The river above the Cascades runs north-westwardly; but approaching the descent, it turns westward, and, after entering the trough, south-westwardly, and having passed this, it resumes its course to the north west. By this bend, it leaves between its shore and the northern mountains, a somewhat broken plain, a mile in width, and about four miles in length. At the upper end of the rapids, this plain is {190} nearly on a level with the river, so that an inconsiderable freshet sets the water up a natural channel half way across the bend. This circumstance, and the absence of any serious obstruction in the form of hills, &c., led me to suppose that a canal might be cut around the Cascades at a trifling expence, which would not only open steamboat navigation to the Dalles, but furnish at this interesting spot, an incalculable amount of water power.[239]
The canoe had been deposited among the rocks at the lower end of the trough, our cocoa and boiled salmon, bread, butter, potatoes, &c., had been located in their proper depositories, and we were taking a parting gaze at the rushing flood, when the sound of footsteps, and an order given in French to deposit a bale of goods at the water side, drew our attention to a hearty old gentleman of fifty or fifty-five, whom Mr. Lee immediately recognized as Dr. McLaughlin.[240] He was about five feet eleven inches in height, and stoutly built, weighing about two hundred pounds, with large green blueish eyes, a ruddy complexion, and hair of snowy whiteness. He was on his return from London with dispatches from the Hudson's Bay Company's Board in {191} England, and with letters from friends at home to the hundreds of Britons in its employ in the north-western wilderness. He was in high spirits. Every crag in sight was familiar to him, had witnessed the energy and zeal of thirty years' successful enterprise; had seen him in the strength of ripened manhood, and now beheld his undiminished energies crowned with the frosted locks of age. We spent ten minutes with the doctor, and received a kind invitation to the hospitalities of his post; gave our canoe, freighted with our baggage, in charge of the Indians, to take down the lower rapids, and ascended the bluff to the trail which leads to the tide-water below them. We climbed two hundred feet among small spruce, pine, fir, and hemlock trees, to the table land.
The track was strewn with fragments of petrified trees, from three inches to two feet in diameter, and rocks, (quartz and granite, ex loco), mingled with others more or less fused. Soon after striking the path on the plain, we came to a beautiful little lake, lying near the brink of the hill. It was clear and deep; and around its western, northern, and eastern shores, drooped the boughs of a thick hedge of small evergreen {192} trees, which dipped and rose charmingly in its waters. All around stood the lofty pines, sighing and groaning in the wind. Nothing could be seen, but the little lake and the girding forest; a gem of perfect beauty, reflecting the deep shades of the unbroken wilderness. A little stream creeping away from it down the bluff, babbled back the roar of the Cascades.[241]
The trail led us among deep ravines, clad with heavy frosts, the soil of which was a coarse gravel, thinly covered with a vegetable mould. A mile from the lake, we came upon a plain level again. In this place was a collection of Indian tombs, similar to those upon the "Island of tombs." These were six or eight in number, and contained a great quantity of bones. On the boards around the sides were painted the figures of death, horses, dogs, &c. The great destroyer bears the same grim aspect to the savage mind that he does to ours.—A skull and the fleshless bones of a skeleton piled around, were his symbol upon these rude resting places of the departed.[242] One of them, which our Indian said, contained the remains of a celebrated "Medicine man," bore the figure of a horse rudely carved {193} from the red cedar tree. This was the form in which his posthumous visits were to be made to his tribe. Small brass kettles, wooden pails, and baskets of curious workmanship, were piled on the roof.
Thence onward half a mile over a stony soil, sometimes open, and again covered with forests, we reached our canoe by the rocky shore at the foot of the rapids. Mr. Lee here pointed out to me a strong eddying current on the southern shore, in which Mr. Cyrus Shepard and Mrs. Doctor White and child, of the Methodist Mission on the Willamette, were capsized the year before, in an attempt to run the lower rapids.[243] Mr. Shepard could not swim—had sunk the second time, and rose by the side of the upturned canoe, when he seized the hand of Mrs. White, who was on the opposite side, and thus sustained himself and her, until some Indians came to their relief. On reaching the shore, and turning up the canoe, the child was found entangled among the cross-bars, dead!
The current was strong where we re-entered our canoe, and bore us along at a brisk rate.—The weather, too, was very agreeable; the sky transparent, and glowing with a mild October sun. The scenery {194} about us was truly grand. A few detached wisps of mist clung to the dark crags of the mountains on the southern shore, and numerous cascades shot out from the peaks, and tumbling from one shelf to another, at length plunged hundreds of feet among confused heaps of rocks in the vale. The crags themselves were extremely picturesque; they beetled out so boldly, a thousand feet above the forests on the sides of the mountain, and appeared to hang so easily and gracefully on the air. Some of them were basaltic. One appeared very remarkable. The mountain on which it stood was about one thousand two hundred feet high. On its side there was a deep rocky ravine. In this, about three hundred feet from the plain, arose a column of thirty or forty feet in diameter, and, I judged more than two hundred feet high, surmounted by a cap resembling the pediment of an ancient church.
Far up its sides grew a number of shrub cedars, which had taken root in the crevices, and, as they grew, sunk down horizontally, forming an irregular fringe of green around it. A short distance further down was seen a beautiful cascade. The stream appeared to rise near the very apex of the {195} mountain, and having run a number of rods in a dark gorge between two peaks, it suddenly shot from the brink of a cliff into the copse of evergreen trees at the base of the mountain. The height of the perpendicular fall appeared to be about six hundred feet. Some of the water was dispersed in spray before reaching the ground; but a large quantity of it fell on the plain, and sent among the heights a noisy and thrilling echo.[244] On the north side of the river, the mountains were less precipitous, and covered with a dense forest of pines, cedars, firs, &c.
The bottom lands of the river were alternately prairies and woodlands; the former clad with a heavy growth of the wild grasses, dry and brown—the latter, with pine, fir, cotton-wood, black ash, and various kinds of shrubs. The river varied in width from one to two miles, generally deep and still, but occasionally crossed by sand-bars. Ten or twelve miles below the cascades we came upon one, that, stretching two or three miles down the river, turned the current to the southern shore. The wind blew freshly, and the waves ran high in that quarter; so it was deemed expedient to lighten the canoe. To this {196} end Mr. Lee, the two Americans and myself, landed on the northern shore for a walk, while the Indians should paddle around to the lower point of the bar. We travelled along the beach. It was generally hard and gravelly.