Oregon is a large, rich, compact section of the west side of the
continent, containing nearly a hundred thousand square miles of deep,
wet evergreen woods, fertile valleys, icy mountains, and high, rolling
wind-swept plains, watered by the majestic Columbia River and its
countless branches. It is bounded on the north by Washington, on the
east by Idaho, on the south by California and Nevada, and on the west
by the Pacific Ocean. It is a grand, hearty, wholesome, foodful
wilderness and, like Washington, once a part of the Oregon Territory,
abounds in bold, far-reaching contrasts as to scenery, climate, soil,
and productions. Side by side there is drouth on a grand scale and
overflowing moisture; flinty, sharply cut lava beds, gloomy and
forbidding, and smooth, flowery lawns; cool bogs, exquisitely plushy
and soft, overshadowed by jagged crags barren as icebergs; forests
seemingly boundless and plains with no tree in sight; presenting a wide
range of conditions, but as a whole favorable to industry. Natural
wealth of an available kind abounds nearly everywhere, inviting the
farmer, the stock-raiser, the lumberman, the fisherman, the
manufacturer, and the miner, as well as the free walker in search of
knowledge and wildness. The scenery is mostly of a comfortable,
assuring kind, grand and inspiring without too much of that dreadful
overpowering sublimity and exuberance which tend to discourage effort
and cast people into inaction and superstition.
Ever since Oregon was first heard of in the romantic, adventurous,
hunting, trapping Wild West days, it seems to have been regarded as the
most attractive and promising of all the Pacific countries for farmers.
While yet the whole region as well as the way to it was wild, ere a
single road or bridge was built, undaunted by the trackless
thousand-mile distances and scalping, cattle-stealing Indians, long
trains of covered wagons began to crawl wearily westward, crossing how
many plains, rivers, ridges, and mountains, fighting the painted
savages and weariness and famine. Setting out from the frontier of the
old West in the spring as soon as the grass would support their cattle,
they pushed on up the Platte, making haste slowly, however, that they
might not be caught in the storms of winter ere they reached the
promised land. They crossed the Rocky Mountains to Fort Hall; thence
followed down the Snake River for three or four hundred miles, their
cattle limping and failing on the rough lava plains; swimming the
streams too deep to be forded, making boats out of wagon-boxes for the
women and children and goods, or where trees could be had, lashing
together logs for rafts. Thence, crossing the Blue Mountains and the
plains of the Columbia, they followed the river to the Dalles. Here
winter would be upon them, and before a wagon road was built across the
Cascade Mountains the toil-worn emigrants would be compelled to leave
their cattle and wagons until the following summer, and, in the mean
time, with the assistance of the Hudson’s Bay Company, make their way
to the Willamette Valley on the river with rafts and boats.
How strange and remote these trying times have already become! They are
now dim as if a thousand years had passed over them. Steamships and
locomotives with magical influence have well-nigh abolished the old
distances and dangers, and brought forward the New West into near and
familiar companionship with the rest of the world.
Purely wild for unnumbered centuries, a paradise of oily, salmon-fed
Indians, Oregon is now roughly settled in part and surveyed, its rivers
and mountain ranges, lakes, valleys, and plains have been traced and
mapped in a general way, civilization is beginning to take root, towns
are springing up and flourishing vigorously like a crop adapted to the
soil, and the whole kindly wilderness lies invitingly near with all its
wealth open and ripe for use.
In sailing along the Oregon coast one sees but few more signs of human
occupation than did Juan de Fuca three centuries ago. The shore bluffs
rise abruptly from the waves, forming a wall apparently unbroken,
though many short rivers from the coast range of mountains and two from
the interior have made narrow openings on their way to the sea. At the
mouths of these rivers good harbors have been discovered for coasting
vessels, which are of great importance to the lumbermen, dairymen, and
farmers of the coast region. But little or nothing of these appear in
general views, only a simple gray wall nearly straight, green along the
top, and the forest stretching back into the mountains as far as the
eye can reach.
