AT SHOSHONE FALLS.
"Why don't you stop off at Shoshone and go down and see the falls? They
are only twenty-five miles from the station," said one of the Union
Pacific officials with whom I became acquainted at Denver. This was
just at dark the next night after leaving Portland. I had forgotten
what little I knew of those falls, excepting their name, and had no
idea of going so near them on this trip, but I left the train at 3.30
the next morning, and about sunrise started out due south. "I suppose
there are ranches along the road," said I to the stage-driver at this
end of the route. "No, not one; and you can't get any water till you
get there," said he. So with a bottle of water, which did not last
much more than half the distance, I rode along over the slightly
undulating lava beds, which are mostly covered with a few feet of
sand and with sage brush, but which occasionally come to the surface
in broken masses of dark brown, perforated, metallic sounding rocks.
It certainly was not a very interesting ride of four or five hours,
for jack rabbits in great numbers and an occasional gopher were
the only living things I saw, and in looking across the same level,
treeless country, far ahead, I had begun to wonder where the Snake
River could possibly be, when suddenly I heard the roar of the falls,
and came to the edge of a cañon perhaps three hundred feet deep. The
rocks of this cañon, from top to bottom, are composed of this lava,
and it is formed in layers from twenty to thirty feet thick, looking
as if the lava had, at different times, overflowed the country to
that depth, which it really had. But what was my astonishment when
I found, on inquiry, that these layers in some places number as many
as thirty, and that their depth in many places was several thousand
feet. For instance, the Columbia River, which I had so recently
seen, has cut its way through lava beds three and four thousand feet
thick. And this is not all. These immensely thick beds of lava not
only cover the entire surface of Idaho, but also of nearly the whole
of Oregon and Washington Territory, and parts of California, Nevada,
and Montana. When it is stated that the entire surface covered by
this lava is not less than two hundred thousand square miles, forty
times as large as Connecticut, one can only faintly comprehend the
statement, and many may not believe it; but the fact remains. And to
me the thought that I had been allowed to ride over a portion, a very
small portion of this lava that ages ago burst out through some immense
fissure or great vent in the earth's surface, this thought alone paid
me for the hours of thirst endured. The simple fact that I have seen
this lava bed has left on my mind one of the strongest impressions
of the whole trip; an impression, if not exactly taken on dry plate,
yet that was left on a very dry pate. Still no one need to come out
into this country to see the effect of some ancient eruption. The
hills at Meriden, Conn., and East and West Rock at New Haven, as
well as Mount Tom near Holyoke, Mass., hills that I have climbed
and ridden over since the bicycle enlarged my means of traveling,
these are all lava formations.
There is a fine view of the cañon, looking up the river towards
the east for a couple of miles as you go. Then a zigzag road down
into the cañon, and half a mile below are the falls. The ferry is
just above the falls, and I had to wait some time there, before the
ferryman, at the hotel just below the falls, on the opposite side
of the river, saw me. The ride across in a leaky row-boat--there is
a cable ferry-boat for the stage--with broken oars and oarlocks,
only a little way above the cloud of mist, was not the safest one
I have ever taken, but with my wheel lying flatwise over the edges
of the boat, we crossed all right and I had soon climbed out upon
a projecting point in the precipice below the hotel, and obtained
a magnificent view of the falls, which are but little inferior to
Niagara, far ahead of any other falls I have seen in the West.
Snake River flows down through the cañon with scarcely a ripple, until
at the falls it is broken up by half a dozen or more of rocky islands,
and after plunging into pretty cascades for a short distance, it leaps
over the cliff, which curves in a little, and falls two hundred and
ten feet down into the cañon, there not far from six hundred feet
deep. Although the perpendicular fall was greater by fifty feet than
at Niagara, the volume of water is less, but there is the dark cañon
above and below the falls that adds greatly to the impression one
receives. Eagles were seen soaring around in the skies in almost every
direction, and on a huge boulder just above the falls in the middle
of the river, was a nest of young ones being fed by the parent bird.
