ghts twinkling in the gloaming. Passengers soon distribute themselves
through the darkness. I am left alone on the after-deck to watch the
big, shadowy ships that are moored near us, and the exquisite
phosphorescent light in the water--a wave of ink with the luminous trail
of a struck match smouldering across it. Far into the night there was
the thundering of freight rolling up and down the decks, and the ring of
invisible truck-wheels.

Slept by and by, and was awakened by the prolonged shriek of a steam
whistle and a stream of sunlight that poured in at my state-room window.
We were backing and slowing off Port Ludlow. Big sawmill close at hand.
Four barks lie at the dock in front of it; a few houses stand on the
hill above; pine woods crowd to the water's edge, making the place look
solemn. Surely it is a solemn land and a solemn sea about here. After
breakfast, about 8.30 o'clock, Port Townsend hove in sight, and here we
await the arrival of the Alaska boat. What an odd little town it is--the
smallest possible city set upon a hill; the business quarter huddled at
the foot of the hill, as if it had slid down there and lodged on the
very edge of the sea! The hotels stalk out over the water on stilts. One
sleeps well in the sweet salt air, lulled by the murmur of the waves
under the veranda.

I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty
steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and
reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed
leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes
near to being pretty, yet stops just short of it. But there is a kind of
unpretending prettiness in the bright and breezy heights environed by
black forest and blue sea.

A revenue cutter--this is a port of customs, please remember--lies in
the offing. She looks as if she were suspended in air, so pure are the
elements in the northland. I lean from a parapet, on my way down the
seaward face of the cliff, and hear the order, "Make ready!" Then comes
a flash of flame, a white, leaping cloud, and a crash that shatters an
echo into fragments all along the shore; while beautiful smoke rings
roll up against the sky like victorious wreaths.

I call on the Hon. J. G. Swan, Hawaiian Consul, author of "The Northwest
Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." Find him
delightful, and delightfully situated in a perfect museum of Indian
relics; himself