whose dark faces seldom light up from recognition by those whose power has been but the destruction of their own, do we thank you.
May many winters come and go before their snows shall bring to you old age; and when, at last, the “Tenino” shall be laid aside, may you still be guardian of this spot, so sacred to many a sad and hopeless heart.
Leaving behind, on our upward journey, the burial-ground of the mountain tribes, in charge of the faithful McNulty, we pass beneath high rock cliffs, sometimes near beautiful valleys, with farm cottages and lowing cattle on hill-side pastures. Through the deep cañons that cut the table mountains in twain, as if made on purpose for tourists’ delight, Mount Hood, the father mountain, comes suddenly in view; the beauty much enhanced when seen through nature’s telescope, made by rifts in solid rocks, with sky-lights reaching to the stars above. Words may not give even a faint outline of the scene. McNulty, though for years he has gazed on this sublime painting,—at morning, when the shadows cover the telescope, but light the mountain up; and at evening, too, when both were shaded,—sees new beauties at every sight; and, not content to worship all alone, he rings his call to the engineer, and the vessel slackens her speed, and “rounds to” in proper place, while the captain calls his guests to the grandest banquet that earth affords, and points out the beauties as each one paints the panorama on his soul.
See, there the old Father Hood stands, with his wreath of snow, which he has worn since the time when man was unknown. Sometimes he hides his
hoary head in clouds, unwilling to witness the injustice done the puny children who have played around his feet for generations past. We see his own sons, still in primeval manhood, with heads crowned with fir or laurel, standing at his side and looking up, are ever ready to bear the winter’s burdens that from his shoulders fall.
Again we glide on the smooth surface of the shining river until we hear repeated the captain’s call to witness now how impartial God has been, and to prevent any jealousy that might arise, has made on the other shore, looking northward, twin telescope to the first, and twin mountain, too, for now we see another hoary head, rich in clustered snow-banks that ornament her brow. Mother Adams stands calmly overlooking her daughters, who modestly wear garlands of wild wood-vines, and heavy-topped fragrant cedars. She feels her solitude, and when “Hood” draws his mantle over his majestic shoulders, she, too, puts on a silvery veil of misty wreath, or, in seeming anger, drapes in mourning and weeps; the deluge of her tears giving signs of willingness to make friends again. And then these two old mountains smile and nod, and looking above the clouds that covered the heads of younger ones, they, giants in solitude, become reconciled. The lesser ones then peep through the rising mist, and smile to catch their estranged parents making up.
Leaving these grand scenes, the mountains, smaller, waste away into gentle hills, and we feel that we have passed the portals of a paradise, shut out from ocean storms by great barriers of rocks. The river grows narrow, the banks are perpendicular walls of solid
rocks of moderate height. Rounding a turn in the river, suddenly comes to view “The Dalles,” a small city near the river brink, nestling in an amphitheatre, formed by curved walls of rocky bluffs. In times past The Dalles was a starting-point for the mines of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and was, also, the seat of a United States fort. Its streets have felt the tread of merchant princes, and miners of every grade and color; of the tramping of bands of Indian ponies brought here to be sold or to parade some red man’s wealth; of heavily ladened wheels bearing merchandise.
Busy throngs peopled then its streets, but now they are less merry; business has taken long strides toward surer success and larger life. Long years ago it was a great resort for Indians, who came to feast and gamble, and exchange captive slaves. Many old legends date from this post, and some of them are rich in historic truths; others in romance of human lives, and, others still, of fairy tales and ghostly stories.
A few miles above the city the river passes between almost perpendicular walls of stone, while through the narrow gorge the water leaps from ledge to ledge in quick succession, making huge billows of the rushing current, so rapid that no steamer or canoe has ever upward passed, though both have downward been in perfect safety. At this point the great schools of salmon, on their journey to the lakes and smaller streams, halt to rest, and thus prepare themselves for more severe struggles and more daring feats. Here the red men have, year after year, come to lay in supplies of salmon.