Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/79

 him, they continued to call them all Wascos, or basins. To-day the tribe is little known, but the county of which Dalles is the metropolis bears the name once given in derision to a poor, perplexed father for descending to the office of basin-maker for his children.

The original Indian name of the place where Dalles stands was Winquat, signifying "surrounded by rocky cliffs." There are many Indian names attached to points in this neighborhood of poetical signification. "Alone in its beauty" is the translation of Gai-galt-whe-la-leth, the name of a fine spring near town. "The mountain denoting the sun's travel" is the meaning of Shim-na-klath, a high hill south of town, etc.

About three miles above Dalles is a noted fishery of the Indians, as mentioned above, and opposite to it is the site of the Indian village of Wishram, spoken of by the earliest writers on Oregon. No village exists there now—at least not anything which could well be recognized as such.

From The Dalles to Celilo 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 door-way 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 everything 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 upriver 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