This is the beginning of the greatest series of obstructions on the River

and the point where the Government is now constructing a canal, by means

of which the entire upper course of the River will be brought into

connection with the lower. In the distance of twelve miles the River falls

eighty-one feet at low water and sixty feet at high water. The Tumwater

Falls at the head of this series of obstructions has a descent of twenty

feet at low water, but at high water the volume of the River is so great

that it passes directly over the fall and a boat can shoot over the steep

slope. Here was one of the most famous places in early history. On the

north side was the Wishram village, noted in Irving's _Astoria_. This,

too, was the greatest place for fishing on the upper River. Even now the

Indians gather in autumn in great numbers and can be seen spearing the

salmon. Several immense fish-wheels also can be seen upon the verge of the

falls.

The most remarkable of all these obstructions is Five-Mile Rapids. This is

the place to which in the first place the French _voyageurs_ applied the

name _Dalles_, meaning a trough through the flat plates of rock. It is

sometimes called the "Big Chute."

It is planned by the Government to overcome these obstructions by a canal

and locks. The expense is estimated at four and a half million dollars.

The resulting advantages will be vast. The greater part of the Inland

Empire will be thrown open to steamer competition with the railroads. The

freight tariff at the present time is heavier than in any other part of

the United States. If the productive capacity of the region were not

extraordinary, it could not have developed as it has with such a handicap.

It is estimated that by the reduction of freight which will follow

steamboat navigation, the Inland Empire will save not less than two

million dollars annually. In the tremendous movement now sweeping over our

country to improve waterways, the Columbia will bear its part and receive

its improvement. It will be a great day for the storied and scenic River

of the West when some magnificent excursion steamer descends the thousand

miles from Revelstoke to the outer headlands. And with canals at Celilo,

Priest Rapids, and Kettle Falls, with some improvements at minor points,

at no immoderate expense, the thing can be done.

And now we reach the city of The Dalles. The traveller will find this a

place hardly surpassed in historic interest by any other on the River. The

old trading posts, the United States fort, the missions, the Indian wars,

the early immigrations, the steamboat enterprises, all unite to give rare

value to this picturesque "capital of the sheep country." For, aside from

historic interest, The Dalles surpasses any other point in the United

States as a wool shipping station. It is now becoming also the centre of a

farming and orchard country. For it is now understood that the rolling

hill land for many miles is adapted to wheat raising and to fruit of the

finest quality. If our visitors to the River should happen to be in The

Dalles in autumn they would find at the Wasco County Horticultural Fair

one of the most attractive and appetising displays of fruit that the whole

country affords.

[Illustration: Cabbage Rock, Four Miles North of The Dalles. Photo. by Lee

Moorehouse, Pendleton.]

The scenery about The Dalles, with the majestic River, the great white

cones of Hood and Adams, and wide sweeps of rolling prairie and hollowed

hills, is noble and inspiring. It may be considered the gateway of the

open prairie to the east and the passage of the Cascade Mountains by the

River to the west.

CHAPTER IV

Where River and Mountain Meet, and the Traces of the Bridge of the Gods

The Most Unique Point yet on the River--River, Mountains, and

Tide--The Only Place where the Cascade Range is Cleft--Distant View of

Mt. Hood and Gradual Appearance of Lesser Heights--Limits of Region

where River and Mountain Meet--Geological Character of this

Region--Forces of Upheaval and Erosion and Volcano--We May Journey by

Rail, by Steamboat, Horseback, Waggon, or Afoot, but we Prefer a

Rowboat--Paha Cliffs--On the Track of Speelyei--Memaloose Island--Hood

River and White Salmon Valleys and their Fruit--Beginnings of the

Great Heights--The Sunken Forest--The Bridge of the Gods--Loowit,

Wiyeast, and Klickitat--Difference in Climate between the

East-of-the-Mountains and the West--Sheridan's Old Blockhouse--Passing

the Locks--Petrified Trees--Fish-wheels--Castle Rock--Ascent of Castle

Rock--Story of Wehatpolitan--St. Peter's Dome--Oneonta

Gorge--Multnomah Falls--Cape Horn--Getting out of the Mountains--Cape

Eternity and Rooster Rock--This Section of the Journey

Ended--Comparison of the River with Other Great Scenes.

In the long journey down our River we have had a panoramic view of

towering mountains and broad plains, foaming cataracts and tranquil lakes,

fruitful valleys and volcanic desolations, growing cities and lonely

wastes. All illustrate that infinite variety of the River which imparts

its unrivalled charm.

But now we are approaching a point which is unique even in the midst of

the unique, varied in never-ending variety, sublime even in almost

continuous sublimity, singular even upon our most singular River. This

place is where the mountains and the River meet. By mountains we mean the

great chain of the Cascades, which under various names parallels the

Pacific Coast all the way from Alaska to Southern California. But not only

do mountains and River meet here, but the ocean sends his greetings, for

at the lower end of the rapids which here mark the gateway of the

mountains, the first pulse-beat of the Pacific, the first throb of the

tide, is discernible, though it is a hundred and sixty miles farther to

where the River is lost in that greatest of the oceans. River, Mountains,

Ocean,--a very symposium of sublimities.

[Illustration: Eagle Rock, just above Shoshone Falls in Snake River.

Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

There is, too, another especially interesting feature of this spot, and

that is, it is the only place for twelve hundred miles where the

Cascade-Sierra Range is cleft asunder. In fact it is the only place in the

entire extent of the range where it is cut squarely across. This fact

imparts not only scenic interest, but commercial value. It is the only

water-level route from the seacoast to the Inland Empire.

The place where River and mountains meet had been heralded to us long

before we reached it. For as we passed the plains of the Umatilla we got

an intimation of the mountain majesty which we were approaching.

Clear-limned against the south-western horizon, a glistening cone,

cold-white in the earliest morning, rosy-red with the rising dawn, and

warm with the yellow halo of noon, fixes our eyes and bids us realise that

from the far vision of a hundred miles we can see and worship at the

shrine of Oregon's noblest and most historic peak, Mt. Hood. As we speed

on down the current we begin to see long lines of lesser peaks rising to

the westward. The prairies of the Umatilla have been succeeded by

picturesque bare hills, and these by ragged palisades of columnar basalt,

with higher hills yet, crowned with gnarled oak-trees. Of the wheat-fields

and orchards and sheep ranges centring at The Dalles, we have already

spoken, and we have paused at Celilo and gazed on the historic "Timm," or

the Tumwater Falls, and the "Big Chute," observing especially the

Government canal and locks now started, from whose completion such vast

commercial possibilities are plainly foreshadowed. Our present quest is

therefore yet farther on, to the gateway of the mountains. This is found

at the "Cascade Locks," fifty miles below Dalles City. The section of

river which we have styled "Where River and Mountain Meet" may be

considered as extending from the mouth of the Klickitat River, a few miles

west of Dalles City, to Rooster Rock, about thirty miles east of

Vancouver. The distance between these points is about fifty miles, and

through this space we may see all the evidences of a titanic struggle

between the master forces of fire and water and upheaval. As we descend

the majestic stream with the majestic banks on either hand and mark the

apparent ancient water-marks hundreds of feet above our heads, we recall

the Indian myth of Wishpoosh in an earlier chapter. The opinion of

geologists in regard to this extraordinary passageway of the River is that

it represents ages of gradual elevation of the mountain chain and a

cotemporary erosion by the River, so that as the heights became higher,

the river bed became deeper. The one-time shore slowly mounted skyward,

and as the new upheavals rose from the ocean deeps the lines of erosion

were in turn wrought on them, and river shore succeeded river shore

through long ages. With these fundamental forces of upheaval and erosion

there were eras of local seismic and volcanic activity, more cataclysmic

in nature, from which there came the magnificent pillars of columnar

basalt and the first trenching of the profound chasms which subsequent

lateral streams carved through the rising base of the great range.

[Illustration: Stehekin Canyon, 5000 Feet Deep. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

To view this great picture gallery of history and physiography, we may

have the choice of nearly every method of travel, horseback, afoot, by

team (though the waggon roads are not continuous), or by train, on either

bank. The river himself offers his broad back for any kind of craft.

Several swift and elegant steamers make daily trips between Portland and

The Dalles, passing through the Government canal and lock at the Cascades.

Launches, scows, sailing craft of almost every kind, are in constant

movement, loaded with every sort of commodity. Of all the means of

transit, however, we will, if you please, float down the stately stream in

our well-tried skiff. Independent as the Coyote god Speelyei when he used

to pass up and down the river, transforming presumptuous beasts or mortals

into rock at will, we will drift with the current, partaking of the very

life of the rich and multifarious nature about us. We can pause as we wish

on jutting crag or fir-crowned promontory or at the foot of spouting

cataract. We can camp for the night beneath some wide-spreading pine, and

breathe the balsamic fragrance of the "continuous woods." We can trace the

historic stages of bateaux or canoes or immigrant flatboats, and open and

shut the camera at will amid the open volumes of our heroic age of

discovery and settlement, or the yet vaster and grander epoch of Nature's

creative day. No palace car or even floating palace of steamer for us when

we can have two or three days of such unalloyed bliss in an open skiff

moving at our own sweet will.

We shall find here a marked change in the movement of the river as

compared with its prevailing character in the five hundred miles from the

British line to The Dalles. The impetuous might above has become

transformed into a slow and stately majesty. With the exception of the

five miles at the Cascades round which the canal passes, the river below

The Dalles is deep and calm, seldom less than a mile in width.

Of the almost numberless objects at which we level eye and camera, we can

here describe but few.

A fitting introduction to this stage of our journey is found in Paha

Cliffs at the mouth of the Klickitat, a perpendicular bastion of lava

rock, not remarkable for height, but of such regularity and symmetry as to

seem the work of men's hands. A short distance below the Paha Cliffs, also

on the Washington side of the river, is a most singular semicircular wall

of gigantic area, surrounding on the west what seems to be an immense

sunken enclosure. The Indians have a story to the effect that once

Speelyei, being on his way up the river before this wall existed, paused

here to perform some unworthy deed (for Speelyei was a curious mixture of

the noble and the base). Having done the deed, he began to fear that it

would become known. So he hurriedly built a wall to keep in the report.

But while he was engaged in building on the west, the report got out on

the east. The wall that we now see is the remains of his building. Of a

similar order of Indian fancy is the "Baby-on-the-Board" and the "Coyote

Head" farther down the river, also on the north side. The Coyote Head is

near White Salmon. It commemorates the transformation of a presumptuous

Klickitat chief who wished to proclaim himself equal to Speelyei, so he

crowned himself with a coyote skin and took his station on the great rock

wall above the mouth of the White Salmon. And there he remains still, for

Speelyei with a wave of the hand transformed the offending chieftain into

rock.

[Illustration: Steamer _Dalles City_ Descending the Cascades of the

Columbia.]

