Chapter XVIII: The Grand Cañon of the Colorado (6)

Mr. Sisson took me to a small Indian camp near his house, where he wanted to engage a man for a job. The young buck was gorgeously arrayed in a pair of old trousers and a new linen shirt, evidently just arrived from San Francisco, with its bosom starched stiffly enough for a city dude. He was obviously conscious of this ornament, and, probably in consequence of it, wanted more money for the job than Mr. Sisson had previously paid him. _Noblesse oblige!_ The squaws, young and old, and the children, were all very fat, dirty, and stupid-looking, and were crowding around a fire, eating fried meat and flat, round cakes of dough baked in a pan, looking as if it would give chronic dyspepsia to an ostrich or a goat. I was also shown an Indian hut where there had been a dance on the preceding Fourth of July, white visitors being charged twenty-five cents admission.

One of the most interesting places Mr. Sisson has to show his guests is the source of the Sacramento River. About a mile from his house, at a place to which steps lead down from the railway track, the water rushes out from several springs in a great volume, forming immediately a trout-brook of respectable size, which hurries away in the new daylight, as if glad to have escaped its subterranean source. These springs issue from under Mt. Shasta, and doubtless owe their being to the melting of snow and glacier ice by the internal volcanic heat—a worthy origin of so romantic a river as the Sacramento. Near these springs is a valuable iron-water spring, which also belongs to Mr. Sisson, and is one of his most important possessions, now that the town founded by him is getting to be a regular resort for San Franciscans, Portlanders, and Eastern tourists, not only on account of the view of Shasta, but because of the beautiful forest scenery, and the excellent trout-fishing in the neighboring McCloud River. Six large rivers and many smaller ones are born of Shasta and neighboring peaks, and it is these icy streams that the trout and the salmon delight in. The Sacramento itself, however, does not afford any sport in this vicinity.

After leaving Sisson’s, Shasta still remains in sight for some time; for it takes some time even for a railway to get away from a mountain, of which it has been remarked that “if it could be sawed off at the four-thousand-foot level, or five hundred feet above the valley, the oval plain thus made would be eighty miles in circumference.” Some of the views of Shasta after leaving Sisson’s are even grander than at the station, and in certain atmospheric conditions the snow-cone may be seen floating, as it were, on a mystic haze resembling water. The aspect of the mountain gradually changes, and what had seemed smooth, gradual slopes are now seen to be rugged precipices rising one above the other.

We now approach that mammoth fragrant forest between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Mountains which is known as Oregon, and it becomes obvious at once that the chief difference between Oregon and California is comprised in the word RAIN. Shortly after crossing the Oregon line evidence begins to multiply that we have entered the rain belt. There are more deciduous trees, more ferns and mosses, more underbrush in the pine forests, and, most significant of all, more rivers. California has in its whole coast line of seven hundred miles only one navigable river, while Oregon, with a coast line of only three hundred and fifty miles, has four fine navigable rivers,—the Rogue, the Umpqua, the Willamette, and the Columbia,—with many smaller ones. All of these run from east to west, except the Willamette, which divides the State by flowing northward into the Columbia near Portland, thus creating the fertile Willamette Valley, to which Portland chiefly owes its wealth.

The Willamette has some tributaries which alone would make the fortune of several counties in Southern California, where nothing can be done without irrigation; whereas in Oregon no one but vegetable gardeners ever thinks of such a thing. One of these tributaries is the Pudding River, along the banks of which many charming scenes may be enjoyed, and which is full of fish, which, however, have the peculiarity that they never take a bait. In the Santiam and some of the other rivers the fishing is excellent, and the creeks are full of trout and of crawfish, which are delicious, and of which I have caught as many as a hundred in an hour, with three strings and three pieces of beef. A favorite form of picnicking in Oregon is to take a sauce-pan and salt, catch a few hundred of these tender and juicy crawfish, boil them, and enjoy a feast fit for prelates.

The rain, to which Oregon owes its numerous rivers and creeks, is not as abundant in the southern as in the northern part of the State. There is a gradual transition from thirty-two inches at Jacksonville to thirty-eight at Salem, fifty-three at Portland, and seventy-two at Astoria. The Rogue River Valley climate has been described as “a compromise between the droughts of California and the great rain of the Willamette Valley.” Grapes are raised here equal to the best in California, and the peaches have been known to fetch higher prices in the San Francisco market than the California varieties. Melons also are raised here in great abundance for the Portland market, Northern Oregon (where the thermometer sometimes does not register above 85° during a whole summer) being too cold for their successful cultivation. Southern Oregon is at present but thinly settled; but if its climatic, scenic, and agricultural advantages were generally known to immigrants, it would fill up rapidly.

Two large lakes, the Upper and Lower Klamath, will in course of time become popular resorts of Oregonians, and some miles north of the Upper Klamath is Crater Lake, which, although much smaller, is by the Oregonians considered the greatest curiosity on the Pacific Coast, and which used to be, and still is, regarded as holy ground by the Indians of the neighborhood. Local authorities tells us that “in the past none but medicine men visited it; and when one of the tribe felt called to become a teacher, he spent several weeks at the lake, in prayer to the Shahulah Tyee.”

