_First Tour_.--Passengers will remember that, arriving at The Dalles,
on the Union Pacific Railway, they have the option of proceeding into
Portland either by rail or river, and their ticket is available for
either route.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF MOUNT ADAMS, WASHINGTON. As seen from the
Union Pacific Ry.]
The river trip will be found a very pleasant diversion after the long
railway ride, and a day's sail down the majestic Columbia is a
memory-picture which lasts a life-time. It is eighty-eight miles by rail
to Portland, the train skirting the river bank up to within a few miles
of the city. By river, it is forty-five miles to the Upper Cascades, then
a six-mile portage via narrow-gauge railway, then sixty miles by steamer
again to Portland. The boat leaves The Dalles at about 7 in the morning,
and reaches Portland at 6 in the evening. The accommodations on these
boats are first-class in every respect; good table, neat staterooms, and
courteous attendants.
This tour is planned for those who may wish to start from Portland by
the Union Pacific Railway. Take the evening train from Portland to The
Dalles. Arriving at The Dalles, walk down to the boat, which lies only
a few yards down stream from the station. Sleep on board, so that you
may be ready early in the morning for the stately panorama of the
river. Another plan is to give a day to the interesting country in the
near vicinity. The Dalles proper of the Columbia begin at Celilo,
fourteen miles above this point, and are simply a succession of rapids,
until, nearing The Dalles Station, the stream for two and a half miles
narrows down between walls of basaltic rock 130 feet across. In the
flood-tides of the spring the water in this chasm has risen 126 feet.
The word "Dalles" is rather misleading. The word is French, "dalle,"
and means, variously, "a plate," "a flagstone," "a slab," alluding to
the oval or square shaped stones which abound in the river bed and the
valley above. But the early French hunters and trappers called a chasm
or a defile or gorge, "dalles," meaning in their vernacular "a
trough"--and "Dalles" it has remained. There is a quaint Indian legend
connected with the spot which may interest the curious, and it runs
something on this wise, Clark's Fork and the Snake river, it will be
remembered, unite at Ainsworth to form the Columbia. It flows furiously
for a hundred miles and more westward, and when it reaches the outlying
ridges of the Cascade chain it finds an immense low surface paved with
enormous sheets of basaltic rock. But here is the legend: