er which the Six Nations of New York It is a canoe dug out of a single log, and State called themselves Hodenósaunee. The planks are split by means of yew wedges from big cedar logs; and as these do not grow to any great size on Cape Flattery, the Makahs buy them from the Vancouver Indians, paying in seal or whale oil, blankets, or dried fish. Now they have nails, but in the old houses the parts were lashed or pegged together. of a type quite unique, characterized by the long protruding bow and the high straight stern, so that to our eyes it seems all the time as though the craft were going wrong end foremost. The largest of these canoes are more than sixty feet in length, and are well represented by the great one from Vancouver Island which was shown at the Centennial Exhibition, and is now in the National Museum at Washington. From this size they decrease to those used by one man, or as a The Songish have a village on the opposite side of the harbor from Victoria, and an Indian boy paddled us across there one afternoon. The men were away, ex-boy's plaything. cept some aged fellows, but the women In primitive days fleets of large canoes were home. The houses varied in size, went far out into the sea in pursuit of some being only twenty feet or so square, whales, attacking the monster with their while others were three or four times as bone spears, and subduing him in his nabig. There were no partitions, but each tive element. Then he was towed in with family seemed to have its own corner, a great honors. Among the Makahs at Cape low bench of planks around the side serv- Flattery the first whale of the season was ing as a general place of deposit for every-greeted with ceremonial honors. A porthing that could not be hung up, and also as a bedstead for the whole family, the furs and cedar-bark robes of old days having given place to mattresses, sheets, comforters, and woollen blankets-all very dirty and torn. The floor of the house was earth, patted hard, but by no means smooth. In the small houses the fire was built right in the centre, and the smoke found its way out through a hole in the roof, which was covered by a loose stack of boards to shed the bulk of the rain. From a beam hung a chain with a hook at the end supporting a kettle or tin pail. In the larger houses three or four family fires smouldered in various corners; and these generally had their kettles suspended upon a bent iron rod stuck in the ground at an angle. The beams, poles, roofboards, chains, and everything else over the fires were clothed in a smoke-velvet, and were draped by long festoons of greasy soot threatening to fall down upon our heads. When meal-time comes-and this has no great regularity-the whole family squat about this fire, and pick their boiled fish out of a common plate, dipping it in seal oil. tion of the blubber taken off just behind the whale's head, and shaped like a great saddle, was placed across a stout pole elevated upon two posts set in the lodge of some man distinguished for prowess in this pursuit. This saddle was called ubutsk. It was stuck full of feathers, and various devices were marked in the black skin by means of white geese down. Underneath was placed a large wooden trough to catch the oil which dropped slowly from the blubber through the smoke and heat of the lodge fire. This was considered the choice oil for eating, and was reserved for the chief and head men and their friends. After the ubutsk had hung up a certain length of time-till it was ripe-a grand feast was given, and the blubber was boiled and devoured. The whaling has been abandoned of late years, however—not because of the disappearance of the great cetaceans, for you may see them spouting in the offing almost any day, but because another industry occupies the native hunters, and gives better profits. This is the fur sealing, which is of great importance to both white men and Indians on both sides of the Strait of Fuca. The life of these people, in fact, is spent upon the water. By means of it they Whether the fur seal of this coast is the move from place to place, any land travel same species as that of the Pribylov Islbeing very rare, and from it they get all ands (Callorhinus ursinus), naturalists their subsistence. Their canoes, then, are are disagreed. It is generally believed to them what the horse is to the Sioux, or that they are the same. In their annual the reindeer to the Lapps. In satisfying migration northward these seals approach this supreme want has been invented one the coast between Point Grenville, Washof the best boats known to savage history. | ington Territory, and Vancouver in vast ported to the sealing grounds, the schoon- | bark trimmed with sea-otter fur for two ers-of which about twenty were engaged during the past season-receiving onethird of the skins. The blubber of the seals is tried out by the women in the lodges, and the oil, when cold, is stowed in various receptacles, chiefly large pouches made from the paunches of seals and sea-lions. The poorest