DOWN THE COLUMBIA.
Umatilla was then a river town, of two or three hundred houses,
mostly frame. It was still the chief point of departure from the
Columbia for Idaho and Montana, though Wallula--25 miles farther
up--was beginning to compete for this. Trade and travel that season
had not been large, and the whole region there complained of dullness
and stringency. The _Metropolitan_ was a fair hotel, with a goodly
supply of eastern and California papers, and seemed like a palace
after our long "roughing it" from the Missouri to the Columbia. It
was well patronized, especially by babies; and I do think they were
the worst _enfans terribles_ I ever saw. One doting mamma asked L. if
he did not think her red-eyed, puffy-faced youngster "a _dear_ little
cherub;" and though he smiled approvingly, of course, he subsequently
vowed he should think better of King Herod hereafter. The town
already boasted one weekly newspaper, a public school-house, and two
young churches, with a goodly complement of saloons and restaurants.
Of course, the patent-medicine venders had long since reached it.
"S. T. 1860 X. Drake's Plantation Bitters," was emblazoned on every
dead-wall, "in characters of living light," as it had been from New
York there. The year before I had observed it all through the South,
in over ten thousand miles of travel there; and here it was again,
mysterious and blatant, at the head of navigation on the Pacific
Coast. So, we had found it all through the Rocky Mountains, at Salt
Lake, and Boisè, as inevitable as the stage-station and post-office;
and the design was the same huge cabalistic characters always.
Another advertisement accompanied us regularly across the Plains
to the Rocky Mountains; but "S. T. 1860 X. etc.," followed us to
the Columbia and beyond, and everywhere seemed as universal as the
air--as omnipresent as sunlight.
Indians were seen on the streets occasionally, but they were usually
in the last stages of dissipation and degradation. They ought to be
forbidden all such border towns, as their life there ends only in ruin.
The white population consisted chiefly of Oregonians and Californians,
of every shade of character. The Micawber type, of course, was not
wanting. One afternoon, while writing in my room, a seedy individual,
whom we had met at Wells' Springs, sauntered in, and, after some
conversational skirmishing, solicited, "the loan of five dollars."
He had been keeping a "hotel," he said, up in Owyhee, but the miners
hadn't paid up their board-bills, and he was now "dead-broke," on
his way back to Puget Sound. He would give his due-bill, and would
certainly remit to me at San Francisco, but really couldn't tell
exactly when! He claimed to be "a son of old Massachusetts, sir,"
and from Boston at that. But as he was odorous afar of "needle-gun"
whiskey, the Hub, I suspect, would have haughtily repudiated him!
Ding! Dong! Puff! Puff! The steamer had come, and Nov. 28th, we at
length embarked for down the Columbia. She was a little stern-wheel
boat, scarcely longer than your finger, called _Nez Perce Chief_,
Capt. Stump, master. Her fare to Fort Vancouver or Portland, including
railroad-portages, was $18 in coin, which at rates then current
was equivalent to $25 in greenbacks. Meals were extra, at a cost of
$1,50 each, in currency, besides. The distance to Portland was about
200 miles; to the mouth of the Columbia, 100 or so more. We found
Capt. Stump a very obliging Oregonian, and obtained much interesting
information from him. His boat was part of a line belonging to the
Oregon Steam Navigation Company, a gigantic corporation that controlled
all the navigable waters of the Columbia, and with far-reaching
enterprise was now seeking to connect them with the headwaters of the
Missouri. He said, their boats could ascend to Umatilla all the year
round, except in mid-winter, when the Columbia sometimes froze over
for several weeks together, though not usually. With good water, they
could go up to Wallula, at the mouth of the Walla-Walla, 25 miles
farther, which they usually did six months in the year. With very high
water, they could run up to Lewiston, at the junction of the Snake and
Clearwater, about 175 miles more, three months in the year--making
about 500 miles from the sea in all. Above Lewiston, there was a bad
cañon in the Snake, with shoals and rapids for a hundred miles or so
to Farewell Bend; but after that, he thought, a light-draught steamer
might get up at least three hundred miles farther, or within about 200
miles of Salt Lake, as stated heretofore.
Clark's Fork of the Columbia, or the Columbia proper, makes a sharp
bend north at Wallula, and for 300 miles, he said, was unnavigable,
until you reach Fort Colville near the British line, when it trends
east and south, until it disappears in the far off wilds of Montana.
