The traveller learns from the captain, if he can persuade that busy personage to indulge in conversation, that the Arrow Lakes derived their name from the fact that in early times great bundles of arrows could be seen stuck in the clay banks or in the crevices of the rocks at the head of the upper lake. The upper Arrow Lake has mountain banks rising thousands of feet to the zone of eternal snow. The shores are usually precipitous, though it is not uncommon to see smooth slopes furnishing timbered margins to enchanting little bays. At various places along the shores we see the beginnings of fruit and dairy ranches. It is only within four or five years that anything has been done here in the way of cultivation. The results thus far attained prove the wonderful adaptability of soil and climate to choice fruits. And the flowers,--Heaven bless them!--the sweetest and biggest and brightest of roses, pinks, sweet peas, larkspurs,--every kind that grows, are seen in profusion at almost every point where there has been any cultivation. By a little conversation with people at the landings we learn that the new-fledged ranches are very profitable. One tells us that he has made a net profit of two dollars and twenty-five cents per crate on his strawberries, or five hundred dollars an acre. [Illustration: Bridal Veil Falls on Columbia River. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse.] Perhaps the most attractive place on the Arrow Lakes is the point where the upper lake narrows into the stretch of fifteen miles of river joining the two lakes. The mountains on either hand, in great billows of forest green and blue, rise ever upward till they break against the eternal frost. The shores are clothed in dense forests, and on either hand bold promontories enclose sheltered bays, the very beau ideals of camping places. We find the lower Arrow Lake of a gentler type of scenery than the upper. The mountains no longer bear snow-peaks and glaciers on their crests, and there are no longer to be seen the stupendous rocky walls which in places enclose the upper lake. But as a compensation for the loss of this pre-eminent grandeur, the lower lake possesses a charm of colouring, both of water and shore, a richness of mountain outline and tints, and a certain serenity which may well make it an equal of its grander companion. At the lower end of the Arrow Lakes the steamer stops and transfers her freight and passengers to the trains running from Robson to Nelson. This is necessitated by the fact that the Kootenai River, which enters the Columbia just below Robson, has a descent from Nelson of over two hundred feet. The railroad follows the Kootenai, which almost rivals the Columbia in magnitude. We pass the Bonnington Falls, the noblest waterfall on the entire system of Columbia's tributaries, with the exception of the Great Shoshone of the Snake.