This hot weather I can scarce imagine how the men and horses stand the work; of the former, some were digging, others cutting down the trees, others removing rocks, others filling up the swamps. Here the waggons were being laden with stores to be sent further to the front; now and then a long trail of mules sweeps by with miners and miners’ stores, and I plunge into the forest, shaded from the fierce sun by the tall firs, and as I struggle in the swamps caused by the melting snows, I can realize something of the hardships of the early travellers—hardships of which the tourist, when the rail is completed, will have no idea, though he will be a little alarmed as the mountains drop away beneath his feet for more than a hundred miles to the Columbia river, while the narrow track of rails winds along its sides. In the winter this pass, when covered with snow, is very dangerous, and many are the mules and horses dashed to pieces over the precipice. The lake, when I reach it, is full of ice and snow, and all round the mountains rear their snow-capped heads. One of the peculiarities of this region is the abundance of water in some shape or other, and the shadows on the lakes reflect as a mirror all the surrounding scene—the dark forest at the base, the masses of slate-like rock above, the snow in all its radiant white higher up, the unclouded azure that crowns and glorifies all. Heated and tired, I throw myself on the moss, and realize, in all its intensity, the appalling loneliness of forest life—I startle three wild ducks, that is all. Down on my left comes the rushing torrent in a series of picturesque waterfalls into the lake. I climb the mountain by the side of them. The water sends to me an ice-laden air, which revives me as I struggle upwards and onwards, watching the whirlpools and cascades as the water angrily struggles to force its way through the iron barriers by which it is hemmed in. I secure a fine specimen of petrified moss from a stream close by. But I may not linger. Already I feel weak as I plunge into the frozen snow, or sink where the sun has melted it into morass, or stumble over an old moss-grown trunk, or climb the big trunks which the axeman has already levelled, or pass the streams which intersect the plain on logs off which I expect to slip every moment. Then I come to the railway men, and avail myself of the imperfect and unconnected track which they have formed; but now the sun beats fiercely on me, and I can scarcely put one foot before another. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Fortunately, I reach the tent of a good Samaritan. I refresh myself with water from the crystal stream. I lunch on bread and cheese, with tea kindly fetched from the company’s hut, but I have to lie down three hours before I feel myself equal to urging on my wild career again.