An Awful Storm

AN AWFUL STORM.

OVERWHELMS OUR CORRESPONDENT FROM WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

Editor of the Argus:

Just two months have elapsed since my writing you last, and up to that time, as I wrote you, we had experienced but very little cold, not enough to blight all the garden beauties, or deaden our emerald grasses, so mild and agreeable had been the weather up to January 1st. One would almost believe that we were to have no winter. But the storm king was evidently only holding off for a time to gain power, preparing to swoop down on us with greater force when least expected, and as a Puget Sounder would say for five long days and nights the thermometer ranged below the freezing point, and twice dropping to within 17 degrees of zero, with over an inch of snow on the ground. As though this were not enough to utterly discourage us, six inches more fell in one night, and stayed with us two whole days.

Oh! it was fearful, the bitterness of that whole week will live green in the memory of the "clam-digger" forever.

For the next four weeks we saw little of the sun, lowering clouds hung heavy over the land, one-half of this time misty, rainy weather prevailing. Then the sun in all lts splendor burst forth once more. We are enjoying beautiful weather now, the days are perfection and have been for the past three weeks. Fire is a luxury, the doors of our stores are open during the day, and the thermometer registers an average of 50 degrees. Such is the climate here on Puget Sound which in itself is a beautiful sheet of briny water stretching away for miles to the north and west, its surface scarce disturbed by the gentle breeze and dotted with hundreds of Indian canoes containing each a dusky child of leisure, the sunlight flushing on his paddle, as it rises and falls, is seen in the distance while yet his canoe is too far away for the unaided eye to outline the number of its occupants.

The shadows of evening bring them into town where they dispose of the fish they have caught during the day, many of the squaws make a living by digging clams which they find ready sale for. Barefooted they carry heavy loads, while the noble buck stalks along rnajestically with his little string of fish, and the papooses in single file several yards apart bring up the rear.

Across the waters of the sound, out lined against the blue sky, can be seen the show covered peaks of the Olympia range towering above the clouds. To the south we see Mt. Rainier, the same that our rival city calls "Mt. Tacoma," and which is distant from here on an air line 75 miles, yet look not over five or six miles. Yours truly,

Seattle, March 1st. '88 -- J.A. Bohnet.