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OREGON is a large, rich,
compact section of the west side of the continent, containing nearly a
hundred thousand square miles of deep, wet evergreen woods, fertile valleys,
icy mountains, and high, rolling, wind-swept plains, watered by the majestic
Columbia River and its countless branches. It is bounded on the north by
Washington, on the east by Idaho, on the south by California and Nevada, and
on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It is a grand, hearty, wholesome, foodful
wilderness and, like Washington, once a part of the Oregon Territory,
abounds in bold, far-reaching contrasts as to scenery, climate, soil, and
productions. Side by side there is drouth on a grand scale and overflowing
moisture; flinty, sharply cut lava-beds, gloomy and forbidding, and smooth,
flowery lawns; cool bogs, exquisitely plushy and soft, overshadowed by
jagged crags barren as icebergs; forests seemingly boundless and plains with
no tree in sight; presenting a wide range of conditions, but as a whole
favorable to industry. Natural wealth of an available kind abounds nearly
everywhere, inviting the farmer, the stock- raiser, the lumberman, the
fisherman, the manufacturer, and the miner, as well as the free walker in
search of knowledge and wildness. The scenery is mostly of a comfortable,
assuring kind, grand and inspiring without too much of that dreadful
overpowering sublimity and exuberance which tend to discourage effort and
cast people into inaction and superstition.
Ever since Oregon was first
heard of in the romantic, adventurous, hunting, trapping Wild West days, it
seems to have been regarded as the most attractive and promising of all the
Pacific countries for farmers. 'While yet the whole region as well as the
way to it was wild, ere a single road or bridge was built, undaunted by the
trackless thousand-mile distances and scalping, cattle-stealing Indians,
long trains of covered wagons began to crawl wearily westward, crossing how
many plains, rivers, ridges, and mountains, fighting the painted savages and
weariness and famine. Setting out from the frontier of the old West in the
spring as soon as the grass would support their cattle, they pushed on up
the Platte, making haste slowly, however, that they might not be caught in
the storms of winter ere they reached the promised land. They crossed the
Rocky Mountains to Fort hail; thence followed down the Snake River for three
or four hundred miles, their cattle limping and failing on the rough lava
plains; swimming the streams too deep to be forded, making boats out of
wagon-boxes for the women and children and goods, or where trees could be
had, lashing together logs for rafts. Thence, crossing the Blue Mountains
and the plains of the Columbia, they followed the river to the Dalles. here
winter would be upon them, and before a wagon-road was built across the
Cascade Mountains the toil-worn emigrants would be compelled to leave their
cattle and wagons until the following summer, and, in the meantime, with the
assistance of the Hudson's Bay Company, make their way to the Willamette
Valley on the river with rafts and boats.
How strange and remote these
trying times have already become! They are now dim as if a thousand years
had passed over them. Steamships and locomotives with magical influence have
well-nigh abolished the old distances and dangers, and brought forward the
New West into near and familiar companionship with the rest of the world.
Purely wild for unnumbered
centuries, a paradise of oily, salmon-fed Indians, Oregon is now roughly
settled in part and surveyed, its rivers and mountain-ranges, lakes,
valleys, and plains have been traced and mapped in a general way,
civilization is beginning to take root, towns are springing up and
flourishing vigorously like a crop adapted to the soil, and the whole kindly
wilderness lies invitingly near with all its wealth open and ripe for use.
In sailing along the Oregon
coast one sees but few more signs of human occupation than did Juan de Fuca
three centuries ago. The shore bluffs rise abruptly from the waves, forming
a wall apparently unbroken, though many short rivers from the coast range of
mountains and two from the interior have made narrow openings on their way
to the sea. At the mouths of these rivers good harbors have been discovered
for coasting vessels, which are of great importance to the lumbermen,
dairymen, and farmers of the coast region. But little or nothing of these
appear in general views, only a simple gray wall nearly straight, green
along the top, and the forest stretching back into the mountains as far as
the eye can reach.
