owever, this sober tranquillity has begun to give way, some whiffs from
the whirlwind of real estate speculation up the Sound having at length
touched the town and ruffled the surface of its calmness.

A few miles up the bay is Fort Townsend, which makes a pretty picture
with the green woods rising back of it and the calm water in front.
Across the mouth of the Sound lies the long, narrow Whidbey Island,
named by Vancouver for one of his lieutenants. It is about thirty miles
in length, and is remarkable in this region of crowded forests and
mountains as being comparatively open and low. The soil is good and
easily worked, and a considerable portion of the island has been under
cultivation for many years. Fertile fields, open, parklike groves of
oak, and thick masses of evergreens succeed one another in charming
combinations to make this "the garden spot of the Territory."

Leaving Port Townsend for Seattle and Tacoma, we enter the Sound and
sail down into the heart of the green, aspiring forests, and find, look
where we may, beauty ever changing, in lavish profusion. Puget Sound,
"the Mediterranean of America" as it is sometimes called, is in many
respects one of the most remarkable bodies of water in the world.
Vancouver, who came here nearly a hundred years ago and made a careful
survey of it, named the larger northern portion of it "Admiralty Inlet"
and one of the long, narrow branches "Hood's Canal'" applying the name
"Puget Sound" only to the comparatively small southern portion. The
latter name, however, is now applied generally to the entire inlet,
and is commonly shortened by the people hereabouts to "The Sound."
The natural wealth and commercial advantages of the Sound region were
quickly recognized, and the cause of the activity prevailing here is not
far to seek. Vancouver, long before civilization touched these shores,
spoke of it in terms of unstinted praise. He was sent out by the British
government with the principal object in view of "acquiring accurate
knowledge as to the nature and extent of any water communication which
may tend in any considerable degree to facilitate an intercourse for the
purposes of commerce between the northwest coast and the country on
the opposite side of the continent," vague traditions having long been
current concerning a strait supposed to unite the two oceans. Vancouver
reported that he found the coast from San Francisco to Oregon and beyond
to present a nearly straight so