Just above Fort Colville, it became navigable again, and a small boat
was then running up to the Great Bend region, over 200 miles farther,
where good placer mines had been discovered (Kootenay) and worked a
little. This boat could connect with another, already plying on Lake
Pond Oreille (a part of Clark's Fork), and this with still another
then building, that it was believed with short portages would extend
navigation some 200 miles more, or into the very heart of Montana,
within two or three hundred miles only of Fort Benton--the head of
navigation on the Missouri. These were weighty facts, marrying the
Pacific to the Atlantic; but Captain Stump thought the O. S. N.
company could accomplish them, or anything else, indeed, it seriously
undertook. Just now it was bending its energies in that direction,
and he said would beat the Northern Pacific Railroad yet. No doubt
we have a fine country up there, near the British America line,
abounding in lakes and threaded with rivers, and roomy enough for all
enterprises, whether railroad or steamboat.
Puff! Puff! And so we were off down the Columbia, at last. How
exquisitely pleasant, how cosy and delightful, our little steamer
seemed, after 2,400 miles of jolting and banging by stage-coach and
ambulance! The state-rooms were clean and tidy, the meals well-cooked
and excellent, and we went steaming down the Columbia without
thought or care, as on "summer seas." Occasionally rapids appeared,
of a serious character; but as a rule the river was broad and deep,
majestic in size and volume. On the banks were frequent Indian
villages, with their hardy little ponies browsing around--apparently
on nothing but sage-brush and cobble-stones. These Indians fancied
spotted or "calico" horses, as the Oregonians called them, and very
few of their ponies were of a single color. They spend the summer
mostly in the Mountains, making long excursions in all directions;
but as winter approaches, they return to the Columbia, and eke
out a precarious subsistence by fishing, etc., till spring comes.
Timber was scarce, and frequently we saw numbers of them in canoes,
paddling up and down the river in search of drift-wood, for their
winter's supply of fuel. Past Owyhee rapids and the seething caldron
of Hell-Gate, we reached Celilo, eighty-five miles from Umatilla,
with its long warehouse (935 feet), and its mosquito fleet of five
or six pigmy steamers, that formed the up-river line. Here we
disembarked, and took the Railroad around the "chutes" or rapids,
some fourteen miles, to still water again below. The shrill whistle
of the locomotive and the rattle of the cars were delightful sounds,
after our long exile from them, and soon convinced us we were on the
right road to civilization again. This portage had formerly been
made by pack-mules, and then by wagons; but recently a railroad had
been constructed, after much hard blasting and costly wall-work,
and now "Riding on a rail," there, with the Columbia boiling and
roaring at your side, like the Rapids above Niagara, was exhilarating
and superb. At very high water, these "chutes" or rapids somewhat
disappear, though they still continue very dangerous. No attempt
had been made to ascend them with a steamer; but the spring before,
Capt. Stump had safely descended them, much against his will. It
was high water in the Columbia, with a strong current, and his boat
drifting near the rapids was suddenly sucked in, before he knew it.
Clearly, escape was impossible; so he put on all steam, to give her
steerage-way, and then headed down stream--neck or nothing. There
was a good deal of bumping and thumping--it was a toss and a plunge,
for awhile--and everybody he feared was pretty badly scared; but his
gallant little boat ran the rapids for all that, and reached still
water below safely at last. It was a daring feat, and worthy of this
brave Oregonian. Just now, the Columbia was very low, rocks and reefs
showing all through the rapids--among, around, and over which the
waters boiled and rushed like a mill-race.
The locomotive carried us to the Dalles, at the foot of the Rapids,
a town of some two thousand inhabitants, with a maturer civilization
than any we had seen since leaving Salt lake. It was but five or
six years old; yet it was already in its decrepitude. A "rush" of
miners a few years before, to alleged fine "diggings" near there,
had suddenly elevated it from an obscure landing into quite a town;
but the mines did not justify their promise, and the Dalles was now
at a stand-still, if not something worse. "Mining stock" and "corner
lots" had gone down by the run, during the past year or two, and her
few merchants sat by their doors watching for customers in vain.
The enterprise of the town, however, deserved a better fate. At the
Umatilla House they gave us an excellent supper, at a moderate price,
and the hotel itself would have been a credit to a much larger town
anywhere. The mines on John Day River, and other dependencies of the
Dalles, had formerly yielded $2,000,000 per year, and Congress had
then voted a U. S. Mint there. We could but sincerely hope it would
be much needed, some day or other.