Going ashore, we find few
long reaches of sand where one may saunter, or meadows, save the brown and
purple meadows of the sea, overgrown with slippery kelp, swasbed and swirled
in the restless breakers. The abruptness of the shore allows the massive
waves that have come from far over the broad Pacific to get close to the
bluffs ere they break, and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their
foundations. No calm comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when
the ships off shore are becalmed and their sails hang loose against the
mast, there is always a wreath of foam at the base of these bluffs. The
breakers are ever in bloom and crystal brine is ever in the air.
A scramble along the Oregon
sea-bluffs proves as richly exciting to lovers of wild beauty as heart could
wish. Here are three hundred miles of pictures of rock and water in black
and white, or gray and white, with more or less of green and yellow, purple
and blue. The rocks, glistening in sunshine and foam, are never wholly dry -
many of them marvels of wave-sculpture and most imposing in bulk and
bearing, standing boldly forward, monuments of a thousand storms, types of
permanence, holding the homes and places of refuge of multitudes of
seafaring animals in their keeping, yet ever wasting away. How grand the
songs of the waves about them, every wave a fine, hearty storm in itself,
taking its rise on the breezy plains of the sea, perhaps thousands of miles
away, traveling with majestic, slow-heaving deliberation, reaching the end
of its journey, striking its blow, bursting into a mass of white and pink
bloom, then falling spent and withered to give place to the next in the
endless procession, thus keeping up the glorious show and glorious song
through all times and seasons forever!
Terribly impressive as is
this cliff and wave scenery when the skies are bright and kindly sunshine
makes rainbows in the spray, it is doubly so in dark, stormy nights, when,
crouching in some hollow on the top of some jutting headland, we may gaze
and listen undisturbed in the heart of it. Perhaps now and then we may dimly
see the tops of the highest breakers, looking ghostly in the gloom; but when
the water happens to be phosphorescent, as it oftentimes is, then both the
sea and the rocks are visible, and the wild, exulting, up-dashing spray
burns, every particle of it, and is combined into one glowing mass of white
fire; while back in the woods and along the bluffs and crags of the shore
the storm-wind roars, and the rain-floods, gathering strength and coming
from far and near, rush wildly down every gulch to the sea, as if eager to
join the waves in their grand, savage harmony; deep calling unto deep in the
heart of the great, dark night, making a sight and a song unspeakably
sublime and glorious.
In the pleasant weather of
summer, after the rainy season is past and only occasional refreshing
showers fall, washing the sky and bringing out the fragrance of the flowers
and the evergreens, then one may enjoy a fine, free walk all the way across
the State from the sea to the eastern boundary on the Snake River. Many a
beautiful stream we should cross in such a walk, singing through forest and
meadow and deep rocky gorge, and many a broad prairie and plain, mountain
and valley, wild garden and desert, presenting landscape beauty on a grand
scale and in a thousand forms, and new lessons without number, delightful to
learn. Oregon has three mountain-ranges which run nearly parallel with the
coast, the most influential of which, in every way, is the Cascade Range. It
is about six thousand to seven thousand feet in average height, and divides
the State into two main sections called Eastern and Western Oregon,
corresponding with the main divisions of Washington; while these are again
divided, but less perfectly, by the Blue Mountains and the Coast Range. The
eastern section is about two hundred and thirty miles wide, and is made up
in great part of the treeless plains of the Columbia, which are green and
flowery in spring, but gray, dusty, hot, and forbidding in summer.
Considerable areas, however, on these plains, as well as some of the valleys
countersunk below the general surface along the banks of the streams, have
proved fertile and produce large crops of wheat, barley, hay, and other
products.
In general views the western
section seems to be covered with one vast, evenly planted forest, with the
exception of the few snow- clad peaks of the Cascade Range, these peaks
being the only points in the landscape that rise above the timber-line.
Nevertheless, embosomed in this forest and lying in the great trough between
the Cascades and coast mountains, there are some of the best bread-bearing
valleys to be found in the world. The largest of these are the Willamette,
Umpqua, and Rogue River Valleys. Inasmuch as a considerable portion of these
main valleys was treeless, or nearly so, as well as surpassingly fertile,
they were the first to attract settlers; and the Willamette, being at once
the largest and nearest to tide water, was settled first of all, and now
contains the greater portion of the population and wealth of the State.
