The largest openings are those of the lakes and
prairies, the smaller of beaver meadows, bogs, and the rivers; none of
them large enough to make a distinct mark in comprehensive views.
Of the lakes there are said to be some thirty in King's County alone;
the largest, Lake Washington, being twenty-six miles long and four
miles wide. Another, which enjoys the duckish name of Lake Squak, is
about ten miles long. Both are pure and beautiful, lying imbedded in
the green wilderness. The rivers are numerous and are but little
affected by the weather, flowing with deep, steady currents the year
round. They are short, however, none of them drawing their sources
from beyond the Cascade Range. Some are navigable for small steamers
on their lower courses, but the openings they make in the woods are
very narrow, the tall trees on their banks leaning over in some
places, making fine shady tunnels.
The largest of the prairies that I have seen lies to the south of
Tacoma on the line of the Portland and Tacoma Railroad. The ground is
dry and gravelly, a deposit of water-washed cobbles and pebbles
derived from moraines - conditions which readily explain the absence of
trees here and on other prairies adjacent to Yelm. Berries grow in
lavish abundance, enough for man and beast with thousands of tons to
spare. The woods are full of them, especially about the borders of
the waters and meadows where the sunshine may enter. Nowhere in the
north does Nature set a more bountiful table. There are huckleberries
of many species, red, blue, and black, some of them growing close to
the ground, others on bushes eight to ten feet high; also salal
berries, growing on a low, weak-stemmed bush, a species of gaultheria,
seldom more than a foot or two high. This has pale pea-green glossy
leaves two or three inches long and half an inch wide and beautiful
pink flowers, urn-shaped, that make a fine, rich show. The berries
are black when ripe, are extremely abundant, and, with the
huckleberries, form an important part of the food of the Indians, who
beat them into paste, dry them, and store them away for winter use, to
be eaten with their oily fish. The salmon-berry also is very
plentiful, growing in dense prickly tangles. The flowers are as large
as wild roses and of the same color, and the berries measure nearly an
inch in diameter. Besides these there are gooseberries, currants,
raspberries, blackberries, and, in some favored spots, strawberries.
The mass of the underbrush of the woods is made up in great part of
these berry-bearing bushes. Together with white-flowered spiraea
twenty feet high, hazel, dogwood, wild rose, honeysuckle,
symphoricarpus, etc. But in the depths of the woods, where little
sunshine can reach the ground, there is but little underbrush of any
kind, only a very light growth of huckleberry and rubus and young
maples in most places.
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