Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/44



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 Canion not more than seventy feet wide, whirling and boiling in a most furious manner, running with terrible velocity, and chafing against its rugged, rocky walls; 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 Canion, 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, 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 forest 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 these stumps came to occupy their present position; but none of them were able to inform us. They have a tradition among them, that long ago, the Columbia, in some part, ran under the ground; and that, during an eruption of Mount St. Helens, the bridge fell in. Some such circumstance as this, is the only way possible, in which this anomaly can be accounted for, unless Captain Fremont is correct, (which is certainly, extremely doubtful,) in supposing them to be land slides. For they are found no where below the Cascade Falls, although the character of the River, and its shores, is, above and below these Falls, very much alike. They are found immediately above the Falls, and as far up as the still water extends; which lack of current in the River, we consider to be the effect of some vast impediment, having been thrown into it, at the Cascade Falls. The Falls seem to be composed of large detached