Crater Lake lies in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, and at so great an elevation—6,257 feet—as to be rendered inaccessible, except in summer, by the depth of the snow in the surrounding forests. It is about one hundred and twenty miles from Ashland, and may be reached from that city, or from Medford, by stage. The road follows the banks of the tumultuous Klamath River, and passes through the Klamath Indian Reservation, near Fort Klamath, which was abandoned in 1889, as being no longer necessary. A narrow defile known as Mystic Cañon is also of interest, and it is well to bear in mind that in the older guide-books Crater Lake is put down as Mystic Lake. Mystic it certainly is, but its present name is preferable because more definite; for Crater Lake is really a body of water which, like Lake Tahoe, fills up a volcanic orifice. And a most gigantic crater it was, for the circumference of the lake is more than twenty miles. There is only one place where one can climb down to the water; the rest of the shore consists of precipitous walls from fifteen hundred feet to three thousand feet in height, which are less slanting than they appear in photographs. These high walls, which are mirrored in the water with their fringe of trees, effectually shut out the mountain breezes, so that the water is placid, and rarely ruffled. There is something mysterious about this water; for it has no visible or discoverable inlet or outlet, and yet it is always clear and sweet. Fish, however, do not inhabit it, probably because none ever succeeded in getting there; and even water-fowl, it is said, avoid this solitary, silent mountain lake. In the middle of the lake stands an island, about three miles long, of volcanic origin, rising to a point eight hundred and forty-five feet high, and ending in a crater four hundred and seventy-five feet in diameter. There are caves along the shores which may have some connection with the water-supply, as a current is observable near them. The depth of the lake has never been ascertained, but it has been sounded for two thousand feet without reaching bottom.

A few years ago an effort was made to have the Crater Lake region reserved as the Oregon National Park, and in 1888 a bill to this effect passed the United States Senate. As there is much valuable timber on the neighboring mountain ranges, and much fine grazing land, there is reason to believe that a branch road will ere long connect Crater Lake with the Oregon and California Railroad; and when that has been built, every visitor to the Pacific Coast will feel that he can no more afford to miss this lake than the other two scenic wonders of Oregon—the Columbia River and Mt. Hood.

Going northward towards Portland, the wonderful fertility of the Willamette Valley is what chiefly arrests the attention of tourists. Wood being cheaper than coal in this region, the train frequently stops to get a fresh load of fuel from the huge piles of timber which at intervals extend along the road, sometimes a quarter of a mile without a break. During these stops, some young man may be seen running to a neighboring wheat or oat field to compare height with the stalks, sometimes to his disadvantage. But these rich agricultural lands were all taken up long ago, and the emigrant with a slender purse and a desire for government land has to seek a region more remote from the railway. The towns along this route, including Roseburg, Eugene, Albany, Salem, and Oregon City, have not grown so fast during the last ten years as Portland, or as the towns of Washington and California; but the inhabitants confidently believe that their day will come when the more sensational California and Washington towns have passed through their boom period, and they modestly claim that they prefer steady and slow growth to a boom which too often becomes a retrograde boomerang. At Oregon City, tourists should be on the lookout for the falls of the Willamette, below which the Indians formerly used to spear salmon, but which now serve the more prosaic purpose of furnishing water-power to the woollen mills on the spot, and electric power to Portland twelve miles away.

The Willamette Valley, through which our train has passed on the way from Roseburg to Portland, is the garden of Oregon. Twenty years ago wheat and apples were almost exclusively cultivated in this region. Then the discovery was made that the soil and climate are remarkably well adapted to hop culture, and most of the farmers at once gave up their grain-fields and orchards and raised hops. Farmers have their fashions as well as city folks, and they are just as apt to go to extremes. The hop-raising business was overdone; prices fell; and now many of these farmers are returning to their grain and fruit, in which no other State surpasses Oregon, in quality as well as in quantity.

Concerning Oregon fruit I can speak from personal experience, as I was brought up near an orchard numbering two thousand apple, pear, and plum trees. For peaches and grapes the climate of Northern Oregon is hardly warm enough, and the apples and pears, too, are perhaps a little _smaller_ than they are in California, but in flavor they are vastly superior. Indeed, neither in the East nor in any part of Europe have I ever tasted apples to compare with those of Oregon. They have a richness and delicacy of flavor which must persuade any one that, if apples were less abundant, they would be considered superior in taste and fragrance to those tropical and semi-tropical fruits which are more highly valued because of their scarcity in our latitude. In most parts of the East an apple is an apple, and few people know or care about the names of the different kinds; but an Oregonian would no more eat certain kinds of apples than he would a raw pumpkin. An epicure is no more particular in regard to his brands of wine than an Oregonian is in the choice of his favorite variety of apples; and there are half-a-dozen kinds which I have never seen at the East, and the systematic introduction of which in the New York market would make any dealer’s fortune.

For some reason or other the Oregonians seem less enterprising than their California neighbors, and instead of sending their fruit East, they often allow it to rot on the trees—including superb plums, and Bartlett pears that would fetch eight to ten cents apiece in New York. Eastern capital is wanted to start transportation enterprises; and a still more important desideratum in Oregon is a larger population. The growth of the State has been remarkably slow, considering its agricultural advantages and its fine climate. In the census of 1880, the population numbered only 174,767. But there were already “16,217 farms, and their products are tabled at a cash value of $13,234,548,”—a curious commentary on the exclamation of a member of Congress forty-five years ago, that he would not “give a pinch of snuff for the whole Territory.”

Eastern notions regarding the climate of Western Oregon are almost as widely astray as they are regarding Alaska. Barrows points out that, although the mouth of the Willamette is two hundred miles further north than Boston, no ice has been formed on it thicker than window-glass since 1862; and that in some of the counties snow has not covered the ground for three consecutive days for a score of years. The rainy season, which takes the place of the Eastern winter, is trying to the patience of some; yet this rain is very different from our muggy, foggy, sultry winter rains in New York. It is known as a “dry” rain, because however it may drizzle, it does not seem to saturate the air and depress the spirits by impeding the natural evaporation and healthy action of the skin. Doubtless this peculiarity of climate is largely responsible for the remarkably beautiful complexions of Oregon and Washington women, though something may be due to the fact that, as children, they live almost entirely on fruit. The heat of Oregon summer days is not often oppressive, being generally mitigated by a gentle breeze, and the nights are always cool enough for refreshing sleep.

XI.

PORTLAND AND ITS SEA-BEACHES.

A PICTURESQUE SITUATION—FIVE SNOW-PEAKS IN SIGHT—PORTLAND
VERSUS LOS ANGELES—CLEARINGS—CHINESE ANECDOTES—PROPITIATING THE
GODS—APPRECIATION OF FEMALE BEAUTY—SUMMER RESORTS—YAQUINA BAY AND
LONG BEACH—BATHING IN THE NORTH PACIFIC—CATCHING CRABS AT LOW
TIDE—A SAD ACCIDENT—CLATSOP BEACH AND TILLAMOOK HEAD—AN EXPOSED
LIGHT-HOUSE—IN THE VIRGIN FOREST—OREGON MOSSES, FERNS, AND
TREES—FLOWERS AND BERRIES.

If the greatest commercial advantage which a city can enjoy is to be situated on a large river, it is equally true that of all possible æsthetic advantages no other is equal to that of having a scenic background of snow-mountains. It is to this that so many cities of France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy owe their principal charm. To find anything similar in the United States we have to go far West, and especially Northwest. Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle are the three most picturesquely situated cities in the United States, and of these three I would assign the palm to Portland, from a purely scenic point of view. For although Mt. Hood does not seem quite so near and imposing at Portland as Mt. Tacoma does as seen from Seattle or Tacoma, it must be remembered that the Portlanders have full-size views from their streets, not only of Hood but also of St. Helens, while the summits of Tacoma, Adams, and Jefferson are seen from the hills which encircle the city. And while Portland has no Puget Sound, it is only twelve miles from the Columbia River, which is scenically superior even to the “American Mediterranean,” as Puget Sound has been aptly called.

Architectural monuments of importance there are none as yet in Portland, but the trees and gardens which frame in all the houses are equally attractive in their way, and, from a sanitary point of view, more desirable. Garden City or Forest City would seem an appropriate name for Portland, as seen from the Portland Heights, which every tourist should visit; and the Cascade Range to the east, with the Willamette River separating the city from East Portland and Albina, gives the ensemble a slight resemblance to Stuttgart, if not to Florence, though neither of those cities can boast of a line of five volcanic snow-peaks like Portland.

Of Mt. Hood in particular the Portlanders have a magnificent view from their house-tops or from the heights west of the city. Though it is about fifty miles away, there is not a hill between to impede the view; and, as the particular Cascade ridge with which Mt. Hood connects is of insignificant height, the peak stands revealed from head to foot in solitary grandeur, with snow reaching down two-thirds of the way even in August. As previously stated, it is a peculiarity of all the Oregon and Washington peaks that they thus rise abruptly from the ground, without any clustering neighbors to lean upon; and this isolation, combined with the lowness of the snow-line, adds much to their grandeur and apparent height. With such fine scenery constantly in view, and with trees and flowers around every house, it is perhaps not surprising that the wealthy Portlanders have hitherto shown a remarkable indifference to the condition of their parks and streets. The large piles of wood in front of every other house appear more useful than ornamental, and give parts of the city a semi-rural aspect. They make excellent and cheap fuel, however, and the large quantities of pitch they contain give them a delightful fragrance. Another peculiarity of Portland streets is that the blocks are uncommonly small. Fewer streets and wider ones would have been much more acceptable. The waste of space involved in the present arrangement is beginning to be felt now that real estate is rapidly rising in value.

Portland owes its growth and its commercial importance to the fact that the Willamette River is navigable up to its wharves by the largest ocean steamers; so that the rich farm products of the Willamette Valley can be at once shipped to all parts of the world without a long and expensive railway transportation.

In a book dated 1855—Thornton’s “Oregon and California”—we read that “ships drawing twelve or fourteen feet of water ascend the Willamette to the pleasant and flourishing village of Portland, twelve miles below Oregon City.” This “pleasant and flourishing village” is now a city of at least sixty thousand, which hotly disputes with Los Angeles the honor of being the second largest city on the Pacific Coast. The Los Angeles papers claim seventy thousand for their city and speak encouragingly of Portland as a promising city of forty thousand; while the Portland papers reverse these figures, claiming seventy thousand for their city and generously conceding to Los Angeles forty thousand. One thing is certain: that Portland is growing very rapidly, as is proved by official statistics, showing that the grand total of receipts and payments of money order and postal funds increased more than a million dollars from June 30, 1888, to June 30, 1889. Portland, however, has never had a real “boom” like her southern rival, or like Tacoma and Seattle. Oregon, indeed, has been somewhat unjustly neglected, being thrown into the shade by her more brilliant neighbors, California and Washington. Her growth has been gradual, and not by spurts, but it has been as steady as it has been quiet, and the total result is surprising. Salem, the State capital, has not, indeed, greatly outgrown the condition in which it was found a number of years ago by Mr. Joaquin Miller, who referred to it as “rather thickly settled for the country, yet far too thinly settled for a city”; but Portland has always gone on ahead, thanks to the fact that it has been, and still is, the headquarters for wholesale supplies not only in Oregon, but in Washington and Idaho. This, combined with the fact that it is the outlet for one of the richest grain and fruit States in the Union, accounts for the metropolitan aspect of Portland. Front Street, where the large wholesale houses are, might be easily taken for a street in New York or Chicago. Farther away from the river, elegant rows of residences occupy the ground where a few years ago ferns and mosses grew, and the festive stump asserted its omnipresence. A large and magnificent hotel has just been completed, the Portland, one of the finest and most sensibly constructed in the country, every room being practically a front room, with plenty of light and air. This hotel was much needed. I have known tourists to leave Portland disgusted because they could not get comfortable quarters in the overcrowded small hotels. Cable and electric roads have also been introduced recently, and besides all these things, there is evidence of Portland’s prosperity in the appearance of the daily _Oregonian_, which is at present compelled to add four pages almost every issue to its usual eight pages, just as were the Los Angeles papers during the “boom” in Southern California. The _Oregonian_ is one of the best edited papers in the United States, liberal in its views, and generally on the right side of important questions. It has obtained such a firm hold in Oregon soil that rival papers find it almost impossible to make headway against it; and Portland is perhaps the only city of its size in this country which has only one first-class daily paper.

Some Portlanders are distressed at the fact that Second Street, one of the three principal business streets of the city, has fallen almost entirely into the hands of the Chinese; but in her general treatment of Chinamen, Portland differs widely from her rival cities in Washington. From Tacoma the Mongolians were driven formally, a few years ago, by a mob, headed by the mayor and a brass band. Seattle tried the same game, but there the mob was foiled by the interference of the sheriff. Portland, on the other hand, deals gently with its two thousand Chinamen, because they are found useful, and sometimes indispensable. A Portlander has explained this matter as follows: “In a city where white help cannot be got at the rate of thirty dollars a month for plain cooks and twenty dollars for chambermaids, Chinamen at those prices, either in the kitchen or overhead, are a blessing. Indeed, the amicable relations between the Chinese and the whites here is due largely to a tacit agreement on a division of labor. All over the city you see that the men employed on street-mending and other public works are white. Wherever you see a pile of cordwood and a man sawing, splitting, and carrying it in, you will find him a Chinaman. When a well-to-do Chinaman wants a drive in a hack, a white man sits before him on the box. The Chinese have not intruded into any of the skilled trades to the exclusion of the whites. Their barbers shave only their own countrymen. Their cobblers confine their mending to Chinese shoes. Their compositors set only Chinese type. Their carpenters are employed on Chinese buildings and cabinet work exclusively. You will often see a drayman delivering freight with a Chinese helper, or a white gardener directing his Chinese assistant in the use of the hoe and the rake. The absurd notion, so prevalent in some parts of the East, that the Chinaman works for almost nothing, is quickly dispelled when you come to strike a bargain with one. If he is to dig in your garden as a common laborer, he stands for his dollar a day as firmly as the white man. He will saw your wood gladly, but he must have a dollar a cord for it, or a dollar and seventy-five cents if he also splits it, carries it in, and piles it up in your cellar.”

In the country, the Chinamen are even more indispensable than in the city; and the demand for them during harvesting and hop-picking time is always greater than the supply. They are hired through the agency of Chinese bosses, who send them wherever they are wanted, with cooks and a general outfit, and pay them a small sum a day, keeping the lion’s share for themselves. At other times of the year the Chinese are employed in making “clearings” for agricultural purposes. Oregon has about fifteen million acres of timber land, with a soil that is excellent for grain or fruit, provided the timber can be removed. To do this with white labor is so expensive as to take away the possible margin of profit. But the Chinaman does it for a smaller sum, and thus, instead of being the farm-laborer’s enemy, he enables him to earn a living on the ground cleared by the heathen. The cost of clearing an acre varies from twenty-five to one hundred dollars.

Market-gardening in Oregon, as in California, is almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese, and where-ever in the neighborhood of Portland you see a brook large enough to irrigate a garden, you will usually find a Chinaman in possession of the ground. Even where the gardens or orchards belong to Americans, Chinamen are hired to do most of the work. And they do it well, with rare exceptions. Usually they have a separate hut, where they do their own cooking; or else they occupy a portion of the barn, in which case, if the chickens lay their eggs therein, it is sometimes found that the number of cackling chickens exceeds the number of eggs found in the trough in the evening.