Going ashore, we find few long reaches of sand where one may saunter,
or meadows, save the brown and purple meadows of the sea, overgrown
with slippery kelp, swashed and swirled in the restless breakers. The
abruptness of the shore allows the massive waves that have come from
far over the broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs ere they break,
and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their foundations. No calm
comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when the ships off
shore are becalmed and their sails hang loose against the mast, there
is always a wreath of foam at the base of these bluffs. The breakers
are ever in bloom and crystal brine is ever in the air.
[Illustration: THE OREGON SEA-BLUFFS]
A scramble along the Oregon sea bluffs proves as richly exciting to
lovers of wild beauty as heart could wish. Here are three hundred miles
of pictures of rock and water in black and white, or gray and white,
with more or less of green and yellow, purple and blue. The rocks,
glistening in sunshine and foam, are never wholly dry—many of them
marvels of wave-sculpture and most imposing in bulk and bearing,
standing boldly forward, monuments of a thousand storms, types of
permanence, holding the homes and places of refuge of multitudes of
seafaring animals in their keeping, yet ever wasting away. How grand
the songs of the waves about them, every wave a fine, hearty storm in
itself, taking its rise on the breezy plains of the sea, perhaps
thousands of miles away, traveling with majestic, slow-heaving
deliberation, reaching the end of its journey, striking its blow,
bursting into a mass of white and pink bloom, then falling spent and
withered to give place to the next in the endless procession, thus
keeping up the glorious show and glorious song through all times and
seasons forever!
Terribly impressive as is this cliff and wave scenery when the skies
are bright and kindly sunshine makes rainbows in the spray, it is
doubly so in dark, stormy nights, when, crouching in some hollow on the
top of some jutting headland, we may gaze and listen undisturbed in the
heart of it. Perhaps now and then we may dimly see the tops of the
highest breakers, looking ghostly in the gloom; but when the water
happens to be phosphorescent, as it oftentimes is, then both the sea
and the rocks are visible, and the wild, exulting, up-dashing spray
burns, every particle of it, and is combined into one glowing mass of
white fire; while back in the woods and along the bluffs and crags of
the shore the storm wind roars, and the rain-floods, gathering strength
and coming from far and near, rush wildly down every gulch to the sea,
as if eager to join the waves in their grand, savage harmony; deep
calling unto deep in the heart of the great, dark night, making a sight
and a song unspeakably sublime and glorious.
In the pleasant weather of summer, after the rainy season is past and
only occasional refreshing showers fall, washing the sky and bringing
out the fragrance of the flowers and the evergreens, then one may enjoy
a fine, free walk all the way across the State from the sea to the
eastern boundary on the Snake River. Many a beautiful stream we should
cross in such a walk, singing through forest and meadow and deep rocky
gorge, and many a broad prairie and plain, mountain and valley, wild
garden and desert, presenting landscape beauty on a grand scale and in
a thousand forms, and new lessons without number, delightful to learn.
Oregon has three mountain ranges which run nearly parallel with the
coast, the most influential of which, in every way, is the Cascade
Range. It is about six thousand to seven thousand feet in average
height, and divides the State into two main sections called Eastern and
Western Oregon, corresponding with the main divisions of Washington;
while these are again divided, but less perfectly, by the Blue
Mountains and the Coast Range. The eastern section is about two hundred
and thirty miles wide, and is made up in great part of the treeless
plains of the Columbia, which are green and flowery in spring, but
gray, dusty, hot, and forbidding in summer. Considerable areas,
however, on these plains, as well as some of the valleys countersunk
below the general surface along the banks of the streams, have proved
fertile and produce large crops of wheat, barley, hay, and other
products.
In general views the western section seems to be covered with one vast,
evenly planted forest, with the exception of the few snow-clad peaks of
the Cascade Range, these peaks being the only points in the landscape
that rise above the timberline. Nevertheless, embosomed in this forest
and lying in the great trough between the Cascades and coast mountains,
there are some of the best bread-bearing valleys to be found in the
world. The largest of these are the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue River
Valleys. Inasmuch as a considerable portion of these main valleys was
treeless, or nearly so, as well as surpassingly fertile, they were the
first to attract settlers; and the Willamette, being at once the
largest and nearest to tide water, was settled first of all, and now
contains the greater portion of the population and wealth of the State.