and the surplus oil is sold, but the best is kept for winter cooking. The skins are traded off, statistics showing that the present annual catch is something over 20,000, worth nearly $200,000, a fourth of which is to be credited to Washington Territory, averaging nearly $200 to each Indian engaged for five or six months' work. At the conclusion of this season the Indian has his pockets full of money, and takes this time to make long journeys in his canoe with his whole family, and a provision of dried fish, visiting Victoria, Port Townsend, Seattle, and so on, until his funds are pretty well exhausted, and his boat loaded with shop goods, half of which are more fine than useful. These trips afford an opportunity to the squaws to find a market for their wares also, at which time desirable bric-à-brac and articles of use can be got very cheap. Thus I bought a fine large blanket of 'cedar dollars once, when much inferior specimens were held by most Indians at five and six dollars. A question all important in respect to this region, of course, is the navigation of its inland waters. In respect to the strait, it is simply to be said that there is nothing like a bar at its entrance, and no obstructions whatever throughout its whole length, except two well-marked rocks near Cape Flattery, upon which no wreck has ever yet occurred. Tatoóche Island bears a first-class light, visible twenty miles in clear weather. The tides are strong, and the currents they make among the islands very baffling, and, if not understood, somewhat dangerous; these, together with head-winds, often make serious delays for vessels, frequently making it profitable to pay from two to seven hundred dollars for towage up the strait, where the great depth of water affords small opportunity for anchorage. The ebb tide is much stronger than the inflow, owing to the great amount of water discharged into the sounds by the rivers. It is this which makes that phenomenon at Skagit Head, of the tide always running one way, which forms one of the stock wonders of this region. front of the plateau, through which a trout creek comes down from the mountains, a curving spit of sand reaching out from the shore incloses an oval harbor some three miles long, which is sufficiently deep for the use of any vessel, and thoroughly protected; the only possible objection to the harbor-which is now very often used as a refuge-is that to enter it a ship must face the trade-winds for a short distance, and therefore would often need towage, whereas she can go to her anchorage off Port Townsend without handling a sheet. The steeply dropping shores are admirable for wharfage purposes, and the country behind the port abounds in splendid timber, and in soils valuable for agriculture. At present Port The prevailing winds come very regularly in summer from the south and eastward of south. A curious phenomenon results: blowing up the Strait of Fuca is one current of air, and blowing down Admiralty Inlet comes another, which have been divided by the mountains, and find themselves squarely opposed to one another off the Race Islands. It is the wind coming up through the strait that brings the copious rain-fall of the Gulf of Georgia. The thick weather and storm gales come chiefly from the southeast, having a long stretch over which to gain accelerated force before striking Port Townsend and Vancouver. On the south shore of the strait it is the occasional nor'westers which are dreaded, and against these there is only a single harbor of value-Angeles has only a score of inhabitants Port Angeles. and a light-house. The shore is reserved as a town site and for naval purposes by the government. Many persons regard it as certain that one of the chief sea-ports of this region will ultimately grow up there. EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON.* T is a compliment which none can more appreciate than I, that the American publishers of Lord Lytton's Life should have asked me to contribute the following pages to their Magazine. For they, knowing well that mere panegyric would be detrimental to the interests of all concerned, imply by their demand that they think me able to place myself for a while *The Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of Ed ward Bulwer, Lord Lytton. By his Son. With Portraits and Illustrations. One Volume, 12mo. New York: Harper and Brothers. Two Volumes, 8vo. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co. apart from trade, and consider the subject from the literary stand-point alone. Thence I desire to examine the career and fame of one who exercised so great an influence over the youth of those now in middle age, and explain, if it may be, to a younger generation our feeling in former years, which, if it seemed for a while to die away, is likely to revive in a steady and continuous appreciation of remarkable intellectual skill, versatility, and charm. It may well be doubted whether under ordinary circumstances a very near relative is fitted to write a biography. The |