Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/44

18 of vapour are condensed by the icy barrier and fall in rain on the western side. Hence Western Oregon and Washington are damp and soft, with frequent clouds and fogs. The rainfall, though varying much, is in most places from forty to fifty inches a year. But east of the mountain wall which has "milked the clouds," the air is clear and bright, the sun shines most of the year from cloudless skies, and there seems to be more of tingle and electricity in the atmosphere. The rainfall ranges from ten to thirty inches, and in the drier parts vegetation does not flourish without irrigation.

Any view of primeval Oregon would be incomplete without a glimpse of the native race, that melancholy people, possessed of so many interesting and even noble traits, whose sad lot it has mainly been to struggle against the advent of a civilisation which they could not understand nor resist, and before which they have melted away in pitiful impotency. But they have at least had the highest dignity of defeat, for they have died fighting. They have realised the conception of the Roman Emperor: "Me stantem mori oportet."

The Oregon Indians have essentially the same characteristic traits as other Indians, secretiveness, patience, vindictiveness, stoicism; and, in their best state, fidelity and boundless generosity to friends.

The poor broken fragments of the once populous tribes along the Columbia cannot but affect the present-day observer with pity. Most of the tangible memorials of this fallen race have vanished with them. Not many of the conquerors have been sympathetic or even rational in their treatment of the Indians. Hence memorials of memory and imagination which might