A few miles below the mouth of the Klickitat, there stands in mid-channel

one of the most curious and interesting objects on the river, "Memaloose

Island." This desolate islet of basalt was one of the most noted of the

frequent "death" or burial places of the Indians. They were accustomed to

build platforms and place the dead upon them. Apparently this island was

used for its gruesome purpose for centuries. A large white marble monument

facing the south attracts the attention of all travellers, and as we pass

we see that it is sacred to the memory of Vic Trevett. He was a prominent

pioneer of The Dalles, and in the course of his various experiences became

a special friend of the Indians, who looked upon him with such love and

reverence that when his end approached he gave directions that his

permanent burial-place and monument should be on the place sacred to his

aboriginal friends.

We have spoken of the region between the mouth of the Klickitat and

Rooster Rock as the mountain section of the river. But as we move on down

the stream we discover that there are numerous nooks and glens adjoining

it which are the choicest locations for fruit and garden ranches. At a

point just about midway from The Dalles to the Cascades there is a

remarkable break in the otherwise unbroken and constantly rising mountain

walls. This break constitutes one of the most charming residence regions

on the Columbia shores, and at the same time the avenue of approach to the

most magnificent of mountains. There are here two great valleys. One of

these is that of Hood River, better called by its musical Indian name

Waukoma, "The Place of Cottonwoods." It proceeds directly from the foot of

Mt. Hood, twenty-five miles distant to the south. The valley on the north

bears a similar relation to Mt. Adams, forty miles distant, and is drained

by the White Salmon River. From favourable points on the River, or from

the heights which border it, we obtain views of the two peaks which create

an unappeasable longing to tread their crags and snow-fields. Though truly

mountain valleys, these two valleys are of spacious extent. They are

moreover so richly provided with sun and water and all the ingredients of

soil necessary to produce the choicest fruit that they have become the

very paradise of the orchardist. The Hood River apples grace the tables of

royalty in the old world and delight the palates of epicures in both

hemispheres, while to the eyes and the nostrils of any one of delicate

sensibilities their colour and fragrance impart a still more aesthetic

charm.

As we pass on down the river from those two vales of beauty and plenty, we

begin to see the first of those lofty crags on either hand, the basaltic

pinnacles, turretted, spired, castellated, which make the distinguishing

feature of Columbia River scenery for these fifty miles. Mitchell's Point,

Shell Mountain, Wind Mountain, Bald Mountain, and Mt. Defiance are the

first group. The lowest of the group attains an elevation of nearly two

thousand feet, almost perpendicular, while at the summit of the crags rise

a thousand feet higher yet long grassy slopes alternating with splendid

forests.

[Illustration: Memaloose Island, Columbia River. Photo. by E. H.

Moorehouse.]

As we near the Cascades we note another curious phenomenon. This is the

sunken forest on either side. At low water these old tree trunks become

very observable, and their general appearance suggests at once that they

are the remains of a former forest submerged by a permanent rise in the

river. This explanation is confirmed by the fact that from The Dalles to

the Cascades the river is very deep and sluggish. When we reach the

Cascades a third fact is revealed and that is that at the chief cataract

the river bank is continually sliding into the river. Trees are thrown

down by this slow sliding process, railroad tracks require frequent

adjustment, and on clear, still nights there is sometimes heard a grinding

sound, while a tremor from the subterranean regions seems to indicate that

the upper stratum is sliding over the lower toward the river. In fact, the

mighty force of the stream is all the time eating into the bank and

gradually drawing it down.

From those and other indications the conclusion has been drawn that some

prodigious avalanche of rock at a not long distant time dammed the river

at this point, creating the present Cascades and raising the water above

so as to submerge the forest, whose remains now attract the attention of

the observer at the low stage of water.

To confirm this theory we have the Indian story of the "tomanowas bridge,"

the quaintest and most interesting of the long list of native myths.

The region around the old site of the "Bridge of the Gods" may be

considered as the dividing line between the Inland Empire and the Coast

Region. Above, it is dry, sunny, breezy, and electrical, the land of

wheat-field and sheep ranges, cow-boys and horses and mining camps. Below,

it is cool, cloudy, still, and soft, the region of the clover and the

dairy, the salmon cannery, the logging camp, and boats of every sort.

Above, the rocks look dry and hard, and glitter in the sun. Below, the

rocks are draped in moss, and from every canyon and ledge there seems to

issue a foaming torrent. It is, in truth, the meeting place of mountain

and River.

On all sides around the Cascades there are objects of natural and historic

interest. Stupendous crags, often streaked with snow, lose themselves in

the scud of the ocean which is almost constantly flying eastward to be

absorbed in the more fervid sunshine of up-river. Perhaps the most

impressive of these vast heights is Table Mountain, on the north side of

the River, near the locks, said to have been one of the supports of the

"Bridge of the Gods." Its colours of saffron and crimson add to the

splendour and grandeur of its appearance. Just below the locks on the

north side stood the old blockhouse built by a young lieutenant in 1856 as

a defence against the Klickitat Indians. The blockhouse is now in ruins,

but the name of its builder has been fairly well preserved, for it

is--Phil Sheridan.

The total extent of the cataract at the Cascades is five miles and the

descent is about forty-five feet, of which half is at the upper end at the

point passed by the locks. We enter the locks in the wake of one of the

steamers, and in a few minutes find our craft emerging from the lower end

of the massive structure into the white water which bears us swiftly down

the remaining part of the Cascades. It looks dangerous to commit an open

boat to that sweeping current, but as a matter of fact the course of the

river is straight and deep, though swift, and it is entirely feasible for

any one of reasonable skill to manage a small boat in the passageway to

the tranquil expanses below.

[Illustration: Horseshoe Basin, near Lake Chelan, Wash. Photo. by T. W.

Tolman, Spokane.]

As we speed swiftly down the river, we note the little station of

Bonneville, named for the historic fur-trader whom the fascinating pages

of Irving have brought down to this era. A short distance below Bonneville

our eyes catch sight of a white sign-board bearing the words, "Petrified

Tree." Sure enough, there is the tree, and a marvellously fine specimen of

silicification it is, too. When the railroad was built along the river

bank at this point, the graders ran into a perfect forest of petrified

wood. The logs and limbs were piled up by the cord near Bonneville, but

the larger part has been taken in various directions for cabinets and

ornaments.

But a short time is needed to fly down the Cascades, and at their lower

end we reach what may be called the Lower River. For here a slight rise

and fall of tide betokens the presence of the ocean. No more rapids on the

River, but a tranquil, majestic flood, broadening like a sea toward its

final destination, a hundred and sixty miles away.

If we were to describe in detail all the marvels of beauty and grandeur

and physical interest which engage our attention at every stage of the

journey, our volume would end with this chapter, for there would be no

room for anything more. One class of objects of curious interest to almost

all travellers, though of no special charm to scientist or nature lover,

is the fish-wheels at the Cascades. These are very ingenious contrivances

set in the midst of a swift place in the stream and made to revolve by the

current. As they revolve, the huge vans dipping the water scoop up almost

incredible numbers of the salmon which have made the Columbia famous the

world over. A weir is built to turn the fish from the outside course into

the channel of the wheel, with the result that numbers are taken almost

beyond belief, sometimes as high as eight tons a day by a single wheel.

Another picturesque sight, both at the Celilo Falls and the Cascades, is

the Indian fishermen perched upon the rocks and with spear and dip-net

seeking to fill their larder with the noble salmon.

But now to contemplate the works of God and Nature rather than those of

man. We must, as already seen, by the necessities of space, ask our

readers to share with us only the masterpieces of this gallery of wonders.

Probably all visitors to the River would agree that the following scenes

most nearly express the spirit and character of the sublime whole: Castle

Rock, St. Peter's Dome, Oneonta Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Cape Horn, and

Rooster Rock. To these individual scenes we should add, as the very crown

of all, the view at the lower Cascades both up and down the great gorge.

With the majestic heights, scarred with the tempests and the earthquakes

of the ages, swathed in drifting clouds and oftentimes tipped with snow,

and the shimmering of the River, and the answering grandeur of sky and

forest,--this grouping of the whole is more inspiring than any one scene.

[Illustration: Castle Rock, Columbia River. (Copyright by Kiser Photograph

Co., 1902.)]

The first special object to fix our attention below the Cascades is Castle

Rock. It is an isolated cliff of basalt, nine hundred feet high, covering

about seventeen acres, its summit thinly clothed with stunted trees. It

stands right on the verge of the River, nearly perpendicular on all sides,

marvellous for symmetry from every point of view. At first sight one gets

no conception of its magnitude, for it is dwarfed by the stupendous

pinnacles, three thousand feet high, which compose the walls of the canyon.

It is said that some Eastern lady, seeing it from a steamer's deck,

exclaimed, "See that fine rock! I wish I had it in my back yard at home."

Being informed that she would have to find a pretty spacious back yard to

accommodate an ornament covering seventeen acres, she was too much

astonished to believe it. But to any one viewing it deliberately and from

every point of view, and especially landing, as we in our happy method of

travel can do, and going about its base, it becomes evident that Castle

Rock might be called a mountain in almost any other place. It was for a

long time regarded as an impossible thing to reach the summit. For some

years there was a standing offer of one thousand dollars for any one who

would place the Stars and Stripes on the summit. But no one took the dare.

At last in 1901, when the rivalry between two steamboat lines was keen,

Frank Smith of the Regulator Line, with George Purser and Charles Church,

accomplished the seemingly impossible, and, by ropes and staples and

fingers and teeth and toenails, scaled the almost perpendicular walls, and

unfurled the Regulator banner to the breeze where no flag ever flew

before, nor human foot ever trod. It was probably the most risky climb

ever taken in the North-west. A little later, by the aid of the experience

of this party, several others attained the summit. Among these were George

Maxwell, who set the Oregon Railway and Navigation flag as high as that of

the Regulator had gone, and two photographers, W. C. Staatz and George M.

Weister. With them went a young lady, Lilian White, who, though she did

not reach the summit, went higher than any of her sex have gone. Later Mr.

Whitney, manager of the great McGowan Cannery, went up and placed the

Stars and Stripes upon the top.