The climate of this section, like the corresponding portion of
Washington, is rather damp and sloppy throughout the winter months, but
the summers are bright, ripening the wheat and allowing it to be
garnered in good condition. Taken as a whole, the weather is bland and
kindly, and like the forest trees the crops and cattle grow plump and
sound in it. So also do the people; children ripen well and grow up
with limbs of good size and fiber and, unless overworked in the woods,
live to a good old age, hale and hearty.
But, like every other happy valley in the world, the sunshine of this
one is not without its shadows. Malarial fevers are not unknown in some
places, and untimely frosts and rains may at long intervals in some
measure disappoint the hopes of the husbandman. Many a tale,
good-natured or otherwise, is told concerning the overflowing abundance
of the Oregon rains. Once an English traveler, as the story goes, went
to a store to make some purchases and on leaving found that rain was
falling; therefore, not liking to get wet, he stepped back to wait till
the shower was over. Seeing no signs of clearing, he soon became
impatient and inquired of the storekeeper how long he thought the
shower would be likely to last. Going to the door and looking wisely
into the gray sky and noting the direction of the wind, the latter
replied that he thought the shower would probably last about six
months, an opinion that of course disgusted the fault-finding Briton
with the “blawsted country,” though in fact it is but little if at all
wetter or cloudier than his own.
No climate seems the best for everybody. Many there be who waste their
lives in a vain search for weather with which no fault may be found,
keeping themselves and their families in constant motion, like floating
seaweeds that never strike root, yielding compliance to every current
of news concerning countries yet untried, believing that everywhere,
anywhere, the sky is fairer and the grass grows greener than where they
happen to be. Before the Oregon and California railroad was built, the
overland journey between these States across the Siskiyou Mountains in
the old-fashioned emigrant wagon was a long and tedious one.
Nevertheless, every season dissatisfied climate-seekers, too wet and
too dry, might be seen plodding along through the dust in the old
“49style,” making their way one half of them from California to Oregon,
the other half from Oregon to California. The beautiful Sisson meadows
at the base of Mount Shasta were a favorite halfway resting place,
where the weary cattle were turned out for a few days to gather
strength for better climates, and it was curious to hear those
perpetual pioneers comparing notes and seeking information around the
campfires.
“Where are you from?” some Oregonian would ask.
“The Joaquin.”
“It’s dry there, ain’t it?”
“Well, I should say so. No rain at all in summer and none to speak of
in winter, and I’m dried out. I just told my wife I was on the move
again, and I’m going to keep moving till I come to a country where it
rains once in a while, like it does in every reg’lar white man’s
country; and that, I guess, will be Oregon, if the news be true.”
“Yes, neighbor, you’s heading in the right direction for rain,” the
Oregonian would say. “Keep right on to Yamhill and you’ll soon be damp
enough. It rains there more than twelve months in the year; at least,
no saying but it will. I’ve just come from there, plumb drownded out,
and I told my wife to jump into the wagon and we should start out and
see if we couldn’t find a dry day somewhere. Last fall the hay was out
and the wood was out, and the cabin leaked, and I made up my mind to
try California the first chance.”
“Well, if you be a horned toad or coyote,” the seeker of moisture would
reply, “then maybe you can stand it. Just keep right on by the Alabama
Settlement to Tulare and you can have my place on Big Dry Creek and
welcome. You’ll be drowned there mighty seldom. The wagon spokes and
tires will rattle and tell you when you come to it.”
“All right, partner, we’ll swap square, you can have mine in Yamhill
and the rain thrown in. Last August a painter sharp came along one day
wanting to know the way to Willamette Falls, and I told him: ‘Young
man, just wait a little and you’ll find falls enough without going to
Oregon City after them. The whole dog-gone Noah’s flood of a country
will be a fall and melt and float away some day.’” And more to the same
effect.
