Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/112

106 of irrigation. The Touchet, at the crossing just mentioned, is a narrow stream flowing between banks of rich, black alluvium, with narrow bottoms of the same, covered with a tall, coarse rye-grass. A few farms have been commenced on the bottom-land, that look very lonely in so great a waste of uncultivated, perhaps uncultivable country; for we have left behind the sand and gravel, and come into a section where there are nothing but rolling hills of a light-colored earth, so fine and powdery that where the road has been used for a season, great canyons exist—the wheels of wagons and tread of animals having pulverized the soil, and the wind lifted and carried it away, leaving these deep cuts. This same ashen soil supports an abundant crop of the nutritious bunch-grass, and ought, therefore, under a system of irrigation, to be able to produce the cereals.

This ashen soil is certainly not pleasant to journey over in summer; and it is with real gratitude that the longed-for shower is welcomed, bringing an abatement of both dust and sunshine. A half-dozen miles from Walla Walla city, at the crossing of Dry Creek, the aspect of the country changes. Instead of rolling hills covered with bunch-grass, between the roots of which the gray earth is always visible, we come to a beautiful, level basin of land, bounded by the foot-hills of the Blue Mountains on the east, and stretching away off into undulating prairies on every other side. The first glimpse of this lovely valley is very cheering indeed.

Perhaps it is partly by contrast that the town of Walla Walla impresses itself so pleasantly upon the beholder on first entering it from the direction of Wallula. It does, at all events, surprise the traveler with