[Illustration: The Lyman Glacier and Glacier Lake in North Star Park Near

Lake Chelan. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

We said that no earlier human steps had trodden that beetling height and

that Miss White had gone higher than any of her sex. But if we accept the

romantic Indian tale of Wehatpolitan, our statement needs correction. For

this story is to the following effect. Wehatpolitan was the beautiful

child of the principal chieftain in these parts. She loved and was loved

by a young chief of a neighbouring tribe. But when she was sought by her

lover in marriage, the stern father denied the request and killed the

messenger. But the lovers were secretly married and met clandestinely at

various times. In course of time the father, thinking the infatuation of

the forbidden lovers to be at an end, gave Wehatpolitan to a chief whom he

had favoured. The latter kept constant watch of the girl, and one night he

saw her stealing steathily away, and tracking her he found the secret of

her midnight wanderings. As soon as the new lover had imparted to the

father these tidings, the latter with deep duplicity sent word to the

other chieftain that if he would come to the lodge, all would be forgiven

and he and Wehatpolitan would be duly wed. Rejoicing at the happy outcome

to all their troubles, the faithful lover hastened to his own, but no

sooner had he arrived than he was seized upon and slain by the revengeful

parent. Not long after this the heartbroken girl gave birth to a child,

but her father at once decreed that the child must share its father's

fate. Hearing this pitiless word, Wehatpolitan caught up her child and

disappeared. All that day they searched in vain, and on the next day, the

Indians heard wailings from the top of Castle Rock, from which they soon

discovered that the poor girl with her child had gone to that apparently

inaccessible height. The old chief, repenting of his harsh course, called

aloud to his daughter to come down and he would forgive her. But fearing

new treachery she paid no heed, and the wailings continued. Overcome with

grief the remorseful chief offered all kinds of rewards for any one who

would climb the rock and save Wehatpolitan and her child. But though many

tried, none could succeed. On the third day the wailings ceased. Then the

half-crazed father himself essayed to climb. He seemed to succeed, for at

least he disappeared among the crevices of the rock high up toward the

summit. But he never returned. The Indians thought that he reached the top

and that finding the lifeless bodies of his daughter and her child he had

probably given up all hope of getting down and had lain down and died with

them. But even yet heart-breaking wailings come down from time to time,

especially when the Chinook blows soft and damp up the river, and these

wailings have been thought by Indians to be the voice of the spirit of the

unhappy Wehatpolitan, because it could never descend to the happy hunting

grounds of the tribe.

Another native idea is to the effect that Castle Rock (which ought to be

called Wehatpolitan's gravestone) is hollow and is filled with the bodies

of former generations now turned to stone. As a matter of fact, the party

of 1901 found evidence of a great cave, but so far there has been found no

practical ingress. So the interior is still an unexplored mystery. Immense

quantities of spear-heads and arrow-heads are found along the river at

this point, and these are apparently of an earlier age than most of those

found in this country.

Loosing from the enchanted shore of Wehatpolitan's monument, we see for

several miles on the Oregon side a cordon of perpendicular cliffs, red and

purple in hue, streaked with spray, and touched here and there with the

deep green of firs which have rooted themselves with claw-like roots into

the crevices. Most symmetrical and beautiful, though not the highest of

this line of elevations, is St. Peter's Dome. Its summit is over two

thousand feet above the river. While in height it is surpassed by certain

crags of Chelan or Yosemite, as well as its brothers on the river, it has

no rival in beauty there, or elsewhere, so far as the author has seen,

among the wonders of the American continent. Every hour of the day, every

change of sky or season, reveals some new and unexpected beauty or

sublimity in this superb cliff.

[Illustration: Hunters on Lake Chelan, with their Spoils. Photo. by W. D.

Lyman.]

[Illustration: A Morning's Catch on the Touchet, near Dayton, Wash.

_Sunset Magazine._]

We are almost sated with sublimities by the time we pass on down below St.

Peter's Dome, but one of the most unique scenes of all is close at hand.

This is Oneonta Gorge. A swift stream issuing from the cliffs on the south

side of the River attracts our attention, and we moor our boat to the

roots of a tall cottonwood and make our way inward. The wall is cleft

asunder, its sides almost meeting above. At places the smooth sides of the

Gorge leave no space except for the passage of the pellucid stream, and we

have to wade hip deep to make our way. Showers of spray descend from the

towering roof above, and in places we are well-nigh in darkness. Then

there is a widening and through the broken wall the lances of sunshine

pierce the gloom with rainbow tints. Marvellous Oneonta with the

sweet-sounding name! It, too, has its wealth of native myth, of which our

narrowing limits forbid us to speak.

And now leaving Oneonta, we can see that we have passed the maximum of the

mountains, and are already looking into a broadening valley, with the yet

more lordly volume of the river widening toward the sunset. While our eyes

are thus drawn toward the river, the diminishing walls of the canyon, and

the fair entrance to what may be called the genuine West-of-the-Mountains,

we perceive on the Oregon shore a series of waterfalls, higher and grander

than has even been the wont, and in the midst of them, far-famed

Multnomah. A spacious sweep of circling mountains, a perpendicular wall,

indented with a deep recess, and crowned upon its topmost bastions with a

row of frightened looking trees, and partially visible through

intercepting cottonwoods at the River's margin a moving whiteness,--such

is the first vision of this matchless waterfall. A short space farther

carries us past the screen of cottonwoods, and the whole majestic scene

lies before us. Like St. Peter's Dome or Castle Rock or Niagara or

Yosemite or Chelan or Mt. "Takhoma," this scene of Multnomah Falls with

its surroundings wears that aspect of eternity, that look of final

perfectness, which marks the great works of nature and of art. The cliff

almost overhangs, so that except when deflected by the wind against a

projecting ledge the water leaps sheer through the air its eight hundred

feet of fall. It is mainly spray when it reaches the deep pool within the

recess of the mountain, and from that recess the regathered waters pour in

a final plunge, from which the stream takes its way through the

cottonwoods to the River.

We disembark and climb to the pool which receives the great fall. We find

it sunless and almost black in hue from the intensity of the shadows. The

maidenhair fern which grows at the edge of the pool is nearly white in its

cool dark abode. The water falls into the pool with a weird, uncanny

"chug," rather than a splash, so great is the sheer fall and so largely

does the water consist of spray alternating with "chunks"--if we may so

express it--of water. The pool is large enough to hold a steamboat and of

considerable depth. A pretty rustic bridge spans the gorge through which

the stream passes on its way from the pool, and below the bridge is the

final fall of seventy-five feet. On account of its proximity to Portland

and the frequent steamboat excursions, Multnomah has become quite a

resort. While the creek is only of moderate size in summer, and the fall

is notable rather for beauty than energy, yet when swollen by the rains

and melting snows of winter and spring it takes on the dimensions of a

river. Then the fall hurling its great volume over the eight hundred feet

of open space assumes an appalling sublimity.

[Illustration: Oneonta Gorge--Looking In. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse.]

And now with the sounds of the fall ringing in our ears and our eyes

turned back for a final reluctant gaze, we make our way across the River

and a short distance down to the next wonder on the Washington side. This

is Cape Horn. It is a long palisade of basalt, not high compared to most

of the river walls, being only about two hundred feet high, but it is the

most complete example of continuous basaltic formation on the River. The

beauty and symmetry of the formation, the deeps of the River reflecting

the escarpment of rock, the wide-opening vista of hazy islands and

extending plains down-stream;--all these together compose a scene unique

in itself and, though so different, placing Cape Horn in the same gallery

of royal pictures which we have been gathering.

A few miles below Cape Horn it becomes apparent that we are about to issue

from the mountain pass. The heights have fallen away. Deep valleys appear

and many habitations attest the cultivable character of the region. But as

if to show that she has not exhausted her resources, wonder-working Nature

has set one more masterpiece in the long line, and this is Rooster Rock,

with a mighty rampart of rock adjoining and closing the southern horizon.

Together they mark the western limit of the mountains. That rampart, which

was once well named Cape Eternity, though the name does not seem to have

been preserved, is a sheer massive precipice of a thousand feet. Though

not nearly so high as some of the cliffs above, it is not surpassed by any

for the appearance of solid and massive power. Rooster Rock is

distinguished by a singular and exquisite beauty, rather than magnitude or

grandeur. It is only three hundred and fifty feet high, but in form and

colour and alternation of rock and trees it is the most beautiful object

on the River.

With a farewell to Cape Eternity and Rooster Rock we are out of the

mountains, and this stage of our long journey is at an end. If we were to

compare the section of the River which we have described in this chapter

with other great scenes in our country, we would say that this section of

the Columbia from Paha Cliffs to Rooster Rock possesses a greater variety

than any other. Chelan has loftier cliffs, clearer and deeper water, and a

certain chaotic and elemental energy beyond comparison. The Yellowstone

has a greater richness of colouring and larger waterfalls, together with

the unique features of the geysers. Yosemite has loftier waterfalls and

has cliffs that in some respects are even more imposing. Puget Sound has

finer distant scenes, with lagoons and channels and archipelagoes. Each of

these grand exhibitions of nature's works is equal or even superior to the

Columbia Gorge in some special feature. But the River has every feature.

It has cliffs and mountains and waterfalls and cataracts, valleys and

forests, broad marine views near and distant, colour and form, shore and

sky, earth and air and water, a commingling of all elements of beauty,

grandeur, and physical interest. Add to this, that, up or down, the broad

waters of the River are accessible to every form of floating craft, and

that Portland, one of the most beautiful and progressive cities of the

West, destined to become one of the great cities of the world, sits at the

very gates of admission to this symposium of grandeurs and wonders, and we

have such an aggregation of charms that we may well suppose that all the

other great scenic regions would bow before our great River and

acknowledge him as the king of all.

[Illustration: Cape Horn, Columbia River--Looking Up. Photo. by E. H.

Moorehouse, Portland.]

CHAPTER V

A Side Trip to Some of the Great Snow-Peaks

Attractions of our Mountain Peaks--Relations to the Rivers--Locations

of the Greatest and their Positions with Regard to the Cities and the

Routes of Travel--The Mountain Clubs--The Peaks, Especially Belonging

to the River: Hood, Adams, and St. Helens--A Journey to Hood--Beauty

of the Approach through Hood River Valley--Lost Lake--Cloud-Cap Inn

and Elliot Glacier--Extreme Steepness of the Ascent--Magnificence of

the View--Mt. Adams--The Hunting and Fishing--The Glaciers--The

Vegetation about the Snow-Line--The Night Storm--Morning and the

Ascent--Views Around, Up, Down--Ascent by the Mazama Club in 1902 and

the Transformation Scene--General Similarity of Ascent of our

Peaks--Zones of a Snow-Peak.

"_Nesika Klatawa Sahale_"

Most countries have rivers of beauty and grandeur; many have lakes of

scenic charm; many have hills and mountain chains; but there is only one

country in the United States that has all of these features, and, in

addition, a number of isolated giant peaks, clad in permanent ice and

snow. That country is the Pacific North-west. Throughout Oregon and

Washington and extending partly through California is a series of volcanic

peaks which gather within themselves every feature of natural beauty,

sublimity, and wonder.

The fifteen most conspicuous of these peaks, beginning with Baker or

Kulshan on the north, and ending with Pitt on the south, are spaced at

nearly regular intervals of from thirty to fifty miles, except for the one

group of the Three Sisters, which, though distinct peaks, are separated

only by narrow valleys. Most of these great peaks are somewhat remote from

the cities or the great routes of public travel, and hence are not easily

accessible to ordinary tourists. None of them, except Hood and Rainier or

Tacoma, possesses hotel accommodations. The natives are more accustomed to

"roughing it," and braving the wilderness than most Eastern people are,

and hence many parties go annually from the chief cities of Oregon and

Washington to the great peaks. Some of them, as Glacier Peak and Shuksan,

are so environed with mountain ramparts and almost impassable canyons as to

be practically unknown. The most approachable and the most visited are

Hood, Rainier, and Adams.