To judge by the articles found in their provision stores, the wealthier among the Chinese appear to be as great epicures as their countrymen at home; while of the poorer ones, if you ask one what he had for dinner, he will invariably reply, “I eatee licee” (rice). Yet they are always glad to get what is left over at the table, and this makes it the more remarkable that they are so contented with their insipid boiled rice, without condiment of any sort.

Heathen John is, of course, quite as willing to work on Sunday as on any other day; but once in a while a day comes along which is marked sacred in his calendar, and then it is difficult to persuade him to do anything. I once witnessed a curious scene on a farm near East Portland. Strawberries being over-ripe, the four Chinese laborers had been persuaded to pick all day, though they had expressed a great desire to have a holiday. In the evening they had a grand performance in front of their barn. A whole roast chicken was brought out in a plate and placed on the grass, surrounded by half-a-dozen bowls of rice-wine, and a number of burning candles, though it was still daylight. The oldest of the men went through a series of bows and genuflections, and then poured out libations of the wine, after offering some to the spectators, who politely declined it. Then a few dozen perforated papers with Chinese characters on them were thrown into the flame, one after another, the chicken was carried back into the barn, and the ceremony was over. One of the younger Chinamen explained to us that what we had witnessed had been done to conciliate the gods. “We workee to-day, long (wrong). ’Ligious holiday. Now allee lightee” (right). He added that he and the other two young men would not have done it, but that the old man was very strict in his religious observances and had induced them to join him.

Afterwards we asked this same young man to sing for us, which he did after much coaxing, and a solemn and repeated promise that we would not laugh. He sang three verses in a shrill falsetto voice, each time a few notes higher, the effect being similar to that of the Edison phonographic speaking-dolls. He accompanied his song with dance and pantomime, but when one of his companions tried to accompany him on a peculiar instrument which sounded like a cross between a violin and oboe, he did not encourage him, and explained to us “he no play.”

John sometimes manages to pick up a fair knowledge of English, but one word he cannot get into his brain, and that is the word “get.” Tell him to “go and get the milk” and he will have no idea what you want. “Catchee” is the word for him; and if you say “John, go catchee him milk,” he will go at once and get it. His logic also is sometimes peculiar; and if you make a bargain with him at so much a month, he will work exactly one Chinese month, or four times seven days, and then refuse to do anything on the two or three remaining days of the month unless he gets extra pay. Nash, in his “Two Years in Oregon,” relates a funny story of a Chinaman who accompanied him on a trip through the country. On arriving at a steep hill, he got off the wagon and made John get off too, much against his will, apparently; for presently, on looking around, he noticed that John had crawled up again from behind. On being remonstrated with, John exclaimed, “Never mind; horsee no see me get in; they know no better.”

The same writer tells of a Chinaman who stole the picture of a pretty girl from an album and concealed it in his room. And an Oregon lady related to me an incident which gives further proof that John has a sense of beauty. She has two daughters, one a very pretty brunette of eleven, the other a blonde with irregular features and freckles. Lee had one day promised a handkerchief to the blonde, but on looking at the two he decided to give it to the other one. He often spoke of her beautiful black eyes, “just like a China girl’s,” and said he would take her along to China. “How much will you give me for her?” asked the mother. “Hundred dollars,” was the answer. “And how much for the other one?” “Two bits” (twenty-five cents). Lee used to tease these children by running away towards his cabin with their favorite cat, pretending that he was going to cook her for dinner. One day he was left alone in the house, and when the family returned late in the evening, they found he had attended to everything, even to winding up the clock. But at one o’clock they were awakened by a most infernal noise; Lee, with the thoroughness of his race, had wound up everything he could find—alarm clock and all!

Lee always gave the children Christmas presents of preserved ginger, candy, or silk handkerchiefs, and occasionally ten cents “to go to the theatre”; but after a time he became lazy and unmanageable, and was finally chased away because he impudently gave notice that he would not work the next day: “To-mollow I’ll be sick.”

One of the greatest advantages of Portland as a place of residence is that one can stay here all the year round, as there are very few days in summer when the thermometer rises high enough to make one uncomfortable; while the winter climate is similar to that of Virginia. When a few successive warm days do come, however, the Portlanders have an unusual variety of excursions to choose from. Picnic boats go up the Columbia River every day, to visit the Cascades or the Multuomah or Latourelle Falls. Others go down the river to Astoria and the sea. Mt. Hood can be reached in a few hours, and a hotel has been built near the great glacier, where fans are never in demand. Portland is a hundred miles from the sea, yet it has three seaside resorts, accessible by rail or boat, which are much frequented in July and August, less because the city is considered uncomfortable, than because all residents on the Pacific Coast seem to have a passion for camping out a few weeks each year.

In selecting a seaside resort on the North Pacific Coast, the most important consideration, next to a good beach, is protection from the cold winds which often make even the summer months chilly. In this respect the most southerly of Portland’s summer resorts, at Yaquina Bay, is well favored. It is situated about a hundred miles south of the Columbia River bar; and expects to be some day an important commercial place, owing to the facilities for transportation of wheat and fruit to San Francisco, the distance being two hundred miles less than from Portland. At present a steamer leaves every two weeks for the Golden Gate. Newport, on this bay, is a place of about five hundred inhabitants, who claim that their town will never need a fire company because the salt spray from the ocean renders the houses fire-proof—an assertion which they probably expect to be taken _cum grano salis_. Yaquina Bay formed part of a large Indian reservation until 1865, and up to that time the San Franciscans who found it profitable to fish for oysters in their bay had to pay the Indians a shilling a bushel for this privilege.

