We arrived at Victoria at 10 a.m. on the znd of April by the Empress of China, the weather having continued to favour us. The N.Y.K.S. Iyo Maru, which left Yokohama three days before us, and had had very heavy weather—which we escaped—for the first three or four days out, arrived only an hour Defore us, We bade farewell to the Empress here, and were driven up to a large, comfortable hotel, the Driard, in the centre of the town. We spent the day in trolley cars, among the objects of interest being the Mount Baker Hotel, a fine summer hotel, on the shore of a little bay, where several Shanghai folk spent a' part of the summer last year, and which had the honour of "entertaining the Prince and Princess of Wales on their recent trip, Victoria is a very pleasant widely scattered country town, with two or three streets of shops and warehouses. The climate is mild, the orchards were all in bloom, and jit was a delightful relief to the eye after the long sea voyage. 4 more sleepy-lookin; town to be the capital of a province- an the Parliament House is a very handsome stone building—it would be difticuls to imagine; but according to the grumblers, this is very largely due to the obstructioners of the Dunsmuir family, who are stated to own the southern part of Vancouver Island and to be extremely conservative. is i fae d ¢ leisurely way in which life goes on gossip for which I accept no responsibility, at Victoria strikes the visitor at once. The chief society in the town is formed of the naval and military officers and their families, but the greater part of the squadron was absent at the time of our visit. voyage up Puget Sound in the three decked, the morning of St. George's Day for the We slept at the Driard and left on
30U-ton, ocean-going steamer Rosalie, at 9.80. The sea was pene smooth and weather fine, and the trip was thoroughly delightful. A flock of white-winged gulls followed us all the way, a source of inexhaustible interest, now circling round close to the taffrail, uttering all the time their plaintive whistle, now darting down to pick up a bit of biscuit, now resting on the water, and then, when they seemed inevitably left behind, rising again and catching us up with what seemed only three or four strokes of their powerful wings. The scenery was perfect as we ppted our devious way up the Sound.
hills covered with tall trees on each side, the passage now ten or more miles across, now narrowed to perhaps a couple of miles, with snow-capped mountains in the far background. Now a sand-s ning out into the sea with a white lighthouse and its buildings; now a well-armed fort with rows of wooden barracks; now a little bay with a few houses and a saw mill, and a barque or four-masted schooner loading lumber. We passed from time to time pugboate towing great rafts of lumber. We had an excellent tiffin on board, and afterwards stopped for a few minutes at Port Townsend, a pretty town of brightly-ainted wooden houses scattered over low ills, with some 3,000 inhabitants, and course with trolley cars traversing the roads. At 4 o'clock: in the afternoon a big city was ahead of us, with miles of docks and wharves and godowns, with ships and steamers of all kinds along its water front, behind that the railway; and this was the! amazing city of Seattle, with its 130,000 inhabitants. I had no idea that it was such fine city. Its two or three main business streets, lined with houses seven to ten, stories in height, running paralled with the sea front, are fairly level, and are by trolley cars; but the streets that run up! from the sea cross a succession of low hills, and are as steep as those in San Francisco, and are served with cable cars, which ron up and down the hills for miles at what seems dangerous speed, but are really perfectly safe." At the end of the town, some four or five miles from the sea, is a grand piece of water surrounded by tree-covered hills, Lake Washington, which must be a delightful resort in summer, Seattle is just a8 wide-awake as Victoria is sleepy, and preparations were already being made for a worthy celebration, on the 4th of July next, of the laying of the first plate of the keel of the 15,000-ton U.S. battleship Nebraska. This will give your readers an idea of the resources of this fur-western seaport, which in the opinion of the Seattleites is son to outstrip San Francisco, and will by Christmas next be the home port of the two largest steamers in the world, "Jim Hill's" two great 27,000-tons steamers, which are to revolutionize the carrying trade between the Pacific Slope and the Far East. I saw their keels on the stocks as we passed through New London to-day, and they are to be launched in August next. They are to be fast twin-screw steamers, fitted up most luxuriously for 150 first-class passengers, but I do not envy the agents who have to leal them at either end.
At Seattle we went to the Hotel Butler, a tall, very comfortable hotel of 165 rooms on the European plan, at the intersection of two of the principal streets. It was built as a business block in 1889 and converted into
surprised and delighted to find that a hotel five years later. We were equally ug Shakespea e's birthday, there was to be a memorial performance at the Grand Opera House under the management of the well-known American legitimate actor Mr. Warde, which of course we attended. It is a large and handsome theatre and was well filled. he performance opened with a short speech by Mr. Warde, who introduced Professor Padelford of the University of the State of Washington, which is situated at Seattle. The Professor, " thorough lover and devoted student of the Bard, read a short address on the genius of Shakespeare, than which I have rarely heard or read a better. As he came on the stage a number of the college boys in the gallery gave thei college yell, one of the most weird and unearthly Series of sounds I ever heard. As the Professor ended his address, the curtain drew
the principal characters in Shakespeare's up and disclosed some twenty or more of plays grouped on rocks rising from the floor of the stage half way to the sky borders. Amoag them were Othello and Macbeth, Queen' Katharine, Hamlet and Ophelia, Lear and Cordelia, Heary V, the melancholy Jaques, Falstaff, Mereitio, etc., ete, and each in turn delivered the principal speech in his or her role, the remarkable thing being the very high staudand of excellence maintained throughout; the pretty gir] who represented Polonius's daughter for instance giving Ophelia's mad scene and singing the songs ina most delightful, fresh and very musical soprano voice. This part of the entertainment, which took at least an hour, was followed by a number of dialogues from various plays, all in character, and all well done; the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, given with traditional legitimate violence, bringing down the house with even greater enthusiasm than the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet," though the
grace and naturalness. These dialogues Juliet playetl with enchanting, youthful consumed another hour, and the performance was to conclude with the Trial Scene from the " Merchant of Venice," but having been up that mor ing with the lark we decide! that we had had enough, but we could not but be delighted to find such devotion to Shakespeare in a "hustling," money-making city so far in the wild andwoolly, West.
We spent two days at Seattle and could easily have spent several days more there, one of our most interesting visits being to the admirably equipped ant organised printing offices of the "Seattle Daily Press" and its genial Editor, Colonel Blethen. I may mention to show how his writing is appreciated, that his paper, though a Democratic organ, has twice the circulation of its Republican rival, though Seattle is a thoroughly Republican city. We left Seattle at 8 p.m. on the 2th of April_in the Great Northern "Flyer" for St. Paul, travelling in an extremely comfortable drawing room, a very well-provided dining car accompanying us all the way. Here I may perhaps mention that with the exception of a shower the morning before we reached St. Paul, and a slight shower at New York, we have not hada drop of rain to mar our enjoyment since we left Yokohama twenty; five days ago.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.