[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia River from the Cliff above

Multnomah Falls, Ore. (Copyright, Kiser Photograph Co., 1902.)]

The greatest influence in organising visits to these mountains, and in

cultivating an appreciation of them among the people of the region, as

well as in informing the world regarding them, has existed in the mountain

clubs. The chief of these are the Mazama (Wild Goat) Club of Portland and

the Mountaineers of Seattle. Membership is not confined to those two

cities, though mainly located there. The Mazama Club may be called the

historic mountain climber's club, and it has done incalculable good in

fostering a love of mountains and in arranging expeditions to them.

The three peaks which may be considered as especially belonging to the

Columbia River are Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. As the traveller on the

River views the unsullied spires and domes of these great temples of

nature, he longs to worship in their more immediate presence. As a logical

consequence of this sentiment, after having floated down the Columbia from

The Dalles to Rooster Rock, we feel that life would be at least partly in

vain if we should fail to plant feet on the topmost snows of at least two

of these great heights.

We will first visit Hood. Though not the highest, this is the boldest and

most picturesque of all. Moreover by reason of its location, seen

conspicuously as it is from Portland and the Willamette Valley, and

because of its nearness to the old immigrant road into Oregon, Hood was

the first noticed, and the most often described, painted, and berhymed of

any of the wintry brotherhood. As the Puget Sound region became settled,

and great cities began to grow up there, Mt. Rainier ("Takhoma") began to

be a rival in popular estimation. When measurements showed that Rainier

was three thousand feet higher, and Adams over one thousand feet higher

than the idolised Hood, a wail of grief arose from the Oregonians, and for

a time they could hardly be reconciled. But as they became adjusted to the

situation, they planted themselves upon the proposition that, though Hood

was not the highest, it was the most beautiful, and that its surroundings

were superior to those of any other. For this proposition there is much to

be said, though, in truth, we must accept the dictum of Dogberry that

"comparisons are odorous"

The usual approach to Mt. Hood by the Hood River route is indeed of

striking attractiveness. This picturesque orchard valley is like an avenue

of flowers leading to a marble temple. One of the finest points in the

vicinity of Hood River, seldom visited because it is off the road and

buried in forests, is Lost Lake. Perhaps the grandest view of Mt. Hood is

from this lake. The bold pinnacle, rising out of the broad fields of snow,

they in turn most wondrously encircled in forests of rich hue, is mirrored

in the clear water with a perfectness that scarcely can be matched among

the many lakes of its kind in all the land. In these days of swift

transit, Hood River keeps up with the procession, for there is a regular

automobile line from the town to Cloud-Cap Inn at the snow-line of the

great peak, twenty-four miles distant. The distance, though it represents

a rise of seven thousand feet, is traversed all too quickly to fully enjoy

the valley, filled with its orchards, and rising in regular gradation from

the heat of the lower end to the bracing cold of the upper air. In

Cloud-Cap Inn the traveller may find the daintiest, most unique specimen

of a mountain resort in our mountains. The Inn is owned by a wealthy

Portland man, and is maintained rather as an attraction to visitors than

with the expectation of making money.

[Illustration: Spokane Falls and City, 1886. Photo. by T. W. Tolman,

Spokane.]

[Illustration: Spokane Falls and City, 1908. Photo. by T. W. Tolman,

Spokane.]

From the Inn one can climb in a few minutes to Photographer's Point, from

which he can look right down on the Elliot Glacier, not a large, but an

exceedingly fine specimen of that most interesting of all features of a

great peak.

Hood, though so steep, can be ascended from several points. It was for a

long time supposed to be unscalable from the north side. But William

Langille, one of the most daring and successful mountain climbers of

Oregon, soon found his way up the sharp ascent, and, once marked out, that

route has been followed by the great majority of climbers. Though very

steep, there has never been an accident on this route except in one case,

when a stranger undertook the climb alone and never returned. He probably

lost his footing and fell into a crevasse. With the usual precautions of

ropes and ice hatchets and caulks, a party can make their way over the

steep slope, and its very steepness makes the ascent quicker and less

exhaustive than to overcome the longer and more gradual ascents of Adams

or "Takhoma." While it takes but about four or five hours for an average

party to go from snow-line to summit of Hood, either of the other

mountains named demands from seven to ten hours.

And having reached the summit, what a view! If the day be entirely

clear--a rare occurrence--you will behold a domain for an empire. On the

south, the long line of the Cascades, with the occasional great heights,

Jefferson, Three Sisters, Thielson, Diamond, Scott, and, if it be very

clear, even Pitt. To the north, the giant bulk of Adams, the airy symmetry

of St. Helens, and the lordly majesty of Rainier, rule sky and earth,

while in mazy undulations the great range, alternately purple and white,

stretches on and on until it blends into the clouds.

Seemingly almost at the feet of the observer, a dark green sinuosity amid

the timbered hills, now strangely flattened, as we stand so high above

them, marks the course of the River on its march oceanward. If the day be

very clear, a whitish blur far westward shows where the "Rose City" on the

Willamette reigns over her fair domains, while a dim stretch of varied

hues denotes the Willamette Valley. Some climbers have even asserted that

late in the afternoon of extremely clear days the glint of the western sun

can be seen upon the Pacific, a hundred and fifty miles distant. Toward

the east lie the vast plains of the Inland Empire, marked at their farther

limit by the soft curves and lazy swells of the range of the Blue

Mountains.

While it is an ungracious and even a fruitless undertaking to compare such

objects as the great mountains or the views from the respective summits,

it may be said that Hood has one conspicuous feature of the view, and that

is that it is nearest the centre of the great mountain peaks, as well as

systems, and also best commands the outlook over the great valley systems

and river systems of this part of the Columbia Basin. And therefore,

though the view is not equal in breadth to that from the summit of Adams

or Rainier, it is unsurpassed for variety and interest. It may be said to

cover more history than the view from any other peak. Across the southern

flank lies the old Barlow Road, over which came the greater part of the

immigration in the days of the ox-team conquest of Oregon in the forties

and fifties. Thirty miles east is The Dalles with its old fur-trader's

station, its old United States fort, its mission station, its Indian wars,

its early settlement, the most historic place in Eastern Oregon. From the

old town, during all the years from the opening of the century, there

descended the River the trappers, missionaries, immigrants, miners,

soldiers, hunters, home-seekers, of a later day, adventurers and promoters

of every species, to say nothing of the generations of Indians who lived

and died along the banks.

To the west of our icy eyrie, Portland and Vancouver, with the rich

valleys around them, represent the earliest explorations and developments

of the fur-traders, as well as the earliest days of the era of permanent

settlement. There in the westward haze is the little town of Champoeg

where the Provisional Government of Oregon was established. In fact, in

whatsoever direction we may look, we see illustrations of the heroic age

of Old Oregon, the drama of native races, rival powers of Europe and

America, the march of empire, a section of humanity and the world in the

making.

When our visit to Hood is ended we must cross the River and traverse

another paradise, the White Salmon Valley, leading to Mt. Adams, the old

Indian Klickitat. Adams is in such a position that its true elevation and

magnitude cannot be understood from Portland or The Dalles or most of the

routes of travel. Therefore until comparatively recent times it was

generally supposed that Adams was an insignificant mountain in comparison

with Hood, which looms up with such imposing grandeur from every point

along the chief highways of commerce. It was discovered by the Mazama Club

in 1896 that Adams carried his regal crown at a height of twelve thousand

four hundred and seventy feet above the level of the sea, while the

previously established height of Hood was only eleven thousand two hundred

and twenty-five. Since then Adams has been held in much greater respect by

mountain lovers, and many journeys have been made to and on it.

Around Mt. Adams is a region of caves. As one rides through the open

glades he may often hear the ground rumble beneath his horse's hoofs.

Mouths of Avernus yawn on every side. Some caverns have sunken in, leaving

serpentine ravines. One cave has been traced three miles without finding

the end. Some of these caves are partially filled with ice. There is one

in particular, fifteen miles south-west of the mountain, which is known as

Ice Cave. This is very small, not over four hundred feet long, but it is a

marvel of unique beauty. Its external appearance is that of a huge well,

at whose edge are bunches of nodding flowers, and from whose dark depths

issue sudden chilly gusts. Descending by means of a knotty young tree

which previous visitors have let down, we find ourselves on a floor of

ice. The glare of pitch-pine torches reveals a weird and beautiful scene.

A perfect forest of icicles of both the stalactite and stalagmite forms

fills the cave. They are from ten to fifteen feet in length and from one

to three in diameter. From some points of view they look like silvered

organ-pipes.

These caves have been formed in some cases by chambers of steam or bubbles

in the yet pasty rock which hardened enough to maintain their form upon

the condensation of the vapour. Others were doubtless produced by a tongue

of lava as it collected slag and hardened rock upon its moving edge,

rising up and curling over like a breaker on the sand. Only the "cave of

flint" instead of turning into a "retreating cloud" had enough solid

matter to sustain the arch and so became permanent. Others were no doubt

formed by pyroducts. A tongue of flowing lava hardens on the surface. The

interior remains fluid. It may continue running until the tongue is all

emptied, leaving a cavern. Such a cavern, whose upper end reaches the cold

air of the mountains, might be like a chimney, down which freezing air

would descend, turning into ice the water that trickled into the cave,

even at the lower end.

For sport, the region about Mt. Adams is unsurpassed. The elk, three kinds

of deer, the magnificent mule deer, the black-tail, and the graceful

little white-tail, two species of bear, the cinnamon and black, the daring

and ubiquitous mountain goat, quail, grouse, pheasants, ducks, and cranes,

are among the attractions to the hunter. Of late years great bands of

sheep have driven the game somewhat from the south and east sides. In the

grassy glades that encircle the snowy pile of Adams no vexatious

undergrowth impedes the gallop of our fleet cayuse pony or obscures our

vision. On the background of fragrant greenery the "dun deer's hide" is

thrown with statuesque distinctness, and among the low trees the whirring

grouse is easily discerned. Nor is the disciple of Nimrod alone

considered. After our hunt we may move to Trout Lake, and here the very

ghost of the lamented Walton might come as to a paradise. Trout Lake is a

shallow pool half a mile in length, encircled with pleasant groves and

grassy glades, marred now, however, by the encroachment of ranches. Into

it there come at intervals from the ice-cold mountain inlet perfect shoals

of the most gamey and delicious trout. On rafts, or the two or three rude

skiffs that have been placed there, one may find all piscatorial joys and

may abundantly supply his larder free of cost. A few ranches here and

there furnish accommodations for those who are too delicate to rest on the

bosom of Mother Earth. But no extended trip can be taken without

committing oneself to the wilderness delights of sleeping with star-dials

for roof and flickering camp-fire for hearth. And what healthy human being

would exchange those for the feverish, pampered life of the modern house?

