Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/213

207 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. 207 that we reached the termination of the Upper Lake on Sunday the 22d. Twenty-eight miles above this place, where the river takes a sudden bend, and to all appearance is lost in the mountains, a scene of the most terrific gran- deur presents itself; the whole torrent is confined to the breadth of thirty-five yards, and tossed in rapids, whirl- pools, and eddies ; on both sides are mountains towering to the height of six or eight thousand feet from their base, rising with perpendicular precipices from the very bed of the river, covered with dead timber of enormous growth, the roots of which, laid bare by the torrents, and now hurled by the violence of the wind from their original high places, come hurrying down the stream, bringing enormous fragments of earth attached to their roots, and spreading devastation all before them. The sun feebly tipped the mountain-tops as we passed this place, and, seen through the shadowy pines, imparted a melancholy air to the whole gloomy scene. On the 25th we passed the "Narrows of Death," a ter- rific place in the river, which takes its name from a trag- ical circumstance which I have not here room to relate, when ten individuals endured almost unparalleled suffer- ings, and were finally all released by death, with the exception of one. At noon on the 27th of April we had the satisfaction of landing at the Boat Encampment at the base of the Rocky Mountains. How familiar soever these snowy mountains have been to us, so that we might be expected to lose an adequate idea of their immense alti- tude, yet on beholding the Grand "Dividing Ridge" of this mighty continent, all that we have seen before seems to fade from the mind, and to be forgotten in the con- templation of their height and indescribably rugged and sharp peaks, with the darkness of the rocks, their glaciers and eternal snows.