After spending three or four hours there, I crossed the river again,
and climbed up out of the cañon and started back. I took a larger
bottle filled with cool spring water--the location of that spring,
as well as many others in this Western country, I shall never
forget. I can, in imagination, see them now, almost every one of
them. The water, of course, got warm, and before dark I had drained
every drop of it. There was no riding after dark, and for miles I
pushed the machine along in the sandy rut, thinking of little else
than that tank of ice-water in the station I was trying to reach. I
might mention, as an instance of how similar situations recall mental
impressions, that in crossing the plains from Laramie, the song of
"Tit Willow" was continually running through my mind, and for days
I could do nothing to rid myself of what came to be very unpleasant,
but after reaching California I scarcely hummed the tune once. I was
not troubled with the song at all after leaving the sand and sage
brush, but with the first return to the sage brush, the tune I had
not hummed or thought of for weeks came back, pursuing me with all
its unpleasant monotony--the smell of the sage revived it.
About an hour after dark I lost the wheel tracks, and but for the
clear sky and north star, should have had some trouble in getting
back to the station. As it was I laid the machine down and commenced
feeling around in the sand with my hands for the ruts, and wandered
about so long I even lost the machine. There are patches of ground,
of an acre or more in extent, entirely free from sage brush, and it
was in crossing one of these, where there is no bushy border to the
sandy road to make its direction discernible in the dark, that I got
into trouble. But I found the wheel tracks after a while, and soon
after the wheel, and was very careful from that time to keep the
wheel from turning out of the rut, for I had to feel the rut with
the machine, as I could not see it. It was after ten o'clock when I
reached the station, and no lights ever shone brighter in the distance
than did those of Shoshone, and that ice-water, as I poured it down
at intervals all night, till the train arrived at 3.30 next morning,
served to quench my thirst in the manner I had anticipated for so
many hours. Thirsty and tired as I was, I felt fully recompensed
by the sight of Shoshone Falls, without visiting the upper falls,
situated about two miles up the river. The machine has acquired the
distinction of being the first one to visit this place of interest.
At the terminus of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's line
at Huntington, I went into the baggage car to get the machine. "$3
to pay on that," said the baggage-master. As I had traveled over
1400 miles on the Union and Central Pacific railroads without being
charged a penny for the machine, this charge for one day seemed to be
rather exorbitant, and I said so. "Well," said the baggage-master very
confidently, "I can't help that. It is $1.50 on the other division, and
the same on this." I told him to give me a receipt, if I must pay it,
for I should try to get it back from headquarters. That he did not like
to do, for whatever I paid him he intended to "knock the company down
for it," and the receipt would come home to roost, so he compromised by
throwing off one-half, which I paid. On the other side of the depot,
the Union Pacific's Oregon Short line came in, and that was the first
and last charge made for carrying the machine till I reached Baltimore,
where the Penn. Railroad Company's price is one-half cent a mile.
After waiting all day at Pocatello, where I put in five or six
hours of good sleep on the platform, on the shady side of the depot,
with the knapsack for a pillow, I reached Beaver Cañon, on the Utah
Northern Railroad, at three A.M., and before daylight slept an hour
or two more on the floor of the waiting-room, near a stove that
was really comfortable, for the nights were quite cold up there. I
had lost so much sleep the past week, I could lie down and take a
comfortable nap anywhere I could get a chance. The two nights on the
boat, it may be remembered, were not accompanied with many hours of
sound repose. The first night out of Portland, I talked with friends
on the train who were to return home by the Northern Pacific, till
late, and then I wrote till after one o'clock. After that there was
not much rest sitting bolt upright, for every seat in the car was
taken. The next night it required more force of will to stop off at
Shoshone than anything I had done during the trip, for these reasons:
I was going towards home, after four months and a half of constant
traveling away from it. That thought alone made me very happy, and
I could not bear to be delayed even for a day; and besides, I had
laid down with four seats all to myself even before dark that night,
with the intention of having a good long night's rest. But I did not
want to miss any great sight so near as that to my route, and so I
took short naps all night till three in the morning, for I did not
want to be carried by the station. The next night I took the train
at the same hour that I left it the previous night; and thus I had
had only one good night's sleep in over a week, when I started out
due east early in the morning, Aug. 22d, for the Yellowstone.
Distance on the wheel, 3,251 miles.