Let us have the barbarism, and with it the bounding pulses and exuberant

life of the wilderness.

[Illustration: In the Heart of the Cascade Mountains, above Lake Chelan,

Wash. Photo. by T. W. Tolman, Spokane.]

But now, with stomachs and knapsacks filled, and with that pervasive sense

of contentment which characterises the successful hunter and angler, we

must get up our cayuse ponies from their pastures on the rich grass of the

open woods, saddle up, and then off for the mountain, whose giant form now

overtops the very clouds. About two miles from Trout Lake the trail

crosses the White Salmon, and we find ourselves at the foot of the

mountain. For eight miles we follow a trail through open woods, park-like,

with huge pines at irregular intervals, and vivid grass and flowers

between, a fair scene, the native home of every kind of game.

As we journey on delightedly through these glades, rising, terrace after

terrace, we can read the history of the mountain in the rock beneath our

feet and the expanding plains and hills below. All within the ancient

amphitheatre is volcanic. There are four main summits, a central dome,

vast, symmetrical, majestic, pure-white against the blue-black sky of its

unsullied height. The three other peaks are broken crags of basalt,

leaning as for support against the mighty mass at the centre. Around the

snow-line of the mountain many minor cones have been blown up. These have

the most gaudy and brilliant colouring, mainly yellow and vermilion. One

on the south-east is especially noticeable. From a deep canyon it rises

two thousand feet as steep as broken scoriae can lie. The main part is

bright red, surmounted by a circular cliff of black rock. Probably the old

funnel of the crater became filled with black rock, which, cooling, formed

a solid core. The older material around it having crumbled away, it

remains a solid shaft.

But fire has not wrought all the wonders of the mighty peak. Ice has been

most active. The mountain was once completely girdled with glaciers. Rocks

are scratched and grooved five miles below the present snow-line. The

ridges are strewn with planed rocks and glacial shavings and coarse sand.

Some of the monticules on the flanks of the mountain have been partially

cut away. Many have been entirely obliterated. But the ice has now greatly

receded. Instead of a complete enswathement of ice there are some six or

seven distinct glaciers, separated by sharp ridges, while the region

formerly the chief home of the ice is now a series of Alpine meadows. Like

most of the snow peaks, Mt. Adams is rudely terraced, and the terraces are

separated into compartments by ridges, forming scores and hundreds of

glades and meads. In some of these are circular ponds, from a few square

rods to several acres in area. These lakes are found by the hundred around

the mountain and in the region north of it. They are one of the charms and

wonders of the country. About most of them tall grass crowds to the very

edge of the water. Scattered trees diversify the scene. Throughout these

glades flow innumerable streams, descending from level to level in

picturesque cascades, and composed of water so cold and sparkling that the

very memory of it cools the after thirst. Sometimes the tough turf grows

clear over, making a verdant tunnel through which "the tinkling waters

slip." Here and there streams spout full-grown from frowning precipices.

[Illustration: Birch-Tree Channel; Upper Columbia, Near Golden, B. C.

Photo. by C. F. Yates, Golden.]

But we are not content to stand below and gaze "upward to that height." We

must needs ascend. In climbing a snow peak a great deal depends on making

camp at a good height and getting a very early start. By a little

searching one may find good camping places at an elevation of seven

thousand or even eight thousand feet altitude. This leaves only four

thousand or five thousand feet to climb on the great day, and by starting

at about four o'clock a party may have sixteen hours of daylight. This is

enough, if there be no accidents, to enable any sound man of average

muscle,--or woman either, if she be properly dressed for it,--to gain the

mighty dome of Adams.

At the time of our last ascent we camped high on a great ridge on the

south side of the mountain, having for shelter a thick copse of dwarf

firs. So fiercely had the winds of centuries swept this exposed point that

the trees did not stand erect, but lay horizontal from west to east.

With pulses bounding from the exhilarating air, and our whole systems

glowing with the exercise and the wild game of the preceding week, we

stretch ourselves out for sleep, while the stars blaze from infinite

heights, and our uneasy camp-fire strives fitfully with the icy air which

at nightfall always slides down the mountain side.

Sweet sleep till midnight, and then we found ourselves awake all at once

with a unanimity which at first we scarcely understood, but which a

moment's observation made clear enough. A regular mountain gale had

suddenly broken upon us. It had waked us up by nearly blowing us out of

bed. Our camp-fire was aroused to newness of life by the gale, and the

huge fire-brands flew down the mountain side, igniting pitchy thickets,

until a fitful glare illuminated the lonely and savage grandeur of the

scene. The whole sky seemed in motion. Then a cloud struck us. Night,

glittering as she was a moment before with her tiaras of stars, was

suddenly transformed into a dull, whitish blur. The vapour formed at once

into thick drops on the trees and was precipitated in turn on us.

Occasional sleet and snowflakes struck us with almost the sting of flying

sand when we ventured to peep out. Covering ourselves up, heads and all,

we crowded against each other and grimly went to sleep.

We woke again, chattering with cold, to find it perfectly calm. The

morning star was blazing over the spot where day was about to break. The

sky was absolutely clear, not a mote on its whole concavity. The wind had

swept and burnished it. The mountain towered above us cold and sharp as a

crystal. There was a still, solemn majesty about it in the keen air and

early light which struck us with a thrill of fear. The light just before

daybreak is far more exact than the scarlet splendour of morning or the

blinding blaze of noon. The world below us was a level sea of clouds. We

seemed to be on an island of snow and rock, or on a small planetoid

winging its own way in space. Yet beyond the puncturing top of a few of

the Simcoe peaks a wavering line that just touched the glowing eastern

sky, told of clear weather a hundred leagues up the basin of the

Columbia. Out of the ocean of cloud, the great peaks of Hood and St.

Helens rose, cold and white, like icebergs on an Arctic sea.

[Illustration: A Typical Mountain Meadow, Stehekin Valley, Wash. Photo. by

T. W. Tolman, Spokane.]

Coffee, ham, and hardtack, and then out on the ice and snow, just as the

first warm flush of morning is gilding the mighty mass above us. The snow,

hardened by the freezing morning, affords excellent footing, and in the

sharp, bracing air we feel capable of any effort. We gain the summit of a

bright red knob, one of the secondary volcanoes that girdle the mountain.

At its peak are purple stones piled up like an altar, as indeed it is,

though the incense from it is not of human kindling. The sun is not fairly

up, but from below the horizon it splits the hemisphere of the sky into a

hundred segments by its auroral flashes. And now we begin to climb a

volcanic ridge, rising like a huge stairway, with blocks of stone as large

as a piano. This is a tongue of lava, very recent, insomuch that it shows

no glacial markings, and yet enough soil has accumulated upon it to

support vegetation. It can be seen, a dull red river, three hundred yards

wide, extending far down the mountain side. How well the old Greek poet

described the process that must have taken place here: "AEtna, pillar of

heaven, nurse of snow, with fountains of fire; a river of fire, bearing

down rocks with a crashing sound to the deep sea."

The ridge becomes very steep, at an angle of probably thirty-five or forty

degrees, and we climb on all fours from one rock to another. At last we

draw ourselves up a huge wedge of phonolite and find ourselves at the

summit of the first peak. Six hundred yards beyond, muffled in white

silence, rises the great dome. It is probably five hundred feet higher

than the first peak. To reach it we climb a bare, steep ridge of shaly,

frost-shattered rock, in which we sink ankle deep, a difficult and even

painful task with the laboured breathing of twelve thousand feet altitude.

But patience conquers, and at about noon, seven hours and a half from the

time of starting, we stand on the very tip of the mountain. Ten minutes

panting in the cold wind and then we are ready to look around. Within the

circle of our vision is an area for an empire. Northward is a wilderness

of mountains. High above all, Mt. Rainier lifts his white crown unbroken

to the only majesty above him, the sky. The western horizon, more hazy

than the eastern, is punctuated by the smooth dome and steely glitter of

Mt. St. Helens. Far southward, across a wilderness of broken heights,

rises the sharp pinnacle of Mt. Hood, and far beyond that, its younger

brother, Jefferson. Still beyond, are the Alpine peaks of the Three

Sisters, nearly two hundred miles distant. Our vision sweeps a circle

whose diameter is probably five hundred miles. Far westward the white haze

betokens the presence of the sea. A deep blue line north-eastward, far

beyond the smooth dome of St. Helens, stands for Puget Sound. Numerous

lakes gleam in woody solitudes.

Having looked around, let us now look down. On the eastern side the

mountain breaks off in a monstrous chasm of probably four thousand feet,

most of it perpendicular. We crawl as we draw near it. Lying down in turn,

secured by ropes held behind, fearful as much of the mystic attraction of

the abyss as of the slippery snow, we peep over the awful verge. Take

your turn, gentle reader, if you would know what it seems to gaze down

almost a mile of nearly perpendicular distance. Points of rock jut out

from the pile and eye us darkly. That icy floor nearly a mile below us is

the Klickitat glacier. From beneath it a milk-white stream issues and

crawls off amid the rocky desolation. At the very edge of the great

precipice stands a cone of ice a hundred feet high. Green, blue, yellow,

red, and golden, the colours play with the circling sunbeams on its

slippery surface, until one is ready to believe that here is where

rainbows are made. We roll some rocks from a wind-swept point, and then

shudder to see them go. They are lost to the eye as their noise to the

ear, long before they cease to roll. Silence reigns. There is no echo. The

thin air makes the voice sound weak. Our loudest shouts are brief bubbles

of noise in the infinite space. A pistol shot is only a puff of powder.

Even the rocks we set off are swallowed up and we get no response but the

first reluctant clank as they grind the lip of the precipice. Nor do we

care much for boisterous sounds. We are impelled rather to silence and

worship.

[Illustration: High School, Walla Walla, Wash. Photo. by W. D. Chapman,

Walla Walla.]

But now once more to earth and camp! For pure exhilaration, commend me to

descending a snow peak. For a good part of Mt. Adams one may descend in

huge jumps through the loose scoriae and volcanic ashes. Some of the way

one may slide on the crusty snow, a perfect whiz of descent. How the thin

wind cuts past us, and how our frames glow with the dizzy speed! Such a

manner of descent is not altogether safe. As we are going in one place

with flying jumps on the softening snow, a chasm suddenly appears before

us. It looks ten feet wide, and how deep, no one could guess. To stop is

out of the question. We make a wild bound and clear it, catching a

momentary glance into the bluish-green crack as we fly across. We make the

descent in an incredibly short time, only a little more than an hour,

whereas it took us over seven hours to ascend. And then the rest and

mighty feasts of camp, and the abundant and mountainous yarns, and the

roaring camp-fire, whose shadows flicker on the solemn snow-fields, until

the stars claim the heavens, and, while the wailing cry of the cougars

rises from a jungle far below us, we sleep and perform again in dreams the

day's exploits.

