The Washington herald., 1915-09-12
LOOPING NORTH AMERICA
H-BURsT BO0Ms AND FISH
By GEORGE R. MINER.

Shall tyker your bag. sir" asked
trim little steward in bob-tailed
coat and silver buttons.
Yes. please"
"'Kyou." ...-#
Then 4 knew that ] was in Eng
land or an English province again
without any shadow of doubt. The
''what,'- Tie What, What and the
"'Kyou' are the hall marks of the
English language as spoken by the
people who were named after the Ian
guage. The "whatr and the what:
what" are the exclusive property of
the upper classes. while the Kyou"
belongs with equal preparatory rights
to the lower or sewing classes.
"kyou" as every one knows who has
lived in England. means thank you"
It's simply an abbreviation and not a
cryptic word or a profane one. as
stranger might easily believe. A serv-
ing classer always tacks a thank you"
onto everything he says, only he says
"'Kyou" If you ask him what time
it is. he tells you and adds 4" 'Kyou."
If you tell him to go to the devil he
replies "'Kyou." It's quite comfort
ing and unmistakably lower English.
So when the boat steward at Vic
toria said "'Kyou" instead Of grab
bling my bag without saying anything.
as American stewards do, I realized
at once that 1 was in an English prov
ince, that the Union Jack was flut-
tering over my head, that the red flag
of Canada was waving from every
pole along the water front and that
the numerous soldiers all about in
greenish-brown khaki were only
waiting their time to go to the blood
soaked trenches overseas.
But the resemblance of Victoria to
England does not stop there. All the
lower part of Vancouver island is like
a hunk of Southern England set in
the north Pacific. The climate. the
thatched houses. the rolling, grim
fields, the winding roads between tall
hedges and the profusion of flowers
all are exactly as you find in the smil-
ing shire of Surrey. Even a little
more peaceful and kindly and smiling
is Victoria than Surrey. for on this
island in the Pacific, within a stones
throw of Alaska and the eternal SHOWS
of the Arctic the roses and sweetpeas
bloom in abundance at Christms tim.
and frost is as rare as are Democrats
in Vermont
A lovely. serene and dignified city is
Victoria, the capital of British Column
bia, with the twistiest little harbor
that was ever invented. A ship of any
size has to back and fill and tack and
out to the channel: and then the
chances are that she will poke her
nose into a pier or stick her stern
into a mud bank. The beautiful gov
ernment buildings and the palatial
Empress Hotel command the head of
the tiny harbor, with lawns and gar
dens and an esplanade reaching from
them down to the water front.
In the hotel, l found a number of
Ar,a he whn
usually spend it in Europe. AS the war
had made that impossible, they did the
nearest thing to il and went to Vic
toria. The hotel was also pretty well
populated with retired English officers
and government officials.
The prevailing sense of humor 10
,Tuite the same in Victoria as it is
in ECndop- Also the habit of taking
everything literally is the same. One
of the type of Englishmen you always
meet in hotel Hobbies asked me to have
a Scotch and soda with rim. We had
it. When it was thorough finished,
] said: II
Can you stand another"
He looked at me in rather enni -
rassed way for moment. blushed and
then stammered:
I'm afraid not. old chap. You see.
that was my last shilling
Probably you never took an ocean
trip through the Alps. Neither did y
But 1 did something very much like
it in sailing up Puget Sound from Vic
toria to Vancouver. A clear blue sea
through which the ship cut her way
and close at hand on all sides inlets
and bays, wooded islands and vendur-
clad slopes. rising to sheer walls of
rock. snow crowned at the top-it was
as near like an ocean trip through the
Alps as anything well could be. You
get practically the same experience all
the way in the three days trip up to
Alaska on the inside route between
the long chain of islands and the
mainland when the gloomy mountains
rise to bare and icy heights untouched
by man.
This Alaska trip was very popular