The other two seaside resorts of Portlanders are due west,—Clatsop being a few miles south of the Columbia River bar, and Ilwaco, or Long Beach, a few miles north of it. Of these two, by far the most frequented to-day is Long Beach, because it is accessible by boat and rail, while Clatsop has hitherto involved a dusty stage ride of eighteen miles from Tansy Point. Ilwaco is opposite Astoria, on the Washington side of the Columbia estuary, and lies at the southern extremity of the long, sandy peninsula which separates Shoalwater Bay from the Pacific. A few years ago a primitive sort of railway was built on this peninsula for the accommodation of visitors to the seaside, and now hotels and camps are scattered along its whole length. There are two hotels, but they are expensive and not very good, and most of the Portlanders prefer to bring their tents along and rough it. A site for the tent may be purchased for two dollars and a half a season, and hay for the beds is supplied by the neighboring farmers to those who are too fastidious to use the fragrant fern which is an omnipresent and irrepressible weed in Washington and Oregon. Fern has its advantages, not only because it costs nothing, but because it offers no temptation to the cows which have the freedom of the camp in the early morning hours. It is hardly conducive to comfortable rest to know that at any moment after daylight a cow may poke her head under your tent and chew up the substratum of your bedding. The owners of these cows provide for a plentiful supply of milk and vegetables, while meat is daily brought from Portland or Astoria, and is offered for sale, together with canned goods, at booths which are more numerous than they need to be. One can hardly blame these vendors for asking somewhat high prices for their supplies, but the person to guard against is the thrifty farmer’s wife who buys “store” butter and eggs at Ilwaco and then peddles them around as “fresh farm products” at double prices.

Shoalwater Bay is a famous oyster-ground, and the bivalves, together with mud-clams and razor-clams, are daily brought over to the camp. These oysters are small and inferior in flavor to Eastern oysters. Crabs and fish in great variety are also to be had for a trifle, but the popular way at Long Beach is to catch them yourself. When the tide recedes, some crabs (occasionally weighing four or five pounds) are always left in the hollows on the beach, where they can be easily caught. But once every month there are several mornings when the tide recedes about half a mile, and then the sport becomes lively. Everybody is out with poles and large sacks, in which the crabs are packed and afterwards gathered in by wagons. Another kind of sport peculiar to this region is gathering in the large hake (two to five pounders), which in their eager pursuit of sardines are occasionally caught by the breakers and cast ashore, where they can be gathered in by the hundred. Larger fish, too, are often cast ashore, among them ten-foot sturgeon, and large salmon with a big hole in the side. The seals which abound in this region have a destructive and abominable habit of taking some favorite tidbit out of the salmon and then leaving them to die. These dead fish on the beach have to be carefully covered with sand, or else they become a malodorous nuisance.

In the evening the scene along the beach is rendered brilliant by numerous bonfires, fed with the logs that are scattered along the beach in countless numbers. These logs are brought down the Columbia during the high-water season, and deposited along the beach for miles each way. Some of them, in fact, have been carried to distant islands in the Pacific. They supply the campers with plentiful fuel, and no one objects to the wasteful bonfires, because the stock is replenished every year. During storms this driftwood adds a unique element of grandeur to the scene, the huge logs being tossed about like straws by the angry waves, now lifted up straight as trees, and again dashed against each other with a thud which is heard above the roar of the breakers.

Long Beach is a place where even a victim of insomnia will sleep ten hours every night, and still yawn all day. But as a bathing-place it has its disadvantages. Bathing on the North Pacific is a different thing from bathing on the New Jersey coast. The waves are so rough—positively rude, one might say—and the undertow so strong, that there is only one hour each day when bathing becomes safe and enjoyable. This hour varies of course daily with the tide, and a bell is rung to announce it. Immediately hundreds of campers, who have put on their bathing-suits in their tents, rush into the waves; but few of them stay in more than twenty minutes, as the water, even on summer afternoons, is rarely warm enough to invite a longer stay. That it is perilous to go into the water at any other than the official hour announced by the bell is proved by the sad case of a young lady, a well-known heiress, who lost her life here a few years ago. She was engaged to a young man, whom she asked one day to accompany her into the water when the tide was going out. Of course he flatly refused, whereupon she was piqued and invited another young man, who foolishly complied with her request. They entered the breakers, when suddenly the young lady disappeared under the waves and was never seen again. Although a large sum was offered for the recovery of her body, it was never found, and it is possible that it was devoured by sharks; for these fish are occasionally seen here, though there is no danger near shore, and the noise made by the bathers is said to frighten them away.

The greatest objection to Long Beach is the cold winds which almost constantly sweep along the coast, very often accompanied by dense fogs. During three weeks in July and August, 1889, that I spent there, the sun shone only on five days. On account of these disadvantages it is probable that before long Clatsop Beach will become the favorite summer resort of Portlanders, because it is protected against wind and fogs by Tillamook Head on one side, and forests on another. A railroad has just been built to Clatsop, and it is probable that this summer the Portlanders will desert their favorite Long Beach and establish their summer quarters at Clatsop, which has the additional merit, from their own patriotic point of view, of being in Oregon, while Long Beach is in Washington.

