Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/205

Rh to and fro, engaged in the avocations of a civilized life; sees villages, towns, and cities, with massive walls and glittering spires, which have risen above the mouldered huts of a departed race. It looks forward to the time when, where now the Indian, upon his jaded horse, is winding along the narrow and solitary trail, the powerful locomotive, with its heavy train, will fly along the rattling railway; when, instead of yon frail canoe, the proud steamer will dash along the majestic river; when that Ocean, now idly breaking on its cragged shores shall be whitened with the sails of Commerce, and when, amid the flags of an hundred nations, its own proud motto and device, resting on folds gemmed with images, whose bright originals bestud her skies, shall float proudly superior to them all; when, where now, there is little else than a wild wilderness, there shall be all the life—all the populous throng and bustle—all the stately magnificence—all the interests—all the intelligence—of the most active, proud and populous nations of the Old World. Imagination, peering into the far future, beholds enthroned upon an hundred heights, the lordly mansions of the opulent, surrounded with gardens, teeming with fruits and flowers; with parks and pools and groves of ornamental trees; and far up the sides of the surrounding mountains, the herdsmen's and the shepherd's humble cottages repose in sweet and solitary quiet, deep buried amid the mountain pines. And still, yielding to a more romantic mood, the imagination, excited by every thing about it, and by its own wild pictures, cannot but come, in its dreamy wanderings, to the time when these mountains—these rivers—these verdant vales, when every rock, and hill, and cataract: when every forest, glade and glen: when every mountain gorge and precipice, and dark ravine, shall have been sung and storied, until they have grown old and honored by the Poet's pen, and the thrilling legends of the past.