The climate of this section,
like the corresponding portion of Washington, is rather damp and sloppy
throughout the winter months, but the summers are bright, ripening the wheat
and allowing it to be garnered in good condition. Taken as a whole, the
weather is bland and kindly, and like the forest trees the crops and cattle
grow plump and sound in it. So also do the people; children ripen well and
grow up with limbs of good size and fiber and, unless overworked in the
woods, live to a good old age, hale and hearty.
But, like every other happy
valley in the world, the sunshine of this one is not without its shadows.
Malarial fevers are not unknown in some places, and untimely frosts and
rains may at long intervals in some measure disappoint the hopes of the
husbandman. Many a tale, good-natured or otherwise, is told concerning the
overflowing abundance of the Oregon rains. Once an English traveler, as the
story goes, went to a store to make some purchases and on leaving found that
rain was falling; therefore, not liking to get wet, he stepped back to wait
till the shower was over. Seeing no signs of clearing, he soon became
impatient and inquired of the storekeeper how long he thought the shower
would be likely to last. Going to the door and looking wisely into the gray
sky and noting the direction of the wind, the latter replied that he thought
the shower would probably last about six months, an opinion that of course
disgusted the fact finding Briton with the "blawsted country," though in
fact it is but little if at all wetter or cloudier than his own.
No climate seems the best for
everybody. Many there be who waste their lives in a vain search for weather
with which no fault may be found, keeping themselves and their families in
constant motion, like floating seaweeds that never strike root, yielding
compliance to every current of news concerning countries yet untried,
believing that everywhere, anywhere, the sky is fairer and the grass grows
greener than where they happen to be. Before the Oregon and California
railroad was built, the overland journey between these States across the
Siskiyou Mountains in the old-fashioned emigrant wagon was a long and
tedious one. Nevertheless, every season dissatisfied climate-seekers, too
wet and too dry, might be seen plodding along through the dust in the old
"'49 style," making their way one half of them from California to Oregon,
the other half from Oregon to California. The beautiful Sisson meadows at
the base of Mount Shasta were a favorite halfway resting-place, where the
weary cattle were turned out for a few days to gather strength for better
climates, and it was curious to hear those perpetual pioneers comparing
notes and seeking information around the camp-fires.
"Where are you from?" some
Oregonian would ask.
"The Joaquin."
"It's dry there, ain't it?"
"Well, I should say so. No
rain at all in summer and none to speak of in winter, and I'm dried out. I
just told my wife I was on the move again, and I'm going to keep moving till
I come to a country where it rains once in a while, like it does in every
reg'lar white man's country; and that, I guess, will be Oregon, if the news
be true."
"Yes, neighbor, you's heading
in the right direction for rain," the Oregonian would say. "Keep right on to
Yamhill and you'll soon be damp enough. It rains there more than twelve
months in the year; at least, no saying but it will. I've just come from
there, plumb drowned out, and I told my wife to jump into the wagon and we
would start out and see if we couldn't find a dry day somewhere. Last fall
the hay was out and the wood was out, and the cabin leaked, and I made up my
mind to try California the first chance."
"Well, if you be a horned
toad or coyote," the seeker of moisture would reply, "then maybe you can
stand it. Just keep right on by the Alabama Settlement to Tulare and you can
have my place on Big Dry Creek and welcome. You'll be drowned there mighty
seldom. The wagon spokes and tires will rattle and tell you when you come to
it."
"All right, partner, we'll
swap square, you can have mine in Yainhill and the rain thrown in. Last
August a painter sharp came along one day wanting to know the way to
Willamette Falls, and I told him: 'Young man, just wait a little and you'll
find falls enough without going to Oregon City after them. The whole
dog-gone Noah's flood of a country will be a fall and melt and float away
some day.'" And more to the same effect.