But no one need leave Oregon in search of fair weather. The wheat and
cattle region of eastern Oregon and Washington on the upper Columbia
plains is dry enough and dusty enough more than half the year. The
truth is, most of these wanderers enjoy the freedom of gypsy life and
seek not homes but camps. Having crossed the plains and reached the
ocean, they can find no farther west within reach of wagons, and are
therefore compelled now to go north and south between Mexico and
Alaska, always glad to find an excuse for moving, stopping a few months
or weeks here and there, the time being measured by the size of the
camp-meadow, conditions of the grass, game, and other indications. Even
their so-called settlements of a year or two, when they take up land
and build cabins, are only another kind of camp, in no common sense
homes. Never a tree is planted, nor do they plant themselves, but like
good soldiers in time of war are ever ready to march. Their journey of
life is indeed a journey with very matter-of-fact thorns in the way,
though not wholly wanting in compensation.
One of the most influential of the motives that brought the early
settlers to these shores, apart from that natural instinct to scatter
and multiply which urges even sober salmon to climb the Rocky
Mountains, was their desire to find a country at once fertile and
winterless, where their flocks and herds could find pasture all the
year, thus doing away with the long and tiresome period of haying and
feeding necessary in the eastern and old western States and
Territories. Cheap land and good land there was in abundance in Kansas,
Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa; but there the labor of providing for
animals of the farm was very great, and much of that labor was crowded
together into a few summer months, while to keep cool in summers and
warm in the icy winters was well-nigh impossible to poor farmers.
Along the coast and throughout the greater part of western Oregon in
general, snow seldom falls on the lowlands to a greater depth than a
few inches, and never lies long. Grass is green all winter. The average
temperature for the year in the Willamette Valley is about 52 degrees,
the highest and lowest being about 100 degrees and 20 degrees, though
occasionally a much lower temperature is reached.
The average rainfall is about fifty or fifty-five inches in the
Willamette Valley, and along the coast seventy-five inches, or even
more at some points—figures that bring many a dreary night and day to
mind, however fine the effect on the great evergreen woods and the
fields of the farmers. The rainy season begins in September or October
and lasts until April or May. Then the whole country is solemnly soaked
and poulticed with the gray, streaming clouds and fogs, night and day,
with marvelous constancy. Towards the beginning and end of the season a
good many bright days occur to break the pouring gloom, but whole
months of rain, continuous, or nearly so, are not at all rare.
Astronomers beneath these Oregon skies would have a dull time of it. Of
all the year only about one fourth of the days are clear, while three
fourths have more or less of fogs, clouds, or rain.
The fogs occur mostly in the fall and spring. They are grand,
far-reaching affairs of two kinds, the black and the white, some of the
latter being very beautiful, and the infinite delicacy and tenderness
of their touch as they linger to caress the tall evergreens is most
exquisite. On farms and highways and in the streets of towns, where
work has to be done, there is nothing picturesque or attractive in any
obvious way about the gray, serious-faced rainstorms. Mud abounds. The
rain seems dismal and heedless and gets in everybody’s way. Every face
is turned from it, and it has but few friends who recognize its
boundless beneficence. But back in the untrodden woods where no axe has
been lifted, where a deep, rich carpet of brown and golden mosses
covers all the ground like a garment, pressing warmly about the feet of
the trees and rising in thick folds softly and kindly over every fallen
trunk, leaving no spot naked or uncared-for, there the rain is
welcomed, and every drop that falls finds a place and use as sweet and
pure as itself. An excursion into the woods when the rain harvest is at
its height is a noble pleasure, and may be safely enjoyed at small
expense, though very few care to seek it. Shelter is easily found
beneath the great trees in some hollow out of the wind, and one need
carry but little provision, none at all of a kind that a wetting would
spoil. The colors of the woods are then at their best, and the mighty
hosts of the forest, every needle tingling in the blast, wave and sing
in glorious harmony.
“’T were worth ten years of peaceful life, one glance at this array.”
The snow that falls in the lowland woods is usually soft, and makes a
fine show coming through the trees in large, feathery tufts, loading
the branches of the firs and spruces and cedars and weighing them down
against the trunks until they look slender and sharp as arrows, while a
strange, muffled silence prevails, giving a peculiar solemnity to
everything. But these lowland snowstorms and their effects quickly
vanish; every crystal melts in a day or two, the bent branches rise
again, and the rain resumes its sway.
