The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-03-15
Victoria.

iCJOI1ds
From Port Townsend it is three
hours run, acros5 the Straits of De
tuca, to Victoria on Vaneouver's ISL
and; and here, at ones first step. he
realizes that he is on British soil. 1t is
strange that two peoples speaking the
same language, holding IN the main the
same or similar beliefs, can have in their
daily living so utterly dissimilar atno-
spheres as do the Americans and the
English This sharp contrast can no
where be more vividly seen than ia going
from Washington Territory to Van
eouyer's Island. Victoria is town
which would well repay a careful study.
Even In the most cursory glances at it,
one sees symptoms of reticent life, a
flavor of mystery and leisure, back
grounds of traditionary dignity and
hereditary squalor, such as one might
go up and down the whole Pacific coast
from San Diego to Portland, and not
find. When Victoria is, as it is sure to
become, sooner or later, wide-known
summering place, no doubt its byways
and highways, its bygone ways and
days, will prove mines of treasure to
the imagination of some dreaming sto-
ry-teller The business part of the town,
if one may be pardohed such a misno-
tAlCI III oA It's oiCCPy Sl1CCtos -
rubbishy and Uttered. The buildings
are shabby, unadorned, with no pre-
tense of design or harmony, They re-
mind one of the inferior portions of Sec
ond-class commercial towns in England,
and the men and women in the shops,
on door-steps, and in alley-ways look
as if they might have justNcome from
Hull But once outside this part of the
town, all is changed: delightful pictur-
esque lanes, great meadow spaces full
of oaks; knolls of messy powders; old
trees swathed in ivy cottages buried in
roses and honey-suckle; comfortable
houses, with lawns and hedges, sun
dials and quaint weather-vanes; castle
like houses of stone, with lodges and
high walls and driveways; and, to COM
plete the picture, sauntering down the
lanes, or driving stately PAGES along the
perfect roads, nonchalant men and leis-
urely women, whose nonchalance and
leisure could not be outdone or out
stared in Hyde Park.
At every turn is new view of the
sea, or a sudden glimpse of some half
hidden inlet or bay. These bursts and
surprises of beautiful bits of water are
the greatest charm of the place. Driv-
ing westward from the town one has
the superb Royal Roads harbor on the
left for miles; then, turning TO the right
through woods that meet overhead, past
fields full of tossing fringes of brake,
and thickets of spiraea twenty feet high
he comes suddenly on another land
locked, unsupported harbor, the Es-
quimault harbor, with its own little
hamlet. Skirting around this, and
bearing back toward the town again, by
a road farther inland, he finds that to
reach the town he must cross inlet after
inlet. Wooded, dark, silent. amber
colored, they are very paradise for
lovers of rowing; or for lovers of WOO
ing either, we thought, as we came
again and again on a tiny craft, in
which two sat with idle oars. At other
times, as we were crossing some pictur-
esque stone bridge, a pleasure barge
with gay flags flying, and young men
and maidens singing, would shoot out
from under it, and disappear around
leafy corner. From every higher
ground we could see the majestic wall
of the Olympic range rising in the south.
The day will come when some painter
will win fame for himself by painting
this range as seen from Victoria; a sol
id wall of torquoise blue, with its sky
line fretted and turreted in silver snow,
rising abrupt and perpendicular out of
dark green and purple sea. do not
know any mountain range so beautiful
or SO grandly set. Often its base is
wrapped in white mists, which look as
if they were crystalized in ripples
and ridges, like a field of ice tloes
Rising out of these, the blue wall and
snowy SUBMITS seem lifted into the
skies; to have no connection with earth
except by the ice-fioe belt.-.Attd~tic.