But no one need leave Oregon
in search of fair weather. The wheat and cattle region of eastern Oregon and
Washington on the upper Columbia plains is dry enough and dusty enough more
than half the year. The truth is, most of these wanderers enjoy the freedom
of gypsy life and seek not homes but camps. Having crossed the plains and
reached the ocean, they can find no farther west within reach of wagons, and
are therefore compelled now to go north and south between Mexico and Alaska,
always glad to find an excuse for moving, stopping a few months or weeks
here and there, the time being measured by the size of the camp-meadow,
conditions of the grass, game, and other indications. Even their so-called
settlements of a year or two, when they take up land and build cabins, are
only another kind of camp, in no common sense homes. Never a tree is
planted, nor do they plant themselves, but like good soldiers in time of war
are ever ready to march. Their journey of life is indeed a journey with very
matter-of-fact thorns in the way, though not wholly wanting in compensation.
One of the most influential
of the motives that brought the early settlers to these shores, apart from
that natural instinct to scatter and multiply which urges even sober salmon
to climb the Rocky Mountains, was their desire to find a country at once
fertile and winterless, where their flocks and herds could find pasture all
the year, thus doing away with the long and tiresome period of haying and
feeding necessary in the eastern and old western States and Territories.
Cheap land and good land there was in abundance in Kansas, Nebraska,
Minnesota, and Iowa; but there the labor of providing for animals of the
farm was very great, and much of that labor was crowded together into a few
summer months, while to keep cool in summers and warm in the icy winters was
well-nigh impossible to poor farmers.
Along the coast and
throughout the greater part of western Oregon in general, snow seldom falls
on the lowlands to a greater depth than a few inches, and never lies long.
Grass is green all winter. The average temperature for the year in the
Willamette Valley is about 52°, the highest and lowest being about 100º and
20°, though occasionally a much lower temperature is reached.
The average rainfall is about
fifty or fifty- five inches in the Willamette Valley, and along the coast
seventy-five inches, or even more at some points - figures that bring many a
dreary night and day to mind, however fine the effect on the great evergreen
woods and the fields of the farmers. The rainy season begins in September or
October and lasts until April or May. Then the whole country is solemnly
soaked and poulticed with the gray, streaming clouds and fogs, night and
day, with marvelous constancy. Towards the beginning and end of the season a
good many bright days occur to break the pouring gloom, but whole months of
rain, continuous, or nearly so, are not at all rare. Astronomers beneath
these Oregon skies would have a dull time of it. Of all the year only about
one fourth of the days are clear, while three fourths have more or less of
fogs, clouds, or rain.
The fogs occur mostly in the
fall and spring. They are grand, far-reaching affairs of two kinds, the
black and the white, some of the latter being very beautiful, and the
infinite delicacy and tenderness of their touch as they linger to caress the
tall evergreens is most exquisite. On farms and highways and in streets of
towns, where work has to be done, there is nothing picturesque or attractive
in any obvious way about the gray, serious-faced rain-storms. Mud abounds.
The rain seems dismal and heedless and gets in everybody's way. Every face
is turned from it, and it has but few friends who recognize its boundless
beneficence. But back in the untrodden woods where no axe has been lifted,
where a deep, rich carpet of brown and golden mosses covers all the ground
like a garment, pressing warmly about the feet of the trees and rising in
thic1 folds softly and kindly over every fallen trunk, leaving no spot naked
or uncared-for, there the rain is welcomed, and every drop that falls finds
a place and use as sweet and pure as itself. An excursion into the woods
when the rain harvest is at its height is a noble pleasure, and may be
safely enjoyed at small expense, though very few care to seek it. Shelter is
easily found beneath the great trees in some hollow out of the wind, and one
need carry but little provision, none at all of a kind that a wetting would
spoil. The colors of the woods are then at their best, and the mighty hosts
of the forest, every needle tingling in the blast, wave and sing in glorious
harmony.
"'T were worth ten years of
peaceful life, one glance at this array."
The snow that falls in the
lowland woods is usually soft, and makes a fine show coming through the
trees in large, feathery tufts, loading the branches of the firs and spruces
and cedars and weighing them down against the trunks until they look slender
and sharp as arrows, while a strange, muffled silence prevails, giving a
peculiar solemnity to everything. But these lowland snowstorms and their
effects quickly vanish; every crystal melts in a day or two, the bent
branches rise again, and the rain resumes its sway.