From Clatsop a very interesting excursion can be made on foot to Tillamook Head, where a much-needed lighthouse was built ten years ago in a most exposed and romantic situation. It stands on an isolated rock, about a mile from the shore, and twenty miles south of the Columbia River bar. The foreman of the party that built the lighthouse was swept away by the waves and drowned, when he first put foot on the rock, and the workmen were repeatedly in great danger while building the lighthouse, being once cut off from all supplies for over two weeks by a storm. The almost incredible fury of the “Pacific” Ocean when it gets roused may be inferred from the fact that during a recent winter storm the wild waves broke over this tower, the summit of which is one hundred and thirty-six feet above sea-level, leaving fish and rocks scattered on the roof. One of these rocks weighed sixty-two pounds, and is now on exhibition in Portland.

Sea-lions are abundant in this neighborhood, and it is interesting to watch them fishing for salmon, or quietly basking in the sunshine on the rugged rocks, regardless of the cacophonous roaring of the monstrous sentinels. The Indians have a tradition that pearl-oysters used to be obtained a few miles off shore; but at present the less ornamental but more useful rock-oyster only is to be found, together with mussels and razor-clams, which have their habitat on the sandy shore, and on being disturbed dig their way down so rapidly, that it requires some skill to catch them with a little spade. In some places along the beach the curious phenomenon of “singing sands” is encountered, the sand on being trod on giving out a peculiar sound.

The Elk Creek region, through which this part of the coast is approached, is a veritable hunter’s and botanist’s paradise. Here bears and deer abound, and more dangerous game, like timber wolves and cougars, may be encountered, as well as otter and beaver. In the south fork of Elk Creek there is good trout-fishing. But it requires a decided talent for “roughing it” to enjoy all these things; for here we are in a forest truly primeval, where paths are few and far between, and where the sunlight rarely penetrates through the dense groups of firs and spruce to impede the growth of the moisture-loving ferns and mosses which carpet the ground everywhere. Trees of over two hundred feet in height and straight as masts abound, some of them up to ten feet in diameter, and therefore too large to tempt the lumbermen to destroy them.

As for these Oregon mosses and ferns, one would have to seek in moist tropical regions for anything to match them in variety, beauty, and verdant luxuriance. Not only is the ground covered so deeply that one could walk noiselessly, were it not for the dead twigs, but every tree, standing or prostrate, has its green mossy cover. Rotten logs are adorned with ferns waving gracefully over the lovely mosses amidst which they have gained foothold; and even the rocks, which are so bare and bleak in California, are here covered with a mosaic of mosses and lichens—green, gray, red, and yellow. Of the ferns the loveliest is, of course, the black-stemmed maiden-hair, which attains a height of several feet along the banks of shaded brooks, and looks so graceful as it waves about in the gentle breezes that it seems fully to deserve its poetic name. Less graceful and poetic is the common Oregon fern, which sometimes grows as high as California wild mustard, so that hunters may lose their way in it, and which is, from an æsthetic point of view, one of the most charming features of Oregon, since it covers up the unattractive gray of the soil everywhere with a delicate pale green garb which contrasts delightfully with the darker green of the fir-trees. But the farmers look on this species of fern as a dreadful nuisance, because it is the most irrepressible of all weeds, whose roots have more lives than cats. Oregon, it must be admitted, is almost as weed-ridden as California. Besides the fern, the most troublesome weeds are sorrel, dog-fennel, wild carrots, and oats, thistles, and the beautiful corn-flowers in every imaginable color. The most curious thing about these Oregon weeds is the tendency they have to supplant each other every three years, as if there were fashions among weeds. But whereas thistles and wild carrots and corn-flowers may come and go, the fern always remains, unless it is ploughed down persistently, and a _harrowing_ war is waged against the last inch of root remaining in the soil.

It goes without saying that a soil which is so favorable to the growth of weeds also extends a generous welcome to flowers. This is most strikingly shown on deserted farms where _annual_ garden flowers continue to seed themselves year after year, without any care. I have seen half-a-dozen garden species of flowers growing wild in a place where they had received no attention for twenty years. Wild flowers do not grow here in such profusion or variety as in California, but there are few flowers in California that equal in beauty the pendent red clusters of the wild Oregon currant, or the trifolium, whose petals are at first snow-white, and subsequently change to purple. Lilies of the valley, tiger-lilies, bleeding hearts, lady’s-slippers, iris, columbines, larkspur, and many other flowers that are carefully reared in Eastern gardens, grow wild here in great profusion.

In the matter of berries, Oregon is greatly ahead of California. The delicious wild strawberries on long stems are so abundant in May and June that they perfume the air along country roads like clover-fields. Blackberries are even more numerous, and a single county of Oregon would supply enough for all our Eastern cities. Wild currants and gooseberries are also abundant, as well as black and red raspberries and huckleberries. Then there are berries peculiar to Oregon and Washington, including the yellow salmon-berries, the scarlet thimble-berries, and the odd salal, a bush which grows everywhere and is quite ornamental with its glossy leaves and bell-shaped white flowers which turn into bluish black berries of a rather agreeable flavor. Usually these berries are small and dry, but in the swampy regions along the sea-coast they grow as large as gooseberries, and are very sweet, although care has to be used in eating them, as they are apt to be inhabited. Bears are very fond of these salal-berries. But perhaps the most curious berry in the State is the so-called Oregon “grape,” a small blue berry which makes good wine, but requires plenty of sugar, as it is perhaps the sourest thing that grows, unless it be the Oregon crab-apple, a small berry-like fruit growing in clusters, and of which a jam is made that would give European or Eastern epicures a new sensation of delight. Speaking of epicures, I claim to be an amateur in that line myself, and I must acknowledge that I have never tasted any French château wine with a more agreeable bouquet than that of Oregon cider made exclusively of the finest apple that grows—white winter pearmain—and kept in bottles, unfermented.

