Man travels for business and pleasure. The former can be easily described, by a slight interpolation in a well-known mathematical definition, as "the shortest distance and quickest time between two points." The latter bears to this mathematical rectilinear exactness the relation of the curves,--Hogarth's "line of beauty," the rotund circle and graceful sweep of the Archimedean spiral, and bends of beauty beyond computation; and, as any of these are more pleasing to the eye than the stiff straight line, so any tourist's jaunt is more pleasing to all the senses than the business man's travels. But, as all straight lines are alike, and all curves are different, so are their equivalents in travel, to which we have alluded. One tourist, as a Nimrod, dons his hunting shirt and high-topped boots, and, seeking the solemn recesses of the Rockies, slays the grizzly and mountain lion, and thus has his "good time;" another drives through the grand old gorges of the Yellowstone Park, and the deep impressions left by a lofty nature are his ample rewards; and yet again, where physical exertion is to be avoided by delicate ones or those averse to its peculiarities, one may float down the distant Columbia, with its colossal contours, and, without even lifting a finger to aid one's progress, view as vast and stupendous scenery as the world can produce. Thus each place suits each varying disposition, from the most roystering "roughing it," developing the muscles in mighty knots, to where the most ponderous panorama of nature may be enjoyed from a moving mansion, as it were. Could we conceive a place where all these advantages would be united into one, or where one after the other might be indulged at pleasure, we would certainly have a tourists' paradise, an ever-to-be-sought and never-to-be-forgotten nook of creation. Such a tour is to be encountered on "the inland passage to Alaska," as it is called by those knowing it best.