While these gracious rains
are searching the roots of the lowlands, corresponding snows are busy along
the heights of the Cascade Mountains. Month after month, day and night the
heavens shed their icy bloom in stormy, measureless abundance, filling the
grand upper fountains of the rivers to last through the summer. Awful then
is the silence that presses down over the mountain forests. All the smaller
streams vanish from sight, hushed and obliterated. Young groves of spruce
and pine are bowed down as by a gentle hand and put to rest, not again to
see the light or move leaf or limb until the grand awakening of the
springtime, while the larger animals and most of the birds seek food and
shelter in the foothills on the borders of the valleys and plains.
The lofty volcanic peaks are
yet more heavily snow-laden. To their upper zones no summer comes. They are
white always. From the steep slopes of the summit the new-fallen snow, while
yet dry and loose, descends in magnificent avalanches to feed the glaciers,
making meanwhile the most glorious manifestations of power. Happy is the man
who may get near them to see and hear. In some sheltered camp nest on the
edge of the timberline one may lie snug and warm, but after the long shuffle
on snowshoes we may have to wait more than a month ere the heavens open and
the grand show is unveiled. In the mean time, bread may be scarce, unless
with careful forecast a sufficient supply has been provided and securely
placed during the summer. Nevertheless, to be thus deeply snowbound high in
the sky is not without generous compensation for all the cost. And when we
at length go down the long white slopes to the levels of civilization, the
pains vanish like snow in sunshine, while the noble and exalting pleasures
we have gained remain with us to enrich our lives forever.
The fate of the high-flying
mountain snow- flowers is a fascinating study, though little may we see of
their works and ways while their storms go on. The glinting, swirling swarms
fairly thicken the blast, and all the air, as well as the rocks and trees,
is as one smothering mass of bloom, through the midst of which at close
intervals come the low, intense thunder-tones of the avalanches as they
speed on their way to fill the vast fountain hollows. Here they seem at last
to have found rest. But this rest is only apparent. Gradually the loose
crystals by the pressure of their own weight are welded together into clear
ice, and, as glaciers, march steadily, silently on, with invisible motion,
in broad, deep currents, grinding their way with irresistible energy to the
warmer lowlands, where they vanish in glad, rejoicing streams.
In the sober weather of
Oregon lightning makes but little show. Those magnificent thunder-storms
that so frequently adorn and glorify the sky of the Mississippi Valley are
wanting here. Dull thunder and lightning may occasionally be seen and heard,
but the imposing grandeur of great storms marching over the landscape with
streaming banners and a network of fire is almost wholly unknown.
Crossing the Cascade Range,
we pass from a green to a gray country, from a wilderness of trees to a
wilderness of open plains, level or rolling or rising here and there into
hills and short mountain spurs. Though well supplied with rivers in most of
its main sections, it is generally dry. The annual rainfall is only from
about five to fifteen inches, and the thin winter garment of snow seldom
lasts more than a month or two, though the temperature in many places falls
from five to twenty-five degrees below zero for a short time. That the snow
is light over eastern Oregon, and the average temperature not intolerably
severe, is shown by the fact that large droves of sheep, cattle, and horses
live there through the winter without other food or shelter than they find
for themselves on the open plains or down in the sunken valleys and gorges
along the streams.
When we read of the
mountain-ranges of Oregon and Washington with detailed descriptions of their
old volcanoes towering snowladen and glacier-laden above the clouds, one may
be led to imagine that the country is far icier and whiter and more
mountainous than it is. Only in winter are the Coast and Cascade Mountains
covered with snow. Then as seen from the main interior valleys they appear
as comparatively low, bossy walls stretching along the horizon and making a
magnificent display of their white wealth. The Coast Range in Oregon does
not perhaps average more than three thousand feet in height. Its snow does
not last long, most of its soil is fertile all the way to the summits, and
the greater part of the range may at some time be brought under cultivation.
The immense deposits on the great central uplift of the Cascade Range are
mostly melted off before the middle of summer by the comparatively warm
winds and rains from the coast, leaving only a few white spots on the
highest ridges, where the depth from drifting has been greatest, or where
the rate of waste has been diminished by specially favorable conditions as
to exposure. Only the great volcanic cones are truly snow-clad all the year,
and these are not numerous and make but a small portion of the general
landscape.