While these gracious rains are searching the roots of the lowlands,
corresponding snows are busy along the heights of the Cascade
Mountains. Month after month, day and night the heavens shed their icy
bloom in stormy, measureless abundance, filling the grand upper
fountains of the rivers to last through the summer. Awful then is the
silence that presses down over the mountain forests. All the smaller
streams vanish from sight, hushed and obliterated. Young groves of
spruce and pine are bowed down as by a gentle hand and put to rest, not
again to see the light or move leaf or limb until the grand awakening
of the springtime, while the larger animals and most of the birds seek
food and shelter in the foothills on the borders of the valleys and
plains.
The lofty volcanic peaks are yet more heavily snow-laden. To their
upper zones no summer comes. They are white always. From the steep
slopes of the summit the new-fallen snow, while yet dry and loose,
descends in magnificent avalanches to feed the glaciers, making
meanwhile the most glorious manifestations of power. Happy is the man
who may get near them to see and hear. In some sheltered camp nest on
the edge of the timberline one may lie snug and warm, but after the
long shuffle on snowshoes we may have to wait more than a month ere the
heavens open and the grand show is unveiled. In the mean time, bread
may be scarce, unless with careful forecast a sufficient supply has
been provided and securely placed during the summer. Nevertheless, to
be thus deeply snowbound high in the sky is not without generous
compensation for all the cost. And when we at length go down the long
white slopes to the levels of civilization, the pains vanish like snow
in sunshine, while the noble and exalting pleasures we have gained
remain with us to enrich our lives forever.
The fate of the high-flying mountain snow-flowers is a fascinating
study, though little may we see of their works and ways while their
storms go on. The glinting, swirling swarms fairly thicken the blast,
and all the air, as well as the rocks and trees, is as one smothering
mass of bloom, through the midst of which at close intervals come the
low, intense thunder-tones of the avalanches as they speed on their way
to fill the vast fountain hollows. Here they seem at last to have found
rest. But this rest is only apparent. Gradually the loose crystals by
the pressure of their own weight are welded together into clear ice,
and, as glaciers, march steadily, silently on, with invisible motion,
in broad, deep currents, grinding their way with irresistible energy to
the warmer lowlands, where they vanish in glad, rejoicing streams.
In the sober weather of Oregon lightning makes but little show. Those
magnificent thunderstorms that so frequently adorn and glorify the sky
of the Mississippi Valley are wanting here. Dull thunder and lightning
may occasionally be seen and heard, but the imposing grandeur of great
storms marching over the landscape with streaming banners and a network
of fire is almost wholly unknown.
Crossing the Cascade Range, we pass from a green to a gray country,
from a wilderness of trees to a wilderness of open plains, level or
rolling or rising here and there into hills and short mountain spurs.
Though well supplied with rivers in most of its main sections, it is
generally dry. The annual rainfall is only from about five to fifteen
inches, and the thin winter garment of snow seldom lasts more than a
month or two, though the temperature in many places falls from five to
twenty-five degrees below zero for a short time. That the snow is light
over eastern Oregon, and the average temperature not intolerably
severe, is shown by the fact that large droves of sheep, cattle, and
horses live there through the winter without other food or shelter than
they find for themselves on the open plains or down in the sunken
valleys and gorges along the streams.
When we read of the mountain ranges of Oregon and Washington with
detailed descriptions of their old volcanoes towering snow-laden and
glacier-laden above the clouds, one may be led to imagine that the
country is far icier and whiter and more mountainous than it is. Only
in winter are the Coast and Cascade Mountains covered with snow. Then
as seen from the main interior valleys they appear as comparatively
low, bossy walls stretching along the horizon and making a magnificent
display of their white wealth. The Coast Range in Oregon does not
perhaps average more than three thousand feet in height. Its snow does
not last long, most of its soil is fertile all the way to the summits,
and the greater part of the range may at some time be brought under
cultivation. The immense deposits on the great central uplift of the
Cascade Range are mostly melted off before the middle of summer by the
comparatively warm winds and rains from the coast, leaving only a few
white spots on the highest ridges, where the depth from drifting has
been greatest, or where the rate of waste has been diminished by
specially favorable conditions as to exposure. Only the great volcanic
cones are truly snow-clad all the year, and these are not numerous and
make but a small portion of the general landscape.
