Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/75

Rh Turning from this bit of pleasantry with a smile, I am again absorbed in the beauty and majesty of the Columbia. The Hudson, which has so long been the pride of America, is but the younger brother of the Columbia. Place a hundred Dunderbergs side by side, and you have some idea of these stupendous bluffs; double the height of the Palisades, and you can form an idea of these precipitous cliffs. Elevate the dwarfed evergreens of the Hudson highlands into firs and pines like these, and then you may compare. There is no other river in United States territory which gives such impressions of grandeur.

Down this noble stream, eighty-five years ago, floated those adventurous explorers Lewis and Clarke. Seven years later the overland party of the Astor expedition struggled along these wild mountain shores, among inhospitable tribes, trying to reach the sea party at the mouth of the river. A few years later still the annual "brigades" of the Hudson's Bay Company descended the river with their fleet of mackinaw barges to the rhythm of their Canadian boating-songs, as they approached Fort Vancouver with the year's peltry, these noble cliffs echoing their noisy gayety. Fifty-six years ago missionaries and men of science, filtering through the crust of semi-civilization in the West, found their way down the Columbia; and a dozen years later immigration set in. A hard time these "men of destiny" had of it, too, drowning at The Dalles, starving at the Cascades, entering upon their Canaan destitute of everything but indomitable American pluck.

The farther we depart from the heart of the mountains the more marked is the change in the character and quantity of the timber. Firs have entirely disappeared, while spruce and pine have taken their places. The form, too, of the highlands is changed, being arranged in long ridges, either parallel with the river or at right angles to it, but all very extensive, and forming benches, dotted only with trees, instead of being heavily wooded, as on the western side of the range. The climate, also, is changed, and a dryness and warmth quite different from the Western climate are observable.

On nearing The Dalles the country opens out more and more, the terraced appearance continuing quite to that city, and the