As we approach Oregon from
the coast in summer, no hint of snowy mountains can be seen, and it is only
after we have sailed into the country by the Columbia, or climbed some one
of the commanding summits, that the great white peaks send us greeting and
make telling advertisements of themselves and of the country over which they
rule. So, also, in coming to Oregon from the east the country by no means
impresses one as being surpassingly mountainous, the abode of peaks and
glaciers. Descending the spurs of the Rocky Mountains into the basin of the
Columbia, we see hot, hundred-mile plains, roughened here and there by hills
and ridges that look hazy and blue in the distance, until we have pushed
well to the westward. Then one white point after another comes into sight to
refresh the eye and the imagination; but they are yet a long way off, and
have much to say only to those who know them or others of their kind. How
grand they are, though insignificant- looking on the edge of the vast
landscape! What noble woods they nourish, and emerald meadows and gardens!
What springs and streams and waterfalls sing about them, and to what a
multitude of happy creatures they give homes and food!
The principal mountains of
the range are Mounts Pitt, Scott, and Thielson, Diamond Peak, the Three
Sisters, Mounts Jefferson, Hood, St. Helen's, Adams, Rainier, Aix, and
Baker. Of these the seven first named belong to Oregon, the others to
Washington. They rise singly at irregular distances from one another along
the main axis of the range or near it, with an elevation of from about eight
thousand to fourteen thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea.
From few points in the valleys may more than three or four of them be seen,
and of the more distant ones of these only the tops appear. Therefore,
speaking generally, each of the lowland landscapes of the State contains
only one grand snowy mountain.
The heights back of Portland
command one of the best general views of the forests and also of the most
famous of the great mountains both of Oregon and Washington. Mount Hood is
in full view, with the summits of Mounts Jefferson, St. Helen's, Adams, and
Rainier in the distance. The city of Portland is at our feet, covering a
large area along both banks of the Willamette, and, with its fine streets,
schools, churches, mills, shipping, parks, and gardens, makes a telling
picture of busy, aspiring civilization in the midst of the green wilderness
in which it is planted. The river is displayed to fine advantage in the
foreground of our main view, sweeping in beautiful curves around rich, leafy
islands, its banks fringed with willows.
A few miles beyond the
Willamette flows the renowned Columbia, and the confluence of these two
great rivers is at a point only about ten miles below the city. Beyond the
Columbia extends the immense breadth of the forest, one dim, black,
monotonous field, with only the sky, which one is glad to see is not
forested, and the tops of the majestic old volcanoes to give diversity to
the view. That sharp, white, broad-based pyramid on the south side of the
Columbia, a few degrees to the south of east from where you stand, is the
famous Mount Hood. The distance to it in a straight line is about fifty
miles. Its upper slopes form the only bare ground, bare as to forests, in
the landscape in that direction. It is the pride of Oregonians, and when it
is visible is always pointed out to strangers as the glory of the country,
the mountain of mountains. It is one of the grand series of extinct
volcanoes extending from Lassen's Butte [Lassen Peak on recent maps.
Editor.] to Mount Baker, a distance of about six hundred miles, which once
flamed like gigantic watch-fires along the coast. Some of them have been
active in recent times, but no considerable addition to the bulk of Mount
Hood has been made for several centuries, as is shown by the amount of
glacial denudation it has suffered. Its summit has been ground to a point,
which gives it a rather thin, pinched appearance. It has a wide-flowing
base, however, and is fairly well proportioned. Though it is eleven thousand
feet high, it is too far off to make much show under ordinary conditions in
so extensive a landscape. Through a great part of the summer it is invisible
on account of smoke poured into the sky from burning woods, logging-camps,
mills, etc., and in winter for weeks at a time, or even months, it is in the
clouds. Only in spring and early summer and in what there may chance to be
of bright weather in winter is it or any of its companions at all clear or
telling. From the Cascades on the Columbia it may be seen at a distance of
twenty miles or thereabouts, or from other points up and down the river, and
with the magnificent foreground it is very impressive. It gives the supreme
touch of grandeur to all the main Columbia views, rising at every turn,
solitary, majestic, awe-inspiring, the ruling spirit of the landscape. But,
like mountains everywhere, it varies greatly in impressiveness and apparent
height at different times and seasons, not alone from differences as to the
dimness or transparency of the air. Clear, or arrayed in clouds, it changes
both in size and general expression. Now it looms up to an immense height
and seems to draw near in tremendous grandeur and beauty, holding the eyes
of every beholder in devout and awful interest. Next year or next day, or
even in the same day, you return to the same point of view, perhaps to find
that the glory has departed, as if .the mountain had died and the poor dull,
shrunken mass of rocks and ice had lost all power to charm.