Halting at the Dalles over night, the next morning we took the
side-wheel steamer _Idaho_, and ran down to Upper Cascades--some
fifty miles--through the heart of the Cascade Mountains. Here we took
the railroad again for six miles--to flank more rapids--and at Lower
Cascades embarked on the _W. G. Hunt_, a large and elegant side-wheel
steamer, that some years before had come "round the Horn," from New
York. The Columbia, soon issuing from the Mountains, now became a
broad and majestic river, with good depth of water to the ocean
all the year round, and larger vessels even than the _W. G. Hunt_
might readily ascend to Lower Cascades, if necessary. Our good boat,
however, bore us bravely on to Fort Vancouver, amidst multiplying
signs of civilization again; and as we landed there, we realized
another great link of our journey was over.
To return a little. Our sail down the Columbia, and through the
Cascade Mountains, altogether was a notable one, and surpassed
everything in the way of wild and picturesque river-scenery, that
we had seen yet. Some have compared the Columbia to the Hudson; but
it is the Hudson many times magnified, and infinitely finer. It
is the Hudson, without its teeming travel, its towns and villas,
its civilization and culture; but with many times its grandeur and
sublimity. The noble Palisades, famed justly throughout the world,
sink into insignificance before the stupendous walls of the Cascade
Range, which here duplicate them but on a far vaster scale, for many
miles together. Piled along the sky on either side, up two or three
thousand feet, for fifty miles at a stretch, with only a narrow
gorge between, the Columbia whirls and boils along through this, in
supreme mightiness and power; while from the summit of the great
walls little streams here and there topple over, run like lace for
a time, then break into a million drops, and finally come sifting
down as mist, into the far depths below. Some of these tiny cascades
streaked the cyclopean walls, like threads of silver, from top to
bottom. Others seemed mere webs of gossamer, and these the wind at
times caught up and swayed to and fro, like veils fit for goddesses.
These Mountains, all through the cañon of the Columbia, abound with
such fairy cascades; whence their name. Just below Lower Cascades,
where the river-bottoms open out a little, stands Castle Rock, a
huge red boulder of comparatively moderate dimensions at the base,
but seven hundred feet high. Its walls are so perpendicular they
seem inaccessible, and on top it is covered with a thick growth of
fir-trees. Its alleged height appeared incredible at first, but on
comparing it with the gigantic firs at the base, and those on the
summit, the estimate seemed not unreasonable. All along, the vast
basaltic walls of the cañon are shaped and fashioned into domes and
turrets, ramparts and battlements; and surely in point of picturesque
grandeur and effect, the Columbia would be hard to beat. We had not
seen the Yosemite yet. But already, we felt, the Columbia compensated
us for all our fatigue and danger, in crossing the Continent; and
it is not too much to say, that all true lovers of the sublime and
beautiful in nature will yet wonder and worship here.
Before reaching the Dalles, and afterwards, we had several superb
views of glorious Mt. Hood. All good Oregonians claim Hood is the
highest peak in the United States; but Californians boast their
Shasta equals, while Whitney out-tops it. A party of savans had
recently ascended Hood, and they reported the general range, of
which Hood is a part, as 4,400 feet above the sea; above which Hood
still shot up 13,000 feet. The summit proved to be crescent-shaped,
half a mile long, by from three feet to fifty wide. The north
front was a precipice, of naked columnar rock, falling sheer
down--perpendicularly--a mile or more at a jump. On the west side
was an ancient crater, a thousand feet in depth from which clouds of
sulphurous smoke still issued occasionally. On the flanks were true
glaciers, with terminal and lateral moraines, the same as among the
Alps. Smoke about his summit, just before we reached the Dalles,
heralded a smart shock of earthquake there, and no doubt he is the
safety-valve of all that region. We had caught a glimpse or two of
Mt. Hood in descending the Blue Mountains, and again from Umatilla:
but it was only for a moment, and usually with his night-cap on. But
in threading the cañon of the Columbia, one morning as we rounded
a rocky bastion, suddenly, a hundred miles away, Hood stood before
us, a vast pyramidal peak, snow-clad from base to summit, resting
in solitary grandeur on a great mountain range--itself black with
firs and pines. From the apparent level or slight undulation of the
general Cascade Range, Hood quickly shoots up loftily into the sky,
individual and alone, and serene and unapproachable dominates the
far-stretching landscape. From all points of view, whether descending
the Columbia, where the cañon often frames him in like a picture, or
at Fort Vancouver, where he stands superb and glorious against the
sapphire sky, Hood always gives you the impression of vast loftiness,
of serene majesty, of heaven-kissing superiority and power, and
Oregonians may well be proud of him. Butman's two pictures of Hood
are both good, but neither does justice to his great merits. The
White Mountains and the Alleghanies are well enough in their way. The
Rocky Mountains are indeed noble and majestic. But once see Hood,
and all these pall upon the mind, and he alone rules the memory
and imagination afterwards. Up the Columbia and down, off at sea,
and pretty much all over Oregon, Hood is a great and magnificent
landmark; and, of itself, is well worth a trip across the continent.
