Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/19

 her prow, sailed between the white lines of surf safely—through the proper channel, thank God!—out upon the broad bosom of the most magnificent of rivers.

We trust the morning was fine, and that Captain Gray had a perfect view of the noble scenery surrounding him: of a golden sunrise from a horizon fretted by the peaks of lofty hills, bearing thick unbroken forests of giant trees; of low shores embowered in flowering shrubbery; of numerous mountain-spurs putting out into the wide bay, extending miles cast and west, and north and south, forming numerous other bays and coves, where boats might lie in safety from any storm outside; of other streams dividing the mountains into ridges, and pouring their tributary waters into the great river, through narrow gaps that half revealed and half concealed the fertile valleys nestled away from inquisitive eyes: and that, as he tried in vain to look beyond the dark ridge of Tongue Point, around whose foot flowed the broad, deep current whose origin was still a mystery, he realized by a prophetic sense the importance of that morning's transaction. No other reward had he in his lifetime, and we trust he had that.

From the ship's log-book, we learn that he did not leave the river for ten days, during which time the men were employed calking the pinnace; paying the ship's side with tar, painting the same, and doing such carpenter -work as was needed to put the vessel in repair after her long voyage out from Boston. All this time, "vast numbers" of natives were alongside continually, and the Captain must have driven a thriving trade in furs, salmon, and the like. On the 14th, he sailed up the river about fifteen miles, getting aground just above Tongue Point, where he mistook the chan-