Never shall I forget my first
glorious view of Mount Hood one calm evening in July, though I had seen it
many times before this. I was then sauntering with a friend across the new
Willamette bridge between Portland and East Portland for the sake of the
river views, which are here very fine in the tranquil summer weather. The
scene on the water was a lively one. Boats of every description were
gliding, glinting, drifting about at work or play, and we leaned over the
rail from time to time, contemplating the gay throng. Several lines of
ferry-boats were making regular trips at intervals of a few minutes, and
river steamers were coming and going from the wharves, laden with all sorts
of merchandise, raising long diverging swells that made all the light
pleasure-craft bow and nod in hearty salutation as they passed. The crowd
was being constantly increased by new arrivals from both shores, sailboats,
rowboats, racing-shells, rafts, were loaded with gayly dressed people, and
here and there some adventurous man or boy might be seen as a merry sailor
on a single plank or spar, apparently as deep in enjoyment as were any on
the water. It seemed as if all the town were coming to the river, renouncing
the cares and toils of the day, determined to take the evening breeze into
their pulses, and be cool and tranquil ere going to bed.
Absorbed in the happy scene,
given up to dreamy, random observation of what lay immediately before me, I
was not conscious of anything occurring on the outer rim of the landscape.
Forest, mountain, and sky were forgotten, when my companion suddenly
directed my attention to the eastward, shouting, "Oh, look! look!" in so
loud and excited a tone of voice that passers-by, saunterers like ourselves,
were startled and looked over the bridge as if expecting to see some boat
upset. Looking across the forest, over which the mellow light of the sunset
was streaming, I soon discovered the source of my friend's excitement. There
stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpenglow, looming immensely high,
beaming with intelligence, and so impressive that one was overawed as if
suddenly brought before some superior being newly arrived from the sky.
The atmosphere was somewhat
hazy, but the mountain seemed neither near nor far. Its glaciers flashed in
the divine light. The rugged, storm-worn ridges between them and the
snowfields of the summit, these perhaps might have been traced as far as
they were in sight, and the blending zones of color about the base. But so
profound was the general impression, partial analysis did not come into
play. The whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine
power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with
ineffable repose and beauty, before which we could only gaze in devout and
lowly admiration.
The far-famed Oregon forests
cover all the western section of the State, the mountains as well as the
lowlands, with the exception of a few gravelly spots and open spaces in the
central portions of the great cultivated valleys. Beginning on the coast,
where their outer ranks are drenched and buffeted by wind-driven scud from
the sea, they press on in close, majestic ranks over the coast mountains,
across the broad central valleys, and over the Cascade Range, broken and
halted only by the few great peaks that rise like islands above the sea of
evergreens.
In descending the eastern
slopes of the Cascades the rich, abounding, triumphant exuberance of the
trees is quickly subdued; they become smaller, grow wide apart, leaving dry
spaces without moss covering or underbrush, and before the foot of the range
is reached, fail altogether, stayed by the drouth of the interior almost as
suddenly as on the western margin they are stayed by the sea. Here and there
at wide intervals on the eastern plains patches of a small pine (Pinws
conlorta) are found, and a scattering growth of juniper, used by the
settlers mostly for fence-posts and firewood. Along the stream-bottoms there
is usually more or less of cottonwood and willow, which, though yielding
inferior timber, is yet highly prized in this bare region. On the Blue
Mountains there is pine, spruce, fir, and larch in abundance for every use,
but beyond this range there is nothing that may be called a forest in the
Columbia River basin, until we reach the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; and
these Rocky Mountain forests are made up of trees which, compared with the
giants of the Pacific Slope, are mere saplings. |