Of all scenes in connection with Mt. Adams, the most remarkable in all the

experience of those who witnessed it, and one of those rare combinations

which the sublimest aspects of nature afford, was at the time of the

outing of the Mazama Club in 1902. The party had reached the summit in a

dense fog, cold, bitter, forbidding, and nothing whatever to be seen. All

was a dull, whitish blur. In the bitter chill the enthusiasm of some of

the climbers evaporated and they turned away down the snowy waste. Others

remained in the hope of a vanishing of the cloud-cap. And suddenly their

hopes were realised. A marvellous transformation scene was unveiled like

the lifting of a vast curtain. The cloud-cap was split asunder. The great

red and black pinnacles of the summit sprung forth from the mist like the

first lines in a developing photographic plate. Then the glistening tiaras

and thrones of ice and snow caught the gleams of the unveiled sun, and lo,

there we stood in mid-heaven, seemingly upon an island in space, with no

earth about us, just the sun and the sky above and a great swaying ocean

of fog below. But now suddenly that ocean of fog was rent and split. The

ardent sun burned and banished it away. Mountain peak after peak caught

the glory. Range after range seemed to rise and stand in battle array. The

transformation was complete. A moment before we were swathed in the

densest cloud-cap, blinded with the fog. Now we were standing on a mount

of transfiguration, with a new world below us. Every vestige of smoke or

fog was gone. We could see the shimmer of the ocean to the west, the

glistening bands of Puget Sound and the Columbia. Far eastward the plains

of the Inland Empire lay palpitating in the July sun. The whole long line

of the great snow-peaks of the Cascades were there revealed, the farthest

a mere speck, yet distinctly discernible, two hundred miles distant. One

unaccustomed to the mountains would not believe it possible that such an

area could be caught within the vision from a single point.

[Illustration: Lake Chelan. Photo. by F. N. Kneeland.]

It may be understood that the description of one of our great snow-peaks

is, in general terms, a description of all. With every one there are the

same azure skies, the same snow-caps, the same crevassed and glistening

rivers of ice, the same long ridges with their intervening grassy and

flowery meads, purling streams, and reflecting lakes. With the name of

each there rises before Mazama or Mountaineer the remembrance of the camp

of clouds or stars upon the edge of snow-bank, the sound of the bugle at

two o'clock in the morning of the great climb, the hastily swallowed

breakfast of coffee and ham, while climbers stand shivering around the

flickering morning fire, the approaching day with its banners of crimson

behind the heights, the daubing of faces with grease-paint and the

putting on of goggles, amid shouts of laughter from each at the grotesque

and picturesque ugliness of all the others, then the hastily grasped

alpenstocks, the forming in line, and at about four o'clock, while the

first rays of the sun are gilding the summit, the word of command and the

beginning of the march.

Each great peak has its zones, so significant that each seems a world in

itself. There is first the zone of summer with its fir and cedar forests

at the base of the peak, from a thousand feet to twenty-five hundred above

sea-level. In the case of most of our great peaks this zone consists of

long gentle slopes and dense forests, with much undergrowth, though on the

eastern sides there are frequently wide-open spaces of grassy prairie.

Then comes the zone of pine forest and summer strawberry, with its

fragrant air and long glades of grass and open aisles of columned trees,

"God's first temples," pellucid streams babbling over pebbles and white

sands, and occasionally falling in cascades over ledges of volcanic rock.

This zone rises in terraces which attest the ancient lava flow, at an

increasing grade over the first, though at most points one might still

drive a carriage through the open pine forests. Then comes the third zone,

a zone of parks. The large pine trees now give way to the belts of

subalpine fir and mountain pine and larch, exquisite for beauty, enclosing

the parks and grouped here and there in clumps like those in some old

baronial estate of feudal times. This is the zone of rhododendron,

shushula, phlox, and painted brush. Through the open glades the ptarmigan

and deer wander, formerly unafraid of man, but now, alas, under the ban

of civilisation. The upward slope has now increased to twenty or

twenty-five degrees, and to a party of climbers a frequent rest and the

quaffing of the ice-cold stream that dashes through the woods afford a

happy feature of the ascent. At the upper edge of this zone, at an

elevation of probably seven thousand feet, beside some dashing stream or

some clear pool, fed from the snows above, is the place for the camp. And

such a camp! Oh, the beauty of such an unspoiled spot!

[Illustration: On the Banks of the Columbia River, near Hood River. Photo.

by E. H. Moorehouse.]

It is from such a camp at the upper edge of the paradise zone that a party

sets forth at the four o'clock hour to attain the highest. So the march on

the great day of a final climb carries us at once into a fourth zone. This

is the zone of avalanche and glacier, the zone of elemental fury and

warfare, a zone of ever-steepening ascent, thirty degrees, a zone of

almost winter cold at night, but with such a dazzling brightness and

fervour in the day as turns the snow-banks to slush and sends the

fountains tearing and cutting across the glaciers and triturating the

moraines. Vegetation has now almost ceased, though the heather still

drapes the ledges on the eastern or southern exposures, and occasionally

one of the tenacious mountain pines upholds the banner of spring in some

sheltered nook. This wind-swept and storm-lashed zone is also the zone of

the wild goats and mountain sheep. On the precipitous ridges and along the

narrow ledges at the margin of glaciers they can be seen bounding away at

the approach of the party, sure-footed and swift at points where the nerve

of the best human climber might fail. This zone carries the climbers to

ten or eleven thousand feet of elevation on the highest peaks. And here

is the place for the Mountaineers and Mazamas to take the half-hour rest

on their arduous march. A sweet rest it is. We pick out some sheltered

place on the eastern slope, and stretch ourselves at full length on the

warm rocks, while the icy wind from the summit goes hurtling above us. And

how good the chocolate and the malted milk and the prunes and raisins of

the scanty lunch taste, while we rest and feel the might of elemental

nature again fill our veins and lungs and hearts.

But then comes a fifth zone, the last, the zone of the Arctic. This is the

zone of the snow-cap. The glaciers are now below. All life has ceased. The

grade has ever steepened, till now it is forty degrees or more. The snow

is hummocked and granulated. Here is where part of the climbers begin to

stop. Legs and lungs fail. Camp looks exceedingly good down there at the

verge of the forests. They feel as though they had lost nothing on the

summit worth going up for. A nausea, mountain sickness, attacks some.

Nosebleed attacks others. Things look serious. Icy mists sometimes begin

to swirl around the presumptous climbers. Frost gathers on hair and

mustache and eyebrows. The unaccustomed or the less ambitious or weaker

lose heart and bid the rest go on, for they will turn toward a more

summer-like clime. Generally about half an ordinary party drop out at this

beginning of the Arctic zone. But the rest shout "Excelsior," take a

firmer grasp of alpenstock, stamp feet more vehemently into the snow, and

with dogged perseverance move step by step up the final height. Inch by

inch, usually in the teeth of a biting gale, leaning forward, and panting

heavily, they force the upward way. And victory at last! There comes a

time when we are on the topmost pinnacle, and there is nothing above us

but the storms and sun. And then what elation! Nothing seems quite to

equal the pure delight of such a triumph of lungs and legs and heart and

will.

[Illustration: Rooster Rock, Columbia River--Looking Up. Photo. by E. H.

Moorehouse, Portland.]

CHAPTER VI

The Lower River and the Ocean Tides

Remarkable Change in Climate and Topography--Farms and Villages--First

View of Mt. Hood on West Side--Vancouver and its Historic

Interest--The North Bank Railroad--View at the Mouth of the

Willamette--Sauvie's or Wapatoo Island--Beauty of the Willamette and

its Tributaries--Simpson's Poem--Approach to Portland--Site of

Portland--Transportation Facilities--Portland's Commerce--Homes and

Public Buildings--Art in Portland--The Historical Society Museum--The

_Oregonian_ and its Editor--Once more on the River--The Fishing and

Lumbering Villages--Scenery of the Lower River--Astoria and the

Outlook to the Ocean--Industries of Astoria--The Fisheries--The Fleet

of Fishing Boats on the Bar--The Ocean Beaches and the Tourist

Travel--Through the Outer Headlands to the Pacific.

Having returned from our side trip to the mountain peaks of Hood and Adams

and having resumed our station on the bank of the River just below Rooster

Rock, we see that we are now in a new world. We are at sea-level. Dense

forests clothe the shores, except for the places where the axe of the

settler or the saws of the lumberman have made inroads. Moss drapes the

rocks. Ferns and vines take possession wherever the trees have been

removed. Even in summer a feeling of humidity usually pervades the air. A

certain softness and roundness seems to characterise both the vegetable

and animal world. The smell of the sea is in the atmosphere, even though

the sea is yet distant. No longer do our eyes wander over boundless

expanses of rolling prairie, crowned to the highest knolls with

wheat-fields, as on the other side of the mountains. The mountains fall

away, and low bottoms, sometimes oozy with the inflowing river or the

creeks from the forests, stretch away in the lazy, hazy distance. The

River no longer flows tumultuously and with that militant energy which is

so characteristic of the long stretches from Kettle Falls to The Dalles.

It has a calm and stately majesty, the repose of accomplished warfare and

victory. It has hewn its way down to the level of the ocean and no longer

needs to fret and storm. It has conquered a peace.

[Illustration: Band of Elk on W. P. Reser's Ranch, Walla Walla, Wash.

Photo. by W. D. Chapman.]

Below Rooster Rock, the shores are flats with low hills in the background,

and the River expands to a width of from one to two miles. If we still

imagine ourselves in a small boat, we find the most delightful of

sensations in gliding past the grassy islands and shores thick with fir or

cottonwood. Or if we choose to take our way to one of the elegant

steamers, _Spencer_ or _Bailey Gatzert_, we shall still partake of the

same life and feel the same sense of repose and contentment which belong

by natural right to this portion of the River.

Soon after leaving Rooster Rock, we begin to pass frequent pleasant farms

on either bank. On the Washington side we see two pretty villages,

Washougal and La Camas. The first has the historical distinction of being

at or nearly at the highest spot reached by the English explorer Broughton

in 1792, and named by him Point Vancouver. La Camas is the location of the

most extensive paper mills in the North-west.

If, while we are in this section of the River and our eyes are bent

eagerly forward to catch the ever-changing shore and river lines, we

happen to glance backward, our gaze is fastened as with a magnet, and for

a moment utterance fails. For what do we see? Glistening white, ethereal,

Mt. Hood rises before us, a vision which, of the many mountain visions

that we have seen, seems the most beautiful. Mt. Hood indeed is the

background of many a noble scene upon the River, but there is none quite

equal in amplitude, in variety, to this,--River, forest, shore, foreground

of timbered hills, Cascade Gorge, distant white and purple chain of

Cascade Mountains, and the volcanic cone overtopping and overawing all.

This view of Mt. Hood from the vicinity of La Camas has perhaps been

oftener the subject of painting than any other.

