From a picturesque standpoint, Puget sound possesses attractions of a high order. Its shores, which, in the main, come down in bluffy steeps to the very margin of the waters, are lined with verdant firs. Here and there the rolling hills are broken, where some stream pours down from the mountains and flows through a fertile valley, covered with a rank growth of forests of cedar, fir, maple, alder, cottonwood and creeping vines, save where the hand of man has cleared a way for the plow, and converted the forest wild into green meadows and fields of grain. Back from the shores, the forests rise in successive terraces as they climb the mountain sides, and soften their rugged outlines clear to their summits, save where here and there some giant snow peak thrusts its hoary head far above the green mantle of the mountains, and challenges the traveler’s eye from whatever direction he may be approaching. On a clear, warm, bracing day in early summer time, the traveler down the sound has almost constantly in view one of these snowy summits. Mount Tacoma to the southeast, Mount Baker to the northeast, and the long, serrated ridge of the Olympic range to the west, all hold their snowy crowns aloft for his inspection. The calm, deep waters of the sound, like the bosom of a mountain tarn, reflect the sun’s rays by day, and by night glisten under the shimmering light of the moon. A journey down its winding channels, through its narrow passages, among its hundreds of islands, past its cities, towns and busy mills, the eye constantly greeted by new and ever-changing landscapes of beauty, is one never to be forgotten by him who takes it when a clear sky and full moon combine to reveal its beauties, both day and night. Tacoma’s location renders it the best headquarters for tourists while enjoying the beauties of the sound.