picturesque stream. The banks are high and
rocky, and some of the precipices to which the journal refers are of
a vast perpendicular height. On the Oregon side of the river are five
cascades such as those which the journal mentions. The most famous and
beautiful of these is known as Multnomah Falls. This cataract has a
total fall of more than six hundred feet, divided into two sections. The
other cascades are the Bridal Veil, the Horsetail, the Latourelle, and
the Oneonta, and all are within a few miles of each other.

On the ninth of April the voyagers reached the point at which they were
to leave tidewater, fifty-six miles above the mouth of the Multnomah, or
Willamette. They were now at the entrance of the great rapids which are
known as the Cascades of the Columbia, and which occupy a space on the
river about equal to four miles and a half. They were still navigating
the stream with their canoes, camping sometimes on the north side and
sometimes on the south side of the river. This time they camped on the
north side, and during the night lost one of their boats, which got
loose and drifted down to the next village of the Wahclellahs, some of
whom brought it back to the white men's camp and were rewarded for their
honesty by a present of two knives. It was found necessary to make a
portage here, but a long and severe rainstorm set in, and the tents and
the skins used for protecting the baggage were soaked. The journal goes
on with the narrative thus:--

We determined to take the canoes first over the portage, in hopes that
by the afternoon the rain would cease, and we might carry our baggage
across without injury. This was immediately begun by almost the whole
party, who in the course of the day dragged four of the canoes to the
head of the rapids, with great difficulty and labor. A guard, consisting
of one sick man and three who had been lamed by accidents, remained with
Captain Lewis (and a cook) to guard the baggage. This precaution
was absolutely necessary to protect it from the Wahclellahs, whom we
discovered to be great thieves, notwithstanding their apparent honesty
in restoring our boat; indeed, so arrogant and intrusive have they
become that nothing but our numbers, we are convinced, saves us from
attack. They crowded about us while we were taking up the boats, and one
of them had the insolence to throw stones down the bank at two of our
men.

"We now found it necessary to depart from our mild and pacific