An interesting feature of river life in Portland is the houseboat, moored to the shore. Sometimes they are floated miles down the river to the fishing grounds. Most of them are neat one-story cottages and nicely painted. Nearly always there is a tiny veranda where flowers in pots are blooming.
An aged couple lives in a tiny houseboat, painted white, which is moored apart from the others. A veranda runs across the front of the boat and there are shelves on either side of the door. They have a fine collection of geraniums and just now the entire front of their water home is aglow with the blooms. Misfortune overtook these people and they adopted this mode of life because of its cheapness. Another boat was moored under the lea of the steep bank. Up the side of the bank a path led to the top, where the children have built a small pen from twigs and sticks. Inside the pen are five fat ducks, a pair of bantams and a pig.
Portland is the third wealthiest city for its size in the world. Frankfort on the Main takes first rank and Hartford, Conn., second. The climate is delightful. In summer the average temperature is eighty, with always a cool breeze blowing from the sea or the snow-capped mountains.
The trip up the Columbia river to the dalles is a continuous panorama of beautiful scenes. On each side along the densely wooded shores are low green islands. Here and there barren rocks fifty to one hundred feet high stand, sentinel like, while over their rugged sides pour waterfalls. Ruskin says that “mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.” This wonderful river inspired Bryant’s “Where rolls the Oregon,” Oregon being the former name of this river—the Indian name.
GOVERNMENT LOCKS ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
James Brice paid a tribute of admiration to the superb extinct volcanos, bearing snow fields and glaciers which rise out of the vast and somber forest on the banks of the Columbia river and the shores of Puget Sound. The Oregon chain of mountains from Shasta to Mount Tacoma is a line of extinct volcanos. A peculiar basaltic formation three hundred feet high stands at the gateway to the white capped Cascades of the Columbia river. Here a Lorelei might sit enthroned and lure to death with her entrancing music, sailors and fishermen. The Cascades are so dangerous that the government has built locks at this point, through which every boat passes on its way up or down the river. The Indian legend as to the origin of the upheaval in the bed of the river now called the Cascades runs in this wise: Years ago when the earth was young, Mount Hood was the home of the Storm Spirit and Mt. Adams of the Fire Spirit. Across the vale that spread between them stretched a mighty bridge of stone joining peak to peak. On this altar “the bridge of the gods,” the Indian laid his offering of fish and dressed skins for Nanne the goddess of summer. These two spirits, Storm and Fire, both loving the fair goddess, grew jealous of each other and fell to fighting. A perfect gale of fire, lightning, splintered trees and rocks swept the bridge, but the brave goddess courageously kept her place on this strange altar. In the deep shadows of the rocks, a warrior who had loved her long but hopelessly, kept watch. The storm waxed stronger, the altar trembled, the earth to its very center shook. The young chief sprang forward and caught Nanne in his arms, a crash and the beautiful goddess and the brave warrior were buried under the debris forever. The Columbia now goes whirling, tossing and dashing over that old altar and hurrying on to the sea. The Spirits of Storm and Fire still linger in their old haunts but never again will they see the fair Nanne. The Indian invariably mixes a grain of truth with much that is wild, weird and strange. It was Umatilla, chief of the Indians at the Cascades who brought about peace between the white man and his red brother. He had lost all of his children by the plague except his youngest son, Black Eagle, his father called him, Benjamin the white man called him. Black Eagle was still a lad when an eastern man built a little schoolhouse by the river and began teaching the Indians. A warm friendship sprang up between teacher and pupil. One sad day Black Eagle fell ill with the plague. Old Umatilla received the news that his son could not live, with all the stoicism of his race, but he went away alone into the wood, returning at the dawn of day. When he returned Black Eagle was dying.
RAPIDS, COLUMBIA RIVER.
Slowly the pale lids closed over the sunken eyes, a breath and the brave lad had trusted his soul to the white man’s God.