Note 4 — Chapter XIV

Winthrop, in his delightful book, "The Canoe and the Saddle," describing his trip from Port Townsend to Nisqually, in September, 1853, says:

"We had rounded a point and opened Puyallup Bay, a breath of sheltered calmness, when I, lifting sleepy eyelids for a dreamy stare about, was suddenly aware of a vast white shadow in the water. What cloud, piled massive on the horizon, could cast an image so sharp in outline, so full of vigorous detail of surface? No cloud, as my stare, no longer dreamy, presently discovered—no cloud, but a cloud compeller. It was a giant mountain dome of snow, swelling and seeming to fill the aerial spheres as its image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil water. The smoky haze of an Oregon August hid all the length of its lesser ridges, and left this mighty summit based upon uplifting dimness. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in the unearthly regions of blue noonday sky. The shore line drew a cincture of pines across its broad base, where it faded unreal into the mist. The same dark girth separated the peak from its reflection, over which my canoe was now pressing, and sending wavering swells to scatter the beautiful vision before it.

"Kindly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible consort, though far to the north and to the south its brethren and sisters dominated their realms, each in isolated sovereignty, rising from the pine-darkened sierra of the Cascade Mountains—above the stern chasm where the Columbia, Achilles of rivers, sweeps, short lived and jubilant, to the sea—above the lovely valley of the Willamette and Ningua. Of all the peaks from California to Frazier River, this one was royalest. Mount Regnier, Christians have dubbed it in stupid nomenclature, perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously the Siwashes call it Tacoma—a generic term, also applied to all snow peaks."