A few miles below La Camas we reach the most historic and perhaps the most

beautiful spot upon the Columbia, Vancouver. As the capital for twenty

years of the Hudson's Bay Company's Fur Empire, associated with the name

of Dr. John McLoughlin, the centre of almost every event of importance in

the early history, connected with both American and British occupation,

and later as the location of the United States military post and

preserving the names of Grant, Sheridan, McClellan, Hooker, and others of

our famous generals, Vancouver has indeed a rich historic setting. But

aside from such associations with the past, every tourist must note the

location of Vancouver as one of rare beauty. In fact, the spot is almost

ideal for a great city. The splendid River, a mile and a half in width,

offers limitless facilities for shipping, while, beginning at the water's

edge, a gradually rising slope of land extends in a superb swell several

miles to the north. Every feature of scenery that could delight the

eye--Mt. Hood with the Cascades to the east, the Willamette Valley to the

south, the Portland and Scappoose hills to the west, the River blending

all--seems to have been lavished on Vancouver. It has been a surprise to

many that the great city had not grown here rather than at Portland,

which, though on an equally fine location, is on the tributary and much

smaller Willamette. The chief reasons of this were the nearer proximity of

Portland to the rich farming country of the Tualatin and the presence in

the Columbia a mile below Vancouver of a sand-bar which embarrassed

shipping. This is now removed.

[Illustration: Oregon City in 1845. From an Old Print.]

[Illustration: Fort Vancouver in 1845.]

At Vancouver the newly-built "North Bank" Railroad (Spokane, Portland, and

Seattle) has constructed across the Columbia a bridge a mile and three

quarters in length, said to be the largest and costliest of its kind in

the world. This same railroad has also bridged the Willamette a few miles

west of Vancouver, thus effecting an entrance to Portland. This railroad

is one of the most interesting and remarkable undertakings of the age. It

is said that its cost from Spokane to Portland exceeded forty million

dollars. Vancouver expects much from this road, even anticipating that

much of the shipping hitherto centring in Portland will be diverted to the

larger river. However that may prove, it is plain that Vancouver has the

promise as well as the memory of great things.

Six miles west of Vancouver is one of those imposing scenes in which our

River so abounds. This is the junction of the Willamette with the

Columbia. This spot was noted by Broughton in 1792 as one of exceptional

beauty, and to it he attached the name Belle Vue Point. It is indeed a

combination of both historical and scenic interest. The Willamette steals

shyly and coquettishly through green islands to fall into the strong arms

of the stately Columbia. The western arm of the Willamette, commonly

called the "Slough," joins the Columbia eighteen miles below at the

picturesque little town of St. Helens. Between the Columbia and the Slough

lies Sauvie's Island, named from a Hudson's Bay man, and famous throughout

Hudson's Bay times as well as Indian times. The island was the seat of

power of the Multnomah tribe. The scene of the book known as the _Bridge

of the Gods_ by Frederick Balch is mainly upon this island, and in that

book will be found some glowing descriptions of this beauty spot. To the

Indians it was known as Wapatoo Island. In the ponds grew the plant called

the wapatoo, an onion-like root, very nutritious and palatable, and, with

salmon, constituting the chief food of the natives. Not only so, but the

Multnomah Indians used the wapatoo as a commercial stock, carrying on

regular trade with both the coast and the up-river tribes.

According to the early explorers there were great annual fairs on Wapatoo

Island, when Indians from ocean beach, from valley, from mountains, and

from River, both up and down, would gather to exchange products, to

gamble, race horses and boats, and have a general period of hilarity and

good fellowship.

The gathering of the wapatoos developed upon the patient "klootchmen"

(women) of the tribe. They would go out in canoes to the shallow water

where the roots grew and then, stripping naked, would hang over the side

of the boat and dislodge the wapatoos with their toes from the soft mud.

Soon the surface would be covered with the floating roots. The squaws

would gather these into the canoes. Then they would move to another place

for another load. Sometimes they would spend almost the whole day in the

water. The wapatoo still grows in the ponds and lagoons of the island.

These ponds formerly abounded in ducks and geese and cranes and swans.

Even yet there is fine hunting. During the damp soft days of the Oregon

winter, the Nimrods of Portland betake themselves thither in great

numbers.

[Illustration: Lone Rock, Columbia River, about Fifty Miles East of

Portland. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland.]

From the steamer, as we enter the mouth of the Willamette, or from the

greater elevation of the lighthouse, one may command one of the lordliest

views that even this land of lordly views affords. Five snow-peaks, Hood,

Rainier-Tacoma, St. Helens, Adams, and Jefferson, rise snow white from the

purple forests of the Cascade Range. Up the Columbia the great gorge

through which we have passed stands open to view, while down-river the

sinuous and hazy lines of low-lying shore betoken the nearer proximity of

the ocean. Up the Willamette, enchanting islands, with low watery shores,

occupy the foreground, while a short distance back from the western bank,

a chain of picturesque hills, heavily timbered, encloses the vista. On the

east side a low bench with bluffy promontories, crowned with the beautiful

smooth-barked madrona tree, rises from the green meadows.

If we could, from so fair an entrance, ascend the Willamette to its source

in the Cascade Mountains two hundred miles away, and if we could turn

into the Tualatin, the Yamhill, the Clackamas, the Molalla, the La

Creole, the Santiam, the Calapooia, affluents worthy of union with the

Willamette, and if we could tarry among the vales and meadows and

oak-crowned hills and distant Coast and Cascade ranges of mountains, all

across that superb valley, fifty miles wide by a hundred and fifty long,

as beautiful as Greece or Italy,--we would then all agree that the

Willamette deserves a volume by itself and that it is almost a crime to

introduce it so briefly here. Every old Oregonian, in thinking of the

Willamette, at once associates it with the apostrophe to it by S. L.

Simpson, the gifted and unfortunate poet of Oregon, whose genius deserved

a wider recognition than it ever received. The first stanza of his poem is

this:

From the Cascades' frozen gorges,

Leaping like a child at play,

Winding, widening through the valley,

Bright Willamette glides away.

Onward ever, lovely River,

Softly calling to the sea,

Time that scars us, maims and mars us,

Leaves no track or trench on thee.

And now that we have fairly entered the Willamette, it becomes speedily

evident that we are in the near vicinity of a large and prosperous city.

Steamboats, an occasional steamship, sailing ships, sometimes huge

four-masted steel ships towed by coughing tugs, long booms of logs in tow

of some spluttering stern-wheeler, scows of every description, gasoline

launches, rowboats,--a motley fleet, they seem to be making they way with

all possible haste upon the stream.

[Illustration: Willamette Falls, Oregon City, Ore. Photo. by E. H.

Moorehouse.]

We are indeed approaching Portland, the metropolis of the Columbia, the

"Rose City," in many respects the most interesting and attractive of

Western cities. The approach to Portland is one hard to match for stately

beauty. The city occupies both sides of the Willamette, the main business

part on the west side, but the larger residence part on the east.

The first settler on the original site of Portland was a man named

Overton. Lownsdale, Chapman, and Lovejoy bought him out. Then Captain John

H. Couch in 1845 located a donation land claim on what is now the northern

part of the west side city. At that time the site was somewhat cut up with

gulches and clothed in the densest of dense forests, with perfect jungles

of every species of undergrowth. But duller eyes than those of the gallant

mariners, Couch, Flanders, Ainsworth, Pettygrove, and Lovejoy, could have

seen beneath the tangled thickets the making of a city, though it may well

be questioned whether even they, in their wildest flights of fancy, ever

pictured the scene of to-day, where the city of these sixty years'

building now sits, a queen upon her circling throne of hills. The location

of Portland is almost ideal. The hills to the west rise to a height of

about eight hundred feet, but many fine homes are located there, and car

lines cross the hills in many directions. Above the fogs and smoke these

high-line homes have every possible charm. On the east side of the

Willamette the land is a level bench with limitless room for expansion.

There are a few picturesque elevations on the east side, as Mt. Tabor and

Mt. Scott, and these have been used for homes with the taste which

characterises the entire city.

Portland is the centre of every species of transportation facility. It has

one of the most extensive and well-equipped electric railway systems in

the United States. In addition to the urban lines, there are interurban

lines in every direction, to Vancouver, Troutdale, Oregon City, Milwaukee,

Hillsboro, and Salem, the last named the capital of the State and fifty

miles distant. We find also that four transcontinental railroads have a

terminus in Portland, the Southern Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the

Union Pacific, and the Great Northern. Steamship lines run to Alaska,

Puget Sound, San Francisco and other California ports, to all the

coastwise ports of Oregon, to the Hawaiian Islands and the Orient, and to

Mexico and South America. Sailing ships convey the products of the

North-west to all the ports of the world.

As a result of these facilities for commerce we find such figures as the

following: During the year 1907 there entered and cleared at Portland

twelve hundred and twenty ocean-going vessels, registering more than

1,700,000 tons, net, and with a carrying capacity of 3,500,000 tons. In

the cargoes of this total, were 175,000,000 feet of lumber and 18,000,000

bushels of wheat, flour included. Portland has in fact reached the front

rank as a wheat and flour shipping port, being in the class with Galveston

and New York, some of the time having led both of them. In December, 1907,

Portland's record of wheat shipments, exclusive of flour, was 3,000,000

bushels. The Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor

gave the value of all breadstuffs shipped from Portland for the eleven

months ending November 30, 1907, at $10,536,234. During the same period

the shipments of the same commodities from San Francisco totalled

$4,143,592, while from the three Puget Sound ports of Seattle, Tacoma, and

Everett, the aggregate was $13,989,178. During November, 1908, there were

shipped 903,000 bushels of wheat, 180,145 barrels of flour, 209,246

bushels of barley, and 9,752,552 feet of lumber. During the year 1908 the

value of wheat and flour reached a total of $18,340,405, while the lumber

exports aggregated 162,089,998 feet.

[Illustration: Among the Big Spruce Trees, near Astoria, Oregon. Photo. by

Woodfield, Astoria.]

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of the shipping trade to Portland

people has been the increase in the size of ships entering the River. In

1872 the average wheat cargo exported was 33,615 bushels, while now it is

four times as much. The record cargo was that of the British bark

_Andorinha_, in the fall of 1908, 189,282 bushels. The channel from

Portland to the Columbia Bar and that across the Bar have so much improved

that no lightering was necessary during the year 1908, and ships of

twenty-five and twenty-six feet draft have gone from Portland to the ocean

without difficulty. In connection with this fact we are told that in June,

1907, the International Sailing-ship Owners' Union abolished the

differential of thirty cents per ton which had stood for some years

against Portland. These conditions, together with the completion of the

North Bank Railroad, by which a greatly added traffic from the Inland

Empire will be turned to Portland, seem to indicate that Portland is on

the direct road to a greater commercial leadership than she has yet known.

The lumber industry centring in Portland is as remarkable as that of

grain. Oregon's available forests, according to Government estimates,

reach a total of three hundred billion feet, board measure. It is

estimated that during the years 1906-8 the lumber cut in Oregon reached

about two billion feet each year, of which about one fifth was sawed in

Portland. It is asserted, in fact, that Portland is the largest lumber

producing city in the world. Lumbermen believe that it is only a question

of a few years when Portland will cut a billion feet of lumber a year.

