Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/102

96 Just opposite to Dalles is a handful of rather indifferent houses, constituting the village of Rockland, in the county of Klikitat, Washington Territory.

Aside from the river itself there is little to interest one between Dalles City and Celilo, the upper end of the gorge of the Columbia. There are rocks all about in every direction, a little grass, a great deal of sand, and some very brilliant flowers growing out of it. There are also a few Indian lodges, with salmon drying inside, whose rich orange color shows through the open doorway like a flame; and a few Indians fishing with a net, their long black hair falling over their shoulders, and blowing into their eyes in a most inconvenient fashion. But every thing about an Indian's dress is inconvenient, except the ease with which it is put on! Some of these younger savages have ignored dressing altogether as a fatigue not to be undertaken, until with increasing years an increase of strength shall be arrived at.

The railroad takes us along under overhanging cliffs of plutonic rock, one of which is called Cape Horn, like its brother of the lower Columbia. As we near Celilo we discover that we have by no means left behind high banks and noble outlines. Just here, where we re-embark for the continuance of the up-river voyage, is a wide expanse of tumbling rapids, between lofty bluffs, rising precipitously from a narrow, sandy beach.

Of Celilo there is not much more than the immense warehouse of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, nine hundred feet in length—built in the flush times of gold mining in the upper country—and the other buildings required by the company's business. Lying along the shores, in little coves, are numerous sailing craft of small size, which carry freight from point to point on the river above. The sun of an unclouded