Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/204

198 of the Willammette, with its hills and its vales, its forests and its plains, is spread out before you. To the East, and extending as far as the eye can reach to the North and South, the Cascades, in one lofty, unbroken range, rise mountain upon mountain and forest over forest, until their highest peaks, wrapped in eternal snow and white as the unsullied flake in the storm of Winter, stand high and giddy, far above the clouds. At your feet you can see the Willammette, meandering down the wide fertile Valley, and can trace afar the course of the broad Columbia, winding through its forest-crested hills; and further to the North St. Helens shows her towering crater of eternal fire; and further still the eye is lost in the wide labyrinth of dark and clustering heights in distance indistinct. Away to the South the peering summits of some lofty chain are dimly drawn upon the sky. To the West you hear the distant Ocean's sullen roar, as its waves, with crash tremendous, break upon its rock-bound shores. The bright, clear blue above is cloudless; all beneath seems hushed in deep repose; even the loud Cataract's thunders wake not so far the circling waves of air: and save, perchance, the carol of a mountain bird, the breeze sighing to the leaves, and the heavy murmuring of the distant deep, all else is silent as it was upon the morn when God created it. Here may the imagination lift the veil which hides the future and peer into the destinies of this fair land: As it runs over the wide prospect, it peoples it with thousands and thousands of busy inhabitants, sees every plain checked with fields, and even the steep and rugged Mountain-side made to yield to the hand of the husbandman; every where houses, gardens, orchards, and vineyards, scattered in countless multitudes over hill and valley; flocks and herds feeding on every hand; the broad highways coursing the valley or winding away over the hills, thronged with a busy concourse, all moving