Tacoma has been described by many tourists as a rival to the most vaunted peaks of the Swiss Alps. As will be seen from the illustrations, which are remarkably good ones, there is a dim mistiness about the mountain. When the light is poor, there is a peculiar, almost unnatural, look about the cloud-topped peak. When the clouds are very white, the line of demarcation becomes faint in the extreme, and it is very hard to distinguish one from the other. Sometimes, for days together, the mountain is literally cloud-capped, and its peak hidden from view. Those who are fortunate enough to be able to appreciate the awful and unique in history, never tire of gazing upon Tacoma. They are glad to inspect it from every side. Some call it a whited sepulchre. There was a time when it was anything but the calm, peaceful eminence of to-day. Every indication points to the fact that it was once among the most active volcanoes in existence. There is a town, or rather city, of the same name as the mountain. This is situated on Commencement Bay. It is under the very shadow of the great mountain of which we have spoken, and which seems to guard it against foes from inland. Fifteen years ago it was a mere village, of scarcely any importance. It has rapidly grown into a town of great importance. In 1873 the Northern Pacific Railroad Company decided to make it the western terminus of their important system. This resulted in renewed life, or rather in a genuine birth to the place, which now has a population of 40,000 people, and is an exceedingly wealthy and prosperous city. The Tacoma Land Company, ably seconded by the railroad, has fostered enterprise in this place in the most hearty manner, and now some of the large buildings of the town, of the very existence of which many Eastern people affected ignorance, are more than magnificent--they are majestic. Seattle is another and even more brilliant diamond in Washington's crown. It is a great city, with a magnificent harbor, its name being that of a powerful Indian chief who, when the town was founded forty years ago, had things practically his own way. It grew in importance very rapidly, but in 1889 one of the largest fires of modern times destroyed $10,000,000 worth of property, including the best blocks and commercial structures of the city. People who had never seen Seattle at once assumed that the city was dead, and speculation was rife as to what place would secure its magnificent trade. Those who thus talked were entirely ignorant as to the nature of the men who had made Seattle what it was. Within a very few days the work of reconstruction commenced. The fire hampered the city somewhat, and checked its progress. But Seattle is better for the disaster, and stands to-day a monument to the "nil desperandum" policy of its leaders.