Theodore Winthrop

“ Whulge is a vast fiord, parting rocks and forests primeval with a mighty tide. Chesapeakes and the like do very well for oyster “fundums” and shad-fisheries, but Whulge has a picturesque significance as much greater as its salmon are superior to the osseous shad of the east. Some of its beauties will appear in this my voyage.
I sat comfortably amidships in my stately but leaky galley, Bucentaur hight for the nonce. Olyman siwash steered. The Duke and Duchess, armed with idle paddles, were between him and me. The fishy trio were arranged forward, paddling to starboard and port. ”

“ Hillocks these, — never among them one single summit brilliant forever with snow, golden in sunshine, silver when sunshine has gone; not one to bloom rosy at dawn, and to be a vision of refreshment all the sultry summer long; not one to be lustrous white over leagues of woodland, sombre or tender; not one to repeat the azure of heaven among its shadowy dells. Exaltation such as the presence of the sublime and solemn heights arouses, we dwellers eastward cannot have as an abiding influence. Other things we may have, for Nature will not let herself anywhere be scorned ”

“ But salmon, netted, hooked, trolled, speared, weired, scooped, — salmon taken by various sleight of savage skill, — is the chief diet of Whulge. In the tide-ways toward the Sound’s mouth, the Indians anchor two canoes parallel, fifteen feet apart, and stretch a flat net of strips of inner bark between them, sinking it just below the surface. They don a head-gear like a “rat’s nest,” confected of wool, feathers, furry tails, ribbons, and rags, considered attractive to salmon, and “hyas tamanoüs,” highly magical. ”

“ Blubberly fish may dwell through a life-long pickle in the briny deep, and grow rancid there like olives too salt, but the delicate salmon must have his bubbles from the brunnen. Besides, his youthful family, the Parrs, must be cradled on the ripples of a running stream, and in innocent nooks of freshness must establish their vigor and consistency, before they brave the risks of cosmopolitan ocean life. ”

“ The undertone of sorrow in all music cheats us of grief for our own distress. To counteract the miseries of civilization, we must have the tender, passionate despairs of Favorita and Traviata; for the disgusts of barbarism I found Indian howls sufficient relief.
By and by, with sunset, paddle-songs died away, and the Bucentaur slowed. The tide had turned, and was urgently against us. My tired crew were oddly dropping off to sleep. We landed on the shingle for repose and supper. Twilight was already spreading downward from the zenith, and pouring gloom among the sombre pines. ”

“ Exquisite mantling snows sweep along her shoulders toward the bristling pines. Sometimes she showers her realms with a boon of light ashes, to notify them that her peace is repose, not stupor, and sometimes lifts a beacon of tremulous flame by night from her summit. Not far from her base the Columbia crashes through the mountains in a magnificent chasm, and Mt. Hood, the vigorous prince of the range, rises in a keen pyramid fourteen or sixteen thousand feet high, rivalling his sister in glory. Mt. Jefferson and others southward are worthy snow peaks, but not comparable with these ”

“ I can also let myself go bobbing down the tide of thoughtless thought, until I am caught by the same shoals, or checked by the same reef, or launched upon the same tumultuous seas, as they. These influences are primeval, aboriginal, fresh, enlivening for their anti-cockney savor. Wretchedly slab-sided, and not at all fitting among the many-sided, is he who cannot adapt himself to the dreams and hopes, the awes and pleasures of savage life, and be as good a savage as the brassiest Brass-skin. ”

“ Sometimes fleets of canoes go a trolling, one fisherman in each slight shallop. He fastens his line to his paddle, and as he paddles trolls. A pretty sight to behold is a rocky bay of Whulge, gay with a fleet of these agile dug-outs, and ever and anon illumined with a gleam when a salmon takes the bait. In the voyage I have mentioned with Dr. Tolmie, a squadron of such trollers near the Indian village of Kowitchin crowded about us, praying to be vaccinated, and paying a salmon for the privilege. Small-pox is the fatalest foe of the Indian. ”

