Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/46

40 burial-ground—its memelose illihee, or "land of spirits"—is profaned. Alas! nothing of one race is sacred to another; least of all, are the poor Indians' bones sacred to white men.

Several localities are pointed out to us, while we cross the river; but, at this distance, we can not see much more than that to the north of us is a range of high, wooded bluffs, with a narrow strip of level ground along the river, more or less inhabited. That which does attract our attention is Sand Island, close to which we pass. It is scarcely above the level of the water, at mean tide, and presents a waste of sand, in which a few dead trees are embedded. It is fringed with a colony of eagles, who sit motionless, but keen-eyed, watching for their prey—their pre-emptive title being disputed only by a shoal of seals, whose antics furnish a pleasing contrast to the gravity of their feathered rivals. In little more than half an hour, we are landed at Fort Stevens, on Point Adams.

There is nothing handsome in the situation of Fort Stevens. It occupies a low, sandy plain, and is just a little inside of the actual point of this cape; but the fort itself is one of the strongest and best-armed on the Pacific Coast. Its shape is a nonagon, surrounded by a ditch, thirty feet wide. This ditch is again surrounded by earth-works, intended to protect the wall of the fort, from which rise the earth-works supporting the ordnance. Viewed from the outside, nothing is seen but the gently inclined banks of earth, smoothly sodded. The officers' quarters, outside the fort, are very pleasant; and, although there is nothing attractive in the appearance of the fort, or its surroundings, it is a pleasant enough place to those who have the good fortune to have the entreeentrée [sic] of its society.