It is now near to all the world and is in possession of a share of the best of all that civilization has to offer, while on some of the lines of advancement43 it is at the front.
Notwithstanding the sharp rivalry44 between different sections and towns, the leading men mostly pull together for the general good and glory,—building, buying, borrowing, to push the country to its place; keeping arithmetic busy in counting population present and to come, ships, towns, factories, tons of coal and iron, feet of lumber, miles of railroad,—Americans, Scandinavians, Irish, Scotch45, and Germans being joined together in the white heat of work like religious crowds in time of revival46 who have forgotten sectarianism. It is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything; therefore, however extravagant47 and high the brag48 ascending49 from Puget Sound, in most cases it is likely to appear pardonable and more.
Seattle was named after an old Indian chief who lived in this part of the Sound. He was very proud of the honor and lived long enough to lead his grandchildren about the streets. The greater part of the lower business portion of the town, including a long stretch of wharves50 and warehouses51 built on piles, was destroyed by fire a few months ago 28, with immense loss. The people, however, are in no wise discouraged, and ere long the loss will be gain, inasmuch as a better class of buildings, chiefly of brick, are being erected52 in place of the inflammable wooden ones, which, with comparatively few exceptions, were built of pitchy spruce.
With their own scenery so glorious ever on show, one would at first thought suppose that these happy Puget Sound people would never go sightseeing from home like less favored mortals. But they do all the same. Some go boating on the Sound or on the lakes and rivers, or with their families make excursions at small cost on the steamers. Others will take the train to the Franklin and Newcastle or Carbon River coal mines for the sake of the thirty- or forty-mile rides through the woods, and a look into the black depths of the underworld. Others again take the steamers for Victoria, Fraser River, or Vancouver, the new ambitious town at the terminus of the Canadian Railroad, thus getting views of the outer world in a near foreign country. One of the regular summer resorts of this region where people go for fishing, hunting, and the healing of diseases, is the Green River Hot Springs, in the Cascade53 Mountains, sixty-one miles east of Tacoma, on the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Green River is a small rocky stream with picturesque54 banks, and derives55 its name from the beautiful pale-green hue56 of its waters.
Among the most interesting of all the summer rest and pleasure places is the famous "Hop Ranch5" on the upper Snoqualmie River, thirty or forty miles eastward57 from Seattle. Here the dense58 forest opens, allowing fine free views of the adjacent mountains from a long stretch of ground which is half meadow, half prairie, level and fertile, and beautifully diversified59 with outstanding groves60 of spruces and alders61 and rich flowery fringes of spiraea and wild roses, the river meandering62 deep and tranquil63 through the midst of it. On the portions most easily cleared some three hundred acres of hop vines have been planted and are now in full bearing, yielding, it is said, at the rate of about a ton of hops64 to the acre. They are a beautiful crop, these vines of the north, pillars of verdure in regular rows, seven feet apart and eight or ten feet in height; the long, vigorous shoots sweeping65 round in fine, wild freedom, and the light, leafy cones66 hanging in loose, handsome clusters.
Perhaps enough of hops might be raised in Washington for the wants of all the world, but it would be impossible to find pickers to handle the crop. Most of the picking is done by Indians, and to this fine, clean, profitable work they come in great numbers in their canoes, old and young, of many different tribes, bringing wives and children and household goods, in some cases from a distance of five or six hundred miles, even from far Alaska. Then they too grow rich and spend their money on red cloth and trinkets. About a thousand Indians are required as pickers at the Snoqualmie ranch alone, and a lively and merry picture they make in the field, arrayed in bright, showy calicoes, lowering the rustling67 vine pillars with incessant68 song-singing and fun. Still more striking are their queer camps on the edges of the fields or over on the river bank, with the firelight shining on their wild jolly faces. But woe69 to the ranch should fire-water get there!
But the chief attractions here are not found in the hops, but in trout-fishing and bear-hunting, and in the two fine falls on the river. Formerly70 the trip from Seattle was a hard one, over corduroy roads; now it is reached in a few hours by rail along the shores of Lake Washington and Lake Squak, through a fine sample section of the forest and past the brow of the main Snoqualmie Fall. From the hotel at the ranch village the road to the fall leads down the right bank of the river through the magnificent maple71 woods I have mentioned elsewhere, and fine views of the fall may be had on that side, both from above and below. It is situated72 on the main river, where it plunges74 over a sheer precipice75, about two hundred and forty feet high, in leaving the level meadows of the ancient lake basin. In a general way it resembles the well-known Nevada Fall in Yosemite, having the same twisted appearance at the top and the free plunge73 in numberless comet-shaped masses into a deep pool seventy-five or eighty yards in diameter. The pool is of considerable depth, as is shown by the radiating well-beaten foam76 and mist, which is of a beautiful rose color at times, of exquisite77 fineness of tone, and by the heavy waves that lash78 the rocks in front of it.
Though to a Californian the height of this fall would not seem great, the volume of water is heavy, and all the surroundings are delightful79. The maple forest, of itself worth a long journey, the beauty of the river-reaches above and below, and the views down the valley afar over the mighty80 forests, with all its lovely trimmings of ferns and flowers, make this one of the most interesting falls I have ever seen. The upper fall is about seventy-five feet high, with bouncing rapids at head and foot, set in a romantic dell thatched with dripping mosses81 and ferns and embowered in dense evergreens82 and blooming bushes, the distance to it from the upper end of the meadows being about eight miles. The road leads through majestic83 woods with ferns ten feet high beneath some of the thickets84, and across a gravelly plain deforested by fire many years ago. Orange lilies are plentiful, and handsome shining mats of the kinnikinic, sprinkled with bright scarlet85 berries.
From a place called "Hunt's," at the end of the wagon86 road, a trail leads through lush, dripping woods (never dry) to Thuja and Mertens, Menzies, and Douglas spruces. The ground is covered with the best moss-work of the moist lands of the north, made up mostly of the various species of hypnum, with some liverworts, marchantia, jungermannia, etc., in broad sheets and bosses, where never a dust particle floated, and where all the flowers, fresh with mist and spray, are wetter than water lilies. The pool at the foot of the fall is a place surpassingly lovely to look at, with the enthusiastic rush and song of the falls, the majestic trees overhead leaning over the brink87 like listeners eager to catch every word of the white refreshing88 waters, the delicate maidenhairs and aspleniums with fronds89 outspread gathering90 the rainbow sprays, and the myriads91 of hooded92 mosses, every cup fresh and shining.
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1
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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fussiness
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| [医]易激怒 | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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12
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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prospector
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| n.探矿者 | |
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lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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elk
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| n.麋鹿 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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spawn
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| n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产 | |
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grizzly
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| adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊 | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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longevity
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| n.长命；长寿 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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boiler
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| n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等) | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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42
exulting
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| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
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43
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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46
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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49
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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50
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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51
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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52
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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55
derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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diversified
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| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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cones
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| n.（人眼）圆锥细胞；圆锥体( cone的名词复数 )；球果；圆锥形东西；（盛冰淇淋的）锥形蛋卷筒 | |
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67
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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73
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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evergreens
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| n.常青树，常绿植物，万年青( evergreen的名词复数 ) | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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fronds
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| n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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