As we approach Oregon from the coast in summer, no hint of snowy
mountains can be seen, and it is only after we have sailed into the
country by the Columbia, or climbed some one of the commanding summits,
that the great white peaks send us greeting and make telling
advertisements of themselves and of the country over which they rule.
So, also, in coming to Oregon from the east the country by no means
impresses one as being surpassingly mountainous, the abode of peaks and
glaciers. Descending the spurs of the Rocky Mountains into the basin of
the Columbia, we see hot, hundred-mile plains, roughened here the there
by hills and ridges that look hazy and blue in the distance, until we
have pushed well to the westward. Then one white point after another
comes into sight to refresh the eye and the imagination; but they are
yet a long way off, and have much to say only to those who know them or
others of their kind. How grand they are, though insignificant-looking
on the edge of the vast landscape! What noble woods they nourish, and
emerald meadows and gardens! What springs and streams and waterfalls
sing about them and to what a multitude of happy creatures they give
homes and food!
The principal mountains of the range are Mounts Pitt, Scott, and
Thielson, Diamond Peak, the Three Sisters, Mounts Jefferson, Hood, St.
Helen’s, Adams, Rainier, Aix, and Baker. Of these the seven first named
belong to Oregon, the others to Washington. They rise singly at
irregular distances from one another along the main axis of the range
or near it, with an elevation of from about eight thousand to fourteen
thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea. From few points
in the valleys may more than three or four of them be seen, and of the
more distant ones of these only the tops appear. Therefore, speaking
generally, each of the lowland landscapes of the State contains only
one grand snowy mountain.
The heights back of Portland command one of the best general views of
the forests and also of the most famous of the great mountains both of
Oregon and Washington. Mount Hood is in full view, with the summits of
Mounts Jefferson, St. Helen’s, Adams, and Rainier in the distance. The
city of Portland is at our feet, covering a large area along both banks
of the Willamette, and, with its fine streets, schools, churches,
mills, shipping, parks, and gardens, makes a telling picture of busy,
aspiring civilization in the midst of the green wilderness in which it
is planted. The river is displayed to fine advantage in the foreground
of our main view, sweeping in beautiful curves around rich, leafy
islands, its banks fringed with willows.
A few miles beyond the Willamette flows the renowned Columbia, and the
confluence of these two great rivers is at a point only about ten miles
below the city. Beyond the Columbia extends the immense breadth of the
forest, one dim, black, monotonous field with only the sky, which one
is glad to see is not forested, and the tops of the majestic old
volcanoes to give diversity to the view. That sharp, white, broad-based
pyramid on the south side of the Columbia, a few degrees to the south
of east from where you stand, is the famous Mount Hood. The distance to
it in a straight line is about fifty miles. Its upper slopes form the
only bare ground, bare as to forests, in the landscape in that
direction. It is the pride of Oregonians, and when it is visible is
always pointed out to strangers as the glory of the country, the
mountain of mountains. It is one of the grand series of extinct
volcanoes extending from Lassen’s Butte [31] to Mount Baker, a distance
of about six hundred miles, which once flamed like gigantic watch-fires
along the coast. Some of them have been active in recent times, but no
considerable addition to the bulk of Mount Hood has been made for
several centuries, as is shown by the amount of glacial denudation it
has suffered. Its summit has been ground to a point, which gives it a
rather thin, pinched appearance. It has a wide-flowing base, however,
and is fairly well proportioned. Though it is eleven thousand feet
high, it is too far off to make much show under ordinary conditions in
so extensive a landscape. Through a great part of the summer it is
invisible on account of smoke poured into the sky from burning woods,
logging camps, mills, etc., and in winter for weeks at a time, or even
months, it is in the clouds. Only in spring and early summer and in
what there may chance to be of bright weather in winter is it or any of
its companions at all clear or telling. From the Cascades on the
Columbia it may be seen at a distance of twenty miles or thereabouts,
or from other points up and down the river, and with the magnificent
foreground it is very impressive. It gives the supreme touch of
grandeur to all the main Columbia views, rising at every turn,
solitary, majestic, awe-inspiring, the ruling spirit of the landscape.