The wild oranges which grow in Mexico indicate that oranges, lemons, and limes must be among the most profitable crops grown there; and in the same way the wild crab-apples, cherries, various sorts of berries, and wild oats prophetically indicated that the wealth of Oregon lay in the systematic cultivation of fruit, berries, and grain.

I have apparently wandered away from my topic, which, I believe, was Portland and its summer resorts; but these things may as well be referred to here as elsewhere, since all of rural Oregon is practically a summer resort. I can only briefly refer to other attractions, such as the numerous wild canaries and other song-birds which fill the Oregon air with glad music; or the game-birds which may still be hunted but a few miles from Portland,—the stoical, hooting grouse on the tree-tops, undaunted by the repeated shots of the amateur rifleman; the partridges, which do not allow a passing train to disturb them at their breakfast in a wheatfield; or the wild pigeons, which save you the trouble of hunting them by giving you a few shots at them every morning on your cherry-trees; or the deer, which still abound in the mountains; etc. But in conclusion I must once more refer to what after all constitutes the greatest charm and attraction of Oregon, next to the snow-peaks; namely, the omnipresent fir-trees, tall, stately, dark green, and shady. Artists and others who have grown up in firless countries can have no idea of the true grandeur and beauty of a real forest, of the cathedral-like gloom and silence in its midst, of the exquisite serrated lines formed by the branching tree-tops standing against a deep blue sky, and of the infinite variety of tints and shadows produced by the play of clouds and of sunlight at different hours of the day. More beautiful still, if less imposing, than the full-grown trees, are the young fir-trees of ten to thirty feet in height which are rapidly filling up the regions destroyed by forest fires. They look like so many square miles of Christmas-trees, but no Christmas-trees adorned by Santa Claus with colored wax candles ever present so brilliant an appearance as those young fir groves when the morning or evening sun shines horizontally on them. Such lights and shades are to be seen nowhere else in the world, and the tints seem so warm and glowing that on a cold morning one involuntarily edges up to them to get warm.

XII.

UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

AN UNGRATEFUL REPUBLIC—THE COLUMBIA COMPARED WITH OTHER
RIVERS—SNOW-PEAKS—SALMON-CANNERIES—ASTORIA AND THE MOUTH
OF THE RIVER—CAPE HORN AND ROOSTER ROCK—WATER-FALLS—THE
CASCADES—SALMON-WHEELS—IN THE HIGHLANDS—THE LAST OF THE
MOHICANS—LOW AND HIGH WATER—THE SCENERY AND THE RAILROAD—THE
“PLACE OF THE WINDS”—“SWIFT WATER”—A RIVER TURNED ON EDGE.

The proverbial ingratitude of republics has never been better illustrated than by the fact that not one of our forty-two States is named after the discoverer of America. True, there are more than fifty Columbia counties, townships, cities, and villages in the United States, and thirty more have adopted the name Columbus, while the capital of the country lies in the District of Columbia; but this district comprises an area of only sixty-four square miles, and in a country where so much is thought of big things, Columbus surely ought to have been sponsor of one of our largest States. An excellent opportunity was missed, on the occasion of the recent admission of Washington Territory to statehood, of changing its name to Columbia. This would not only have prevented much confusion in the mails, but would have been singularly appropriate, for the reason that Washington is bounded on the south by the Columbia River, and on the north by British Columbia.[1]

[1] When Washington Territory was separated from Oregon, an effort was made to have it named Columbia, but it was defeated in Congress.

However, even if it failed to use its opportunity for adopting the name of Columbia for one of its States, the Northwest has done more to honor the name of Columbus than any other part of the country; for here is British Columbia with its magnificent mountain scenery, more than eight times as large as the State of New York; and, better still, the Columbia River, three thousand miles in length, with the grandest river scenery in the world. I have repeatedly seen the Hudson, the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Missouri, Sacramento, the Rhine, Elbe, and Danube, and none of these rivers impressed me as deeply as the Columbia, which, with the exception of the castles on the Rhine, combines the best features of all of them, and adds to them what they all lack—a background of lofty mountains covered with eternal snow. Grandeur is the watchword of the Columbia, which, with this mountainous background and the stupendous sculpture of its banks, towers above other famous rivers as the high Alps of Switzerland do above our Adirondacks and Catskills.

In entitling this chapter “Up and down the Columbia” I do not wish to frighten the reader into the belief that I intend to take him over the same ground—or water—twice, but merely to indicate that Portland is to be our starting-place. From that city steamers leave daily to make the trip of one hundred miles down to Astoria and the ocean, while others go up the river about one hundred and ten miles, to the Falls. The former trip should be taken first, to avoid an anticlimax.