Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/56



forests of the giant Fir, to the mechanic; while the unfailing abundance of water in the Rivers and creeks, pouring over numerous falls and rapids, present inducements highly favorable to the manufacturer. Occupying a position between where the Winter rains of Oregon, and the Summer droughts of California, are occasionally severe; they possess a climate, which, mingling these two opposite evils, destroys them, and thus renders these secluded Valleys, in this respect, the most desirable portion of these most desirable climes. But they are so much as nature made them, and so wild, that many portions of them have never been trodden by the foot of the white man; and it may be, when time, and the bold enterprise of our Western adventurers, shall develop, more fully, the character and resources of these mountain-wrapped solitudes, that there may be found a Pass, which nature has provided as a way for commerce through her barriers; and from the sides of the mountains, and from the bosom of the plains, may be drawn additional materials, to add to the necessaries and comforts of man, and to aid the march of civilization. It is possible that this portion of Oregon, will be acquired from the natives, in the same manner that portions of the United States have already been acquired—by force. And should it be so acquired, and when judgement comes upon the conqueror for conquest, there will be none upon whom it will fall more lightly; for there are no people who deserve more justly, punishment for “all manner of wickedness,” than the natives of the Rogue's River and Clamuth Valleys. Not much attention has yet been paid to the North side of the Columbia, by American settlers, owing to the uncertainty in regard to the claims of the two Powers, that hold it in dispute; but notwithstanding this uncertainty, a small settlement has been formed by persons from the United States, above twenty miles above Vancouver, on the North side of the River, in the confident belief that the United States Government would never relinquish any portion of her just rights. In several respects it is superior to the South. Immediately on the River, it affords many more, and better situations for settlement. At the Falls of the Columbia, which must, in time, become a place of some importance, the North side only, can be improved. As the navigation extends forty miles above the Falls, and entirely through the Cascade Mountains, over which a good road cannot probably be made; a canal around the Falls will be a project which will deeply interest that whole country,as it will probably be the only