While grain and lumber are the great articles of export from Portland,

there are vast totals of fruit, hay, live-stock, dairy and poultry

products, fish, and manufactured articles of many kinds.

But to the thoughtful traveller it is of more interest to see the use made

of wealth than the wealth itself. Portland now contains about two hundred

thousand people, said to have more per capita wealth than any other city,

with two exceptions, in the United States. What are these people doing

with their accumulations? For answer the traveller visits the schools, the

public buildings, the churches, the stores, the places of amusement, the

homes, and he finds every evidence of taste, good judgment, refinement,

and artistic skill. The Portland Hotel, the _Oregonian_ building, the

Marquam Grand Theatre, the Marquam building, the Chamber of Commerce

building, the Corbett block, the Wells-Fargo building, the First

Congregational, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Baptist churches and Jewish

Synagogue, the Union Depot, the City Hall, the City Library,--these and

many other structures challenge the admiration of travellers from even the

best-built cities of the East. During the year 1907, building permits were

issued to an amount exceeding nine million dollars, of which nearly half

was expended for dwelling houses. Portland is indeed a city of homes, and

workingmen own their own houses to an unusual degree.

[Illustration: Portland in 1908. Mt. St. Helens, Sixty-five Miles

Distant.]

As the visitor traverses Portland's streets, he sees amply demonstrated

the propriety of the cognomen, the "Rose City." Almost every yard boasts

its roses, and on almost every porch the scarlet rambler or some other

climber casts its rich colouring. Soil and climate are said to produce an

ideal combination for the finest grades of roses, as well as of many other

species of flowers. The Portland Fair of 1905 was the means of beautifying

a section of the city near Macley Park. While most of the structures were

of a temporary nature, the unique and interesting Forestry building has

been left, and this is a rare attraction to the Eastern visitor. The two

tasteful and significant groups of statuary, _The Coming of the White Men_

and _Sacajawea_, still grace the spot where they were dedicated. Portland

contains many other attractive works of art at available points. Among

these is the Skidmore Fountain, on one of the most crowded thoroughfares

of the city, a real gem of art.

No visitor to Portland should fail to visit the City Hall and the valuable

and interesting historical collection of the Oregon Historical Society.

Mr. George H. Himes, the Secretary of the Society, has devoted years to

the gathering of this museum of pioneer relics. Some of them are

priceless. Here is the first printing press in Oregon, used for some years

by Rev. H. M. Spalding at the Nez Perce Mission. Here is Mrs. Whitman's

writing desk. Here is Captain Robert Gray's sea-chest. The ages of

discovery, of the fur-traders, of the missionaries, of the pioneers, are

all lived over again in the inspection of these relics.

Probably most people who have followed the course of public thought and

action in the West, if asked what agency and what man would first come

into their minds at the mention of the name of Portland, would answer at

once,--"The _Oregonian_ and its editor, Harvey Scott." This great journal

and its great editor, associated together most of the time for over forty

years, have indeed constituted one of the most potent forces in framing

the thoughts and the institutions of the Columbia River people. It is

frequently said that Harvey Scott and Henry Watterson are the only great

American editors yet remaining of the old type, the type of a personal

intellectual force and a public teacher. The present type of editor is

rather an advertising manager than a political and social leader, a

business man rather than a generator of ideas.

There are many additional features of interest in and around Portland.

Whether viewed artistically, commercially, financially, socially, or

historically, this fair metropolis of the Columbia River Empire is in a

class by herself. Only by personal acquaintance can the student of the

West satisfy himself as to Portland.

But once more we must address ourselves to the River. One may go to

Astoria by rail down the southern bank, or he may, if he prefer, as we

certainly do, go by water. He can go by almost every species of boat known

to man, from an ocean steamship to one of the lateen-sailed fishing boats

which abound on the lower River.

When we have retraced our course to the mouth of the Willamette and have

again committed ourselves to the oceanward flow of the Columbia, we find a

continuance of the same low, oozy, and verdant banks, the same timbered

hills on either side in the middle distance, and the same dominant

snow-peaks and unbroken Cascade Range in the farthest background. We pass

many little towns, whose leading occupations are manifestly lumbering and

fishing. We try to live over again the sensations which we think must have

been felt by Lewis and Clark or Broughton, as they, first of civilised

men, lifted the veil from this solitude.

[Illustration: Portland Harbour, Oregon. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse,

Portland.]

In this section of the River there are no stupendous pinnacles as in the

Gorge of the Cascades. Yet the scenery is infinitely varied, and although

less bold, it is, in its way, equally attractive with the loftier scene.

One unique spot attracts the eye, and almost recalls the beauty of Rooster

Rock. This is Mt. Coffin, on the Washington side, near the mouth of the

Cowlitz River. This was one of the "Memaloose" or sepulture places of the

Indians. There in early times their dead, in great numbers, were deposited

upon platforms after the usual Indian fashion.

After passing the ingress of the Cowlitz, we find the River widening to

yet grander proportions. Islands become numerous. Among these islands not

a few desperate affrays and even tragedies have occurred among warring

fishermen, union against non-union. Lurking among these islands, too, are

numerous unlicensed vendors of spirits. In the uncertainty as to which of

the States may have jurisdiction at places, these illicit traffickers move

from island to island and cove to cove and one overhanging forest to

another, evading officers of both States and of Federal Government alike.

Sometime a novelist will be inspired with the poetry and humour and

tragedy and pathos of this fisher life on the lower River, with its

mingling of the life of law-breaker and desperado, and this section of our

River will blossom into literature and find a place with the moonshiners

of the South and the cowboys of the Rockies. All the material is ready.

The River waits only for its Owen Wister or Hamlin Garland or Jack London

to introduce it to the world of readers.

But the River moves and we must move with it. Many signs indicate to us

that we are approaching the ocean. If we are moving in a small boat, we

may pause to camp under some one of the thick-topped spruce trees whose

stiff spicules pierce our unwary hands like pins. If we should spend a

night we would find the water heaving and falling two, four, or five feet,

with the ocean tides. Broader and broader grows the River. Numerous salmon

canneries and seining stations appear. Passing a fishing village on the

north bank called Brookfield, we notice a very curious rock, Pillar Rock,

in the River a quarter of a mile from shore. It rises forty feet directly

out of the water. We are told by one versed in Indian lore that this is

the transformed body of a chief who tried to imitate the god Speelyei by

wading across the River. For his presumption he was turned into a rock.

Soon after passing Pillar Rock we see the curious spectacle of a house on

piles apparently right in the middle of the River. More curious still, we

see horses seemingly engaged in drawing a load through the very water

itself. The mystery is soon solved. The house is built on a sand-bar. It

is a seining station. The horses are pulling a seine from its moorings at

the point of the sand-bar to the point where its load may be discharged.

Lumber, salmon, and water,--this is the world in which we now live and

move and have our being.

[Illustration: Fish River Road, in Upper Columbia Region, B. C. Photo. by

Trueman, Victoria.]

We next enter a broad expanse of the River, nine miles wide, on the north

side of which is a deep cove. There is the historic spot in which Robert

Gray on May 3, 1792, paused at his highest point to fill his water casks

and to float the Stars and Stripes over Oregon, claimed for the United

States of America. As we look westward, the headlands seem to part in

front of us, and between them sky and water join. The greatest ocean is

before us, though still twenty miles away. The River has reached the end

of his fourteen-hundred-mile journey. Soon we pass, on the Oregon side,

the bold promontory of Tongue Point, and Astoria, the second largest city

on the navigable waters of the Columbia, is before us.

To the history of this oldest American town west of the Rocky Mountains we

have already referred many times. Interesting in so many features of the

past, Astoria is full of problems and suggestions, commercial and

otherwise, for the present and the future. The city has grown slowly,

always wondering why Portland should have so outstripped her. She

certainly has such a location that it seems a crime not to utilise it for

a great city. The River is here five miles wide. Upon its ample flood all

the navies of the world might ride at anchor, sheltered from the sea by

the long low sand-ridge of Point Adams. The site of the city, though

somewhat rugged and broken, is entirely capable of reduction to a

convenient grade, and is singularly noble and commanding. From the plateau

three hundred feet high upon which the splendid waterworks are located, is

a view of imposing grandeur;--River in front, dense forest to rear, with

the blue saddle and pinnacled horn of Saddle Mountain,--Swallalochost in

Indian speech, with its thunder-bird of native myth,--and the ocean to the

west. We find Astoria to be a well-built city of about fifteen thousand

permanent inhabitants, with perhaps five or six thousand more during the

height of the fishing season. Almost every resource of industry offers

itself in this favoured region about the mouth of the River. Though the

country is densely timbered in its native state, the soil is such that

when cleared it is of the finest for dairy and vegetable purposes. The

mildness of the climate keeps the clover and grass green and the flowers

in bloom the long year through.

As might be expected the chief industries as yet developed are lumbering

and fishing. There are magnificent forests of fir, spruce, cedar, and

hemlock, in all directions, while in and around Astoria there are six

immense establishments for transforming the timber into merchantable

lumber. This lumber aggregates something like a hundred and twenty million

feet annually, and it goes to all the ports of the world. There is

occasionally floated to the bar and thence to San Francisco, a log-boom

chained in substantial fashion and containing several million feet of

logs. Such a great boom is one of the most curious sights of the

River-mouth. But transcending all else in importance at Astoria is the

business of canning and drying salmon. What silver is to the Coeur

d'Alene, what wheat is to Walla Walla, what apples are to Hood River, that

salmon are to Astoria. The people think, act, and reason in terms of

salmon. And well they may. He who has not seen Chinook salmon from the

Columbia River has not seen fish. Nay, he cannot even be said to have

really lived in the larger sense of the term. Take a genuine Chinook

salmon of fifty or sixty pounds, caught in June, fat, rich,

glistening,--but words are a mockery. Nothing but the actual experience

will convey the impression. The salmon output on the River has for some

years run from two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand

cases per year, twenty-four cans to the case. The amount dried and smoked

represents something like an equal amount. This is for the River from

Astoria to The Dalles. The great bulk of this, however, is put up at

Astoria or in its immediate vicinity. It is estimated that from thirty

million to forty million salmon are caught yearly on the Oregon side of

the lower River. This represents a value of four or five million dollars,

about half of this going to the fishermen and half to the cannerymen. Some

ten thousand men are engaged in fishing about the mouth of the River.

These men are largely Finns, Russians, Norsemen, Italians, Sicilians, and

Greeks. They have various co-operative associations and are independent of

the cannerymen, to whom they furnish the fish at some stipulated price,

usually five cents a pound.

[Illustration: Multnomah Falls, 840 Feet High, on South Side of Columbia

River about Sixty Miles above Portland. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse,

Portland.]