Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/104

98 some difficulty hired the Indians to run the others through the rugged Cañon. A few miles further and we came to the Great Dales, where we were compelled to leave our smallest canoe, and again make a portage of our baggage a distance of one and a half miles, over the rocks. Here the whole Columbia runs through a Cañon not more than seventy feet wide, whirling and boiling in a most furious manner, running with terrible velocity, and chafing against its rugged, rocky wall, and it requires the most dexterous management, which these wild navigators are masters of, to pass the dreadful chasm in safety. A single stroke amiss would be inevitable destruction. Three miles below the mouth of this Cañon, and one hundred and twenty-five miles below Fort Walawala, is the Wascopin Methodist Mission, at this time under the superintendence of Mr. Perkins, and situated half a mile from the South bank of the River. They have a small farm attached to the Mission, under the superintendence of Mr. Brewer. Both this and the Mission on the Walawala River, though they are well located for the purposes for which they are intended, and conducted, perhaps, according to the best judgment of those who have charge of them have not yet, we believe, been productive of much, if any, good. Here we were obliged to remain more than a day on account of high wind, by which we were detained several days on our passage to the Cascade Falls. From the Mission to the Falls, a distance of fifty miles, the River has scarcely any current. The Mountains are high on either side, rocky, and in many places covered with heavy forests of Pine, some of which are at least ten feet in diameter and three hundred feet high. A short distance below the Mission, we found the stumps of trees, standing erect in ten or fifteen feet water, as if a dam had been thrown across the River, and the water backed up over its natural shores. We asked the Indians if they knew how