[Illustration: MOUNT HOOD.]
Past the Cascade Mountains, we came suddenly out into a new region,
and a totally different climate. From Umatilla to the Mountains we
had the same clear atmosphere and perfect sky, that we had found
everywhere from the Plains to the Columbia, substantially. The
country naturally was the same barren and sterile region as at Salt
Lake, abounding only in sage-brush and grease-wood; and, indeed, the
whole internal basin of the continent, from the Rocky Mountains to
the Sierra Nevadas, and from British America down to Mexico, appeared
to be of this same general character--from want of regular rains
in summer. Over most of this vast region, there had been no rains
for weeks, or indeed months; and for days together as we journeyed
along, we had never seen a cloud or mist even, to mar the absolute
ultramarine of those perfect skies. But now, in descending the
Columbia, as we approached the Mountains, we descried the clouds on
their western slope ever trying to float over, but never apparently
succeeding, their white discs gleaming in the sun; and when we
drew nearer, we beheld a fleecy mist drifting up the Columbia, and
streaming eastward like a pennon. Nearer still, we encountered a
stiff breeze sweeping through the cañon, as through a funnel; and
when we got well down into the jaws of the gorge, it needed all our
steam, as well as the strong westward current to carry us forward.
Sometimes, it was said, the Columbia just here becomes so rough,
because of this conflicting wind and current, as to cause real
sea-sickness on the boats, and occasionally indeed they have to cast
anchor, unable to descend. Farther down, this mist thickened into
rain, and when we got fairly through and out of the Mountains, (it
raining most of the way), we debouched into the Coast Region, where
it was still raining steadily, as it had been for many days, and
continued to for weeks together afterwards. As soon as we struck the
rain, trees and herbage at once made their appearance, clothing the
mountains and bottoms everywhere; lichens and mosses again decorated
all the rocks; and when we got well out of the Mountains, behold
such forests of fir, pine, cedar, oak, etc., as never appear East.
In half a day, you may thus pass from a comparatively rainless to a
thoroughly rainy region; and in winter from a severely cold, to a
comparatively moderate climate. The contrast is very striking, and
you soon feel it keenly in every sense. Your eyes glaze, your skin
becomes moist, and if there is a weak spot about your lungs, you will
find it out very quickly. The proximity of the Pacific, of course,
explains it all--the warm, humid winds from which sweep up against
the Cascade Range, but find in their lofty crest an insurmountable
barrier. If light enough to ascend, their wealth of moisture is
condensed as rain or snow along the mountain sides or summit, by the
cold of the upper regions, as with your hand you squeeze a sponge;
and, consequently, they topple over the Range dry and clear--to curse
a vast region beyond with their sterility. If unable to ascend, they
career along the western slope of the Mountains, and hover over
the Coast Region generally, literally deluging Western Oregon and
Washington, at certain seasons of the year, with rains and fogs.
The year before, at Fort Vancouver, they had had one hundred and
twenty consecutive days of rain, in one year, without counting the
intervening showers; and they said, it wasn't "much of a year for
rain" either! Another year, they didn't see the sun there for eighty
days together, without reckoning the occasional fogs. No wonder the
Oregonians are called "Web-Feet." They do say, the children there are
all born web-footed, like ducks and geese, so as to paddle about, and
thus get along well in that amphibious region. Perhaps this is rather
strong, even for Darwinism; but I can safely vouch for Oregon's
all-sufficing rains and fogs, whatever their effects on the species.
Our fellow-passengers down the Columbia were chiefly returning miners,
going below to winter and recruit; but rough as they were and merry at
times, they were, as a rule, self-respecting and orderly. Our Fenian
friends, who had raced with us down Powder River and Grande Ronde
Valleys and across the Blue Mountains, turned up here again--"Shanks,"
"Fatty," and all--and subsequently embarked on the same steamer with us
at Portland for San Francisco. A few Chinamen also were on board; but
they behaved civilly, and were treated kindly.