A PEEP AT THE NORTHWEST.
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LITERARY.
A PEEP AT THE NORTHWEST.
It was flood tide of immigration to the new northwest. San Francisco was swarming with strangers, and great iron ships were leaving daily with people for the Eldorado which the Northern Pacific had revealed.
I was not an immigrant, neither was I an enthusiast singing praises of Washington Territory, though five years before I had visited Puget Sound, and spent one of the finest summers I ever saw. Any one who loves grand old forests and scenery fashioned by primeval nature can find there surroundings unsurpassed for study and reflections. The skies are the brightest, the Sound the most beautiful of waters, the woods the grandest man ever looked upon. The snow caps, banked in primeval forests, and lifting their pure white crowns thousands of feet toward the sun, are subjects worthy the most gifted artist in colors or in words. But when the skies cloud and the heavens weep your lover of the beautiful is sure to bundle up his thoughts and leave by first steamer.
Paeans had been sung so long regarding Eastern Oregon, that I made up my mind to go and see "what meant this moving throng." Fortunate in securing passage on the "Queen of the Pacific," the finest as well as fastest vessel on the route, I felt safe in venturing the assertion that we would make Portland on schedule time. And we did----not. The Columbia bar was cleared and Astoria reached right up to the minute; but Portland, that was another matter. Who ever got to Portland on time? At Astoria the river pilot came on and was
so skillful in directing our course that three miles above town he ran the craft hard aground, and we had to wait for the tide to float us off. However, it afforded me a splendid opportunity of viewing a salmon cannery, and inhaling its odors—sweet offerings to the gods.
Portland is well situated on the Willamette river, twelve miles above its junction with the Columbia, and is a thorough going American city as regards business thrift and elegant homes. Portland and Seattle are the principal distributing points for immigrants. The large crowds break up into smaller ones and scatter to various points each sanguine that theirs is the only real Eldorado. I wish success to all, and so leave them to the fates.
A commanding view of country is obtained from the hills back of the city. I fancy I almost see across the territory to the wooded slopes of Puget Sound. The intervening country is rolling, and densely covered with fir, hemlock and cedar. At my feet are the shady avenues of this beautiful city and the Willamette full of shipping, while just across a narrow peninsula rolls the majestic Columbia.
To the eastward the Cascades rise in sweeping billowy folds, wrapped in an indescribable blue haze, while towering far above all are those grand old sentinels, Rainier, St. Hellens, Jefferson and the pride of all Oregonians, Hood. Pure and white as when first clad with snow, they for all times will stand, lifting their unsullied brows through the blue ether, an eternal joy and inspiration to the soul of man.