A

T MIDNIGHT

the eighteenth, my chaperon and I boarded the little steamer

Rosalie at Seattle in search of a week's pleasure and recreation among the dream islands of the Pacific in the sheltering arms of Puget Sound.

We had heard of these wonderful islands, but only vaguely, as one hears of Utopia or Arcady.

We had a dim recollection of where they were in our school geographies; that is, we knew they were somewhere in the Pacific, between Mexico and Alaska, possibly nearer to the land of the Gringos on account of the Spanish name belonging to the group.

My chaperon came from Honolulu; I

My intense desire for travel, and especially my penchant for seeking spots little known to the world at large, had won me the very appropriate epithet of "Arkansas Traveler." My newly acquired traveling companion and I had only a faint conception of the places we were headed for, or what we were going to see on the morrow, when we stretched out in our berths that night and watched the moonlight on the moving waters break into a million glittering facets, resembling mint of new-made gold.

We merely felt a vague sense of satisfaction combined with expectancy, which, together with the tang of the salt breeze, brought on refreshing sleep.

sea

At seven o'clock the purser called us, and we were soon on deck sighting our islands in the distance.

Soon after eight we landed on Lopez Island, at a little town called "Richardson," whose combined business was carried on under the roof of a small establishment a sort of department store, including a post-office, blacksmith shop and waiting station for boats.

Captain Sam Barlow, of the Rosalie, who was considered the finest navigator on the Sound, was taking his vacation, and he had agreed to show us the San Juan Islands. Lopez Island was his birth-place, and he was familiar with every island in the entire group, so we considered ourselves fortunate in having him to pilot us from island to island. He met us at the landing.

We deposited our baggage in the store, sent some souvenir postals which we found for sale there, and went to the hotel for breakfast. We were too late to eat breakfast with the family, and the landlady had begun her washing, since it was Monday morning, and as we were the only guests we thought our prospects for breakfast rather slim, until the tall, gaunt

looking landlord, with long, flowing white whiskers, entered the parlor with a platter of pears, "Just to appetize," as he expressed it, until his good wife could prepare our breakfast.

Such pears we had never seen before. None so large or so luscious had ever greeted our vision or tickled our palates. One by one they were rapidly disappearing when our host returned laden with another variety, a Liliputian pear that put sugar to the blush for sweetness.

Fearful lest our breakfast should fall short, we had eaten a dozen each of this new variety when our host returned from. his fruit garden with a large basket of Gravenstein apples, apricots and plums, and of all sizes, from a marble to a duckegg, including a half-dozen different varieties.

We threw up our hands at this. "Are you Santa Claus?" we exclaimed to our host. "I jes' thought I'd keep ye from gittin' hungry till my woman got yer breakfast," our host exclaimed.

The dining room door opened, and we were seated at a typical country feastboard. The fresh-laid eggs, the fried chicken, the ropey Jersey cream,

the sure

enough country butter, a dozen kinds of jellies and preserves, and real buttermilk biscuits, served to dispel the last lingering traces of hunger.

After breakfast we got in an Indian canoe which had been hewn from a solid log, and spent the morning trolling for salmon in the bay, and tickling the starfish and sea-urchins in the ribs with the oars, and flirting with the jelly-fish.

We did not need a glass-bottom boat to see the wonders of the deep in this locality, for the clear morning sunlight exposed the secrets of the sea fathoms below us.

Crossing the bay, we landed on a miniature island on which was built a quaint old English lodge called "Chateau If," where a lone Englishman spends his sum

four pounds, right from the shore of the islands, and "clam-bakes" are a favorite social diversion.

A hay-ride over the island was a feature of the afternoon.

We rode in "Robinson Crusoe's wagon,' one which a quaint, lone old man eighty years of age hauled hundreds of cords of wood in to the wharf after having chopped every stick of it himself.

One thing we observed, the people on the island were supremely happy and contented, and no one ever admitted or looked that he was old nor ever talked of leaving the island. In fact, they said that no one had ever left the island who had failed to come back to live, even after an absence of twenty years.

Jogging over the winding country roads in the afternoon sunshine I fell asleep, as I lay, on the hay, the captain keeping guard on the one side, my chaperon on the other, so that I did not fall off the wagon. We went to see the wonderful sculptured rock which had the exact profile of George Washington. It is called the "Washington Rock," and jutting out from a cliff, faced McKay's Bay, near Olinda Vista, the captain's farm of two hundred and

fifty acres, left him by his father, Arthur Barlow, an Irish sailor in the British Navy, who was the first permanent settler on the island.

Olinda Vista was well named. No wonder the early Spanish explorers exclaimed "O Beautiful View!" when they landed on this enchanting spot.

My chaperon and I had a novel experience that night. We slept in a drift-wood barn on a bank of new-mown hay, with fir boughs for our pillows, and Indian blankets for our coverings.

"There was no room at the inn," and we really preferred the novelty of the barn, and surely we never enjoyed a night's sleep more than this.

The only sound was that of the cows munching hay or the horses stamping their feet, while the full moonlight streaming in through the cracks of the barn, invited us to dreamland.

Next morning early we got aboard "The

Morning Star," a historic missionary ship that had once been wrecked in a typhoon off Micronesia when she was doing missionary work in the Philippine Islands. She had proven unseaworthy on the high seas after this, so she now operates in the quiet waters of the Sound.

After passing in and out amongst what seemed countless feathery green islands, rising from the blue depths, we landed at Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island, the scene of the last struggle between the British and American forces over the establishment of a boundary line. A pig on this island precipitated the fierce contest, which was arbitrated by Emperor William of Germany, the grandfather of the present Emperor. He fixed American boundary line in the Straits of Haro, thus bringing not less than a hundred beautiful and fertile islands under American jurisdiction.

Many have erroneously placed the number of these islands at three hundred. Captain Coffin, a pioneer Puget Sound navigator, says that he has visited every island in the group, and that he has counted one hundred and seventy-one; this includes all islands that measure more than ten feet across. The number of the habitable islands, he says, is about fifty-three.

We felt like shouting, "Long live the Emperor of Germany!" for bequeathing to us so priceless a possession, for their true value and worth from a commercial standpoint are not yet fully known, to say nothing of their being the most beautiful and bewitching group of islands from a scenic standpoint in all the world, with a climate so equable on account of the warm Japan current that outdoor life can be enjoyed the winter long.

The lady from Honolulu declared that they equalled, if not surpassed, the Hawaiian Islands in beauty.

The Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence do not compare with this wonderful group, and a few choice souls are beginning to realize it by establishing summer homes here, where they can forget the world for a while, and give their souls achance to expand.

We found the most unique estate in all the world located on Orcas Island, the largest of the group. It belongs to Mr. Robert Moran, a retired shipbuilder of