But, like mountains everywhere, it varies greatly in impressiveness and
apparent height at different times and seasons, not alone from
differences as to the dimness or transparency of the air. Clear, or
arrayed in clouds, it changes both in size and general expression. Now
it looms up to an immense height and seems to draw near in tremendous
grandeur and beauty, holding the eyes of every beholder in devout and
awful interest. Next year or next day, or even in the same day, you
return to the same point of view, perhaps to find that the glory has
departed, as if the mountain had died and the poor dull, shrunken mass
of rocks and ice had lost all power to charm.
Never shall I forget my first glorious view of Mount Hood one calm
evening in July, though I had seen it many times before this. I was
then sauntering with a friend across the new Willamette bridge between
Portland and East Portland for the sake of the river views, which are
here very fine in the tranquil summer weather. The scene on the water
was a lively one. Boats of every description were gliding, glinting,
drifting about at work or play, and we leaned over the rail from time
to time, contemplating the gay throng. Several lines of ferry boats
were making regular trips at intervals of a few minutes, and river
steamers were coming and going from the wharves, laden with all sorts
of merchandise, raising long diverging swells that make all the light
pleasure craft bow and nod in hearty salutation as they passed. The
crowd was being constantly increased by new arrivals from both shores,
sailboats, rowboats, racing shells, rafts, were loaded with gayly
dressed people, and here and there some adventurous man or boy might be
seen as a merry sailor on a single plank or spar, apparently as deep in
enjoyment as were any on the water. It seemed as if all the town were
coming to the river, renouncing the cares and toils of the day,
determined to take the evening breeze into their pulses, and be cool
and tranquil ere going to bed.
Absorbed in the happy scene, given up to dreamy, random observation of
what lay immediately before me, I was not conscious of anything
occurring on the outer rim of the landscape. Forest, mountain, and sky
were forgotten, when my companion suddenly directed my attention to the
eastward, shouting, “Oh, look! look!” in so loud and excited a tone of
voice that passers-by, saunterers like ourselves, were startled and
looked over the bridge as if expecting to see some boat upset. Looking
across the forest, over which the mellow light of the sunset was
streaming, I soon discovered the source of my friend’s excitement.
There stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpenglow, looming
immensely high, beaming with intelligence, and so impressive that one
was overawed as if suddenly brought before some superior being newly
arrived from the sky.
The atmosphere was somewhat hazy, but the mountain seemed neither near
nor far. Its glaciers flashed in the divine light. The rugged,
storm-worn ridges between them and the snowfields of the summit, these
perhaps might have been traced as far as they were in sight, and the
blending zones of color about the base. But so profound was the general
impression, partial analysis did not come into play. The whole mountain
appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine power, enthusiastic
and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with ineffable repose and
beauty, before which we could only gaze in devout and lowly admiration.
The far-famed Oregon forests cover all the western section of the
State, the mountains as well as the lowlands, with the exception of a
few gravelly spots and open spaces in the central portions of the great
cultivated valleys. Beginning on the coast, where their outer ranks are
drenched and buffeted by wind-driven scud from the sea, they press on
in close, majestic ranks over the coast mountains, across the broad
central valleys, and over the Cascade Range, broken and halted only by
the few great peaks that rise like islands above the sea of evergreens.
In descending the eastern slopes of the Cascades the rich, abounding,
triumphant exuberance of the trees is quickly subdued; they become
smaller, grow wide apart, leaving dry spaces without moss covering or
underbrush, and before the foot of the range is reached, fail
altogether, stayed by the drouth of the interior almost as suddenly as
on the western margin they are stayed by the sea. Here and there at
wide intervals on the eastern plains patches of a small pine (_Pinus
contorta_) are found, and a scattering growth of juniper, used by the
settlers mostly for fence posts and firewood. Along the stream bottoms
there is usually more or less of cottonwood and willow, which, though
yielding inferior timber, is yet highly prized in this bare region. On
the Blue Mountains there is pine, spruce, fir, and larch in abundance
for every use, but beyond this range there is nothing that may be
called a forest in the Columbia River basin, until we reach the spurs
of the Rocky Mountains; and these Rocky Mountain forests are made up of
trees which, compared with the giants of the Pacific Slope, are mere
saplings.