It Is About
Seventy Miles Long, Ten Or Twelve Miles Wide, And Extends To The
Eastward In A Nearly Straight Line Between The South End Of Vancouver
Island And The Olympic Range Of Mountains On The Mainland.
Cape Flattery, the western termination of the Olympic Range, is
terribly rugged and jagged, and in stormy weather is utterly
inaccessible from the sea.
Then the ponderous rollers of the deep
Pacific thunder amid its caverns and cliffs with the foam and uproar
of a thousand Yosemite waterfalls. The bones of many a noble ship lie
there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living
thing should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless,
frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and
the sea; heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find
grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed
caverns; while in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not
visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make homes and rear
their young.
But not always are the inhabitants safe, even in such wave-defended
castles as these, for the Indians of the neighboring shores venture
forth in the calmest summer weather in their frail canoes to spear the
seals in the narrow gorges amid the grinding, gurgling din of the
restless waters. At such times also the hunters make out to scale
many of the apparently inaccessible cliffs for the eggs and young of
the gulls and other water birds, occasionally losing their lives in
these perilous adventures, which give rise to many an exciting story
told around the campfires at night when the storms roar loudest.
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