rs, in
every spot where such a surprise was most remarkable.

The portage-road is six miles in length, leading nearly all the way
close along the edge of the North Bluff, which, owing to a recession of
the mountains, seems here only from fifty to eighty feet in height. From
the windows of the train we enjoyed an almost uninterrupted view of the
rapids, which are only less grand and forceful in their impression than
those above Niagara. They are broken up into narrow channels by numerous
bold and naked islands of trap. Through these the water roars, boils,
and, striking projections, spouts upward in jets whose plumy top blows
off in sheets of spray. It is tormented into whirlpools; it is combed
into fine threads, and strays whitely over a rugged ledge like old men's
hair; it takes all curves of grace and arrow-flights of force; it is
water doing all that water can do or be made to do. The painter who
spent a year in making studies of it would not throw his time away; when
he had finished, he could not misrepresent water under any phases.

At the upper end of the portage-road we found another and smaller
steamer awaiting us, with equally kind provision for our comfort made by
the Company and the captain. In both steamers we were accorded
excellent opportunities for drawing and observation, getting seats in
the pilot-house.

Above the rapids the river-banks were bold and rocky. The stream changed
from its recent Niagara green to a brown like that of the Hudson; and
under its waters, as we hugged the Oregon side, could be seen a
submerged alluvial plateau, studded thick with drowned stumps, here and
there lifting their splintered tops above the water, and measuring from
the diameter of a sapling to that of a trunk which might once have been
one hundred feet high.

Between Fort Vancouver and the cataract the banks of the river seem
nearly as wild as on the day they were discovered by the whites. On
neither the Oregon nor the Washington side is there any settlement
visible,--a small wood-wharf, or the temporary hut of a salmon-fisher,
being the only sign of human possession. At the Falls we noticed a
single white house standing in a commanding position high up on the
wooded ledges of the Oregon shore; and the taste shown in placing and
constructing it was worthy of a Hudson-River landholder. This is,
perhaps, the first attempt at a distinct country-residence made in
Oregon, and belongs to a Mr. Olmstead, who was one of th