“ South of Kulshan, the range continues dark, rough, and somewhat unmeaning to the eye, until it is relieved by Tacoma, vulgo Regnier. Upon this Tacoma’s image I was now drifting, and was about to make nearer acquaintance with its substance. One cannot know too much of a nature’s nobleman. Tacoma the second, which Yankees call Mt. Adams, is a clumsier repetition of its greater brother, but noble enough to be the pride of a continent. Dearest charmer of all is St. Helen’s, queen of the Cascades, queen of Northern America, a fair and graceful volcanic cone. ”

“ Farthest away in the west, as near the western sea as mountains can stand, are the Cascades. Sailors can descry their landmark summits firmer than cloud, a hundred miles away. Kulshan, misnamed Mount Baker by the vulgar, is their northernmost buttress up at 49° and Frazer’s River. Kulshan is an irregular, massive, mound-shaped peak, worthy to stand a white emblem of perpetual peace between us and our brother Britons. The northern regions of Whulge and Vancouver’s Island have Kulshan upon their horizon. ”

“ Mountains have been waiting, even in ancient worlds, for cycles, while mankind looked upon them as high, cold, dreary, crushing, as resorts for demons and homes of desolating storms. It is only lately, in the development of men’s comprehension of nature, that mountains have been recognized as our noblest friends, our most exalting and inspiring comrades, our grandest emblems of divine power and divine peace. ”

“ All of a sad-colored, Caravaggio brown, through which salmon-juices exude, and which is varnished with fish-oil. All have coarse black hair, and are beardless. Old people of either sex are hardly to be distinguished, man from woman. The young ladies are not without charms, and blush ingenuously. ”

“ They sit here over the fire, now jabbering lustily, and now silent and drifting along currents of association, undiverted by discursive thought, until some pervading fancy strikes them all at once, and again all is animation and guttural sputter of sympathy. ”

“ Civilization, beholding the total failure of the skull-crushing system, is warned, and resolves to discard its coxcombries and deformities, and to strive to develop, not to distort, the body and soul. ”

“ The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force and hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes are calmer and more divine, and, even if they have failed to attain absolute dignified grace of finish, and are riven and broken down, they still demand our sympathy for giant power, if only partially victor. Each form — the dome, the cone, and the pyramid — has its type among the great snow peaks of the Cascades. ”

“ It is easy to linger while one has a hand upon the locomotive’s valve. I will, on the whole, remain an American of the nineteenth century, and not subside into a Klalam brave. Every sincere man has, or ought to have, his differences or his quarrels with status quo, — otherwise what becomes of the millennium ? ”

“ Now a forehead should not be too round, or a nose too straight, or a cheek too ruddy, or a hand too small. Nature, however, does quite well enough by those she means to be flat-head beauties. Indians do not recognize this, and strive to better Nature. ”

“ Savages and Yankees have since been scalping each other in the most uncivil way, the P. R. R. creeps slowly outward, Ormus and Ind are chary of tribute. Dreams of growth are faster than growth.
The persons of my crew have been described. They all, according to a superstition quite common among Indians, declined to give their names, or even an alias, as other scamps might do, except the Duke and Duchess, proud in their foreign appellatives. I will substitute, therefore, the names of the crew of another canoe in which I had previously voyaged from Squally to Vancouver’s Island, with Dr. ”

“ But we were forced to inspect also the heritage of human institutions, and such a mankind as they had made after centuries of opportunity, — and very sadly depressing we found the work, so that, notwithstanding many romantic joys and artistic pleasures, we came back malecontent. Let us, therefore, develop our own world. ”

“ But the millions of Yankees — from codfish to alligators, chewers of spruce-gum or chewers of pig-tail, cooks of chowder or cooks of gumbo — know little of these treasures of theirs. Poet comes long after pioneer. ”

“ Alta nesika wake tikky pississy, pe shirt, pe polealely, pe Kaliaton, pe hiu ikta, — tikky keelapi; now we no want blankets and shirts and powder and shot and many traps, — want to return. Conoway silex, — tikky moosum; all in the sulks, — want to sleep. ”