in dress, ungraceful in every motion; they really mar the landscape, so
that you are glad to escape from them to your hotel, which you find a
clean and comfortable building, where, if you are as fortunate as the
traveler who relates this, you may by-and-by catch a glimpse or two of
a fresh, fair, girlish English face, which will make up to you for the
precedent ugliness.

Victoria hopes to have its dullness enlivened by a railroad from the
mainland one of these days, which may make it more prosperous, but will
probably destroy some of the charm it now has for a tourist. It can hardly
destroy the excellent roads by which you may take several picturesque
drives and walks in the neighborhood of the town, nor the pretty views you
have from the hills near by, nor the excursions by boat, in which you can
best see how much Nature has done to beautify this place, and how little
man has done so far to mar her work.

Silks and cigars are said to be very cheap in Victoria; and those who
consume these articles will probably look through the shops and make a
few purchases, not enough to satisfy, though sufficient to arouse the
suspicions of the Collector of Customs at Port Townsend. If you use your
time well, the thirty-six hours which the steamer spends at Victoria will
suffice you to see all that is of interest there to a traveler, and you
can return in her down the Sound, and make more permanent your impressions
of its scenery.

You will perhaps be startled, if you chance to overhear the conversation
of your fellow-passengers, to gather that it concerns itself chiefly with
millions, and these millions run to such extraordinary figures that you
may hear one man pitying another for the confession that he made no more
than a hundred millions last year. It is feet of lumber they are speaking