What to them the soft pillow? when a stone was near at hand. They slept under the blue sky and drank health from the floating clouds. A home for my son and daughter, or my sweetheart, gave them fresh courage. Not only a home, but a pleasant home in a congenial clime, where the heaven smiles serenely, where the rose-bud bursts and thrives the year round. Thunder and cyclones had shaken their tranquility. More peaceful air, tired of the friction and disagreement in the upper regions, and fire that seems eager to eat the whole firmament. Away from the boisterous thunderbolts which make it a business to blast and burn every cloud. "To the West! Sweet Westland!" rolled in their souls, where the air is pure, where the birds sing, where the scenery is grand. To the West! Sweet Westland! where freedom reigns, Where forests clothe the untrod plains, And flowers and fragrance blow Beneath peaks of crystal snow. Sweet Westland! broad and free, How I love to dwell in thee! Where jeweled brows look o'er the lea, And rhyming streams leap down to the sea, Where man is himself and courts no king, And axes swords, and bloodless swing. Sweet Westland! broad and free, How I love to dwell in thee! To the West! Sweet Westland by the sea, Where music swells the wooded lea, Where work is plenty and wealth to gain In clearing land and planting grain. Sweet Westland! broad and free, How I love to dwell in thee! THE AUTHOR. [Illustration: SKAGIT RIVER NEAR SEDRO-WOOLLEY.] THE PACIFIC COAST. CHAPTER I. High and noble stands the Rocky, looking downward, where jeweled brows hang, where silvery waves make music on the deep, or the sea maid shakes her streaming locks. As early as 1513 the brave Balboa hurled his exploring eyes over the watery waste and in the name of Spain declared the discovery of the mighty ocean. But, alas! the valorous Spaniard received only scoff and scorn for his adventure and hardship, and at last the cold world saw fit to lead him to the judgment block for the unknown depth beyond. A later date, in 1592, Juan de Fuca, a Greek pilot, in the service of Spain, discovered the beautiful strait which bears his name, the gateway to the picturesque Puget Sound. In 1789 Captain Kendrick, an American explorer, was reconnoitering along the Pacific coast, entered the Strait of Fuca, steered his boat into the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Sound, and depicted the characteristic features of the land-locked waters. In 1804 the United States government sent the Lewis and Clark expedition across the Rocky to ascertain more minutely as to the climate and the feasibility for settlement.