CHAPTER VIII.
FROM DALLES TO WALLULA.
Dalles City—or "The Dalles," as it is commonly called—is a town of about twelve hundred inhabitants, situated on the south side of the Columbia, at the lower end of the Dalles of the river. In the early history of the country it was fixed upon by the Methodists as a mission station; but failing in their efforts to instruct the Indians, or intimidated by their warlike character, or both, they relinquished the station to the Presbyterians, who held it at the breaking out of the Cayuse war in 1847. On this occurrence the whole country east of the Cascades was abandoned by all missionaries of Protestant denominations, and Dalles was converted into a military station, the mission buildings having been burnt down.
When the Donation Act was passed, giving missions the ground previously occupied by them, the Methodists laid claim to a portion of Dalles. The Government, however, had appropriated a portion of the claim for a military post, paying for the part thus taken. The Presbyterians then disputed the claim, on the ground that they were in possession at the breaking out of the war, which compelled them to quit the place, and had never abandoned it, but had a right to return at the cessation of hostilities. The question of ownership has never yet, we believe, been satisfactorily settled.
The mining excitement, on the discovery of gold in Idaho in 1862–3, first gave Dalles a start. In 1865 it was just such a place as one may see in any mining country—Nevada, for instance—a hastily built, rough-looking town, filled with restless, rough-looking men. The streets were dusty, there were no shadetrees, and very little comfort anywhere. Now, since the mining excitement is done away with, and only so much interest in it remains as a legitimate outfitting trade creates; and since the people here begin to understand the agricultural resources of the country immediately about them, Dalles has come to be quite a cheerful and handsome town. Real homes occupy the places of hastily erected board-houses; gardens blossom with exquisite flowers; shade-trees shelter and adorn the promenades; churches and school-houses abound; and the place is one of the pleasantest in Oregon.
The situation of Dalles is a fine one. Except in great floods like that of 1862 and 1871, the whole town is above high-water mark. It rises gradually back for a quarter of a mile, then sharply to a second well-defined bench of land, beyond which is a considerable ridge. The whole landscape back of, and surrounding, the town, is of fine outlines, and very handsomely ornamented with pine-trees.
A number of creeks fall into the Columbia, near Dalles City. Taking a ride up the little valley of Mill Creek, brought us through the garrison-grounds—a lovely spot—and out past some very pretty places and well-cultivated farms. It quite surprised us to come upon such well-to-do-seeming farmers, where the general aspect of the country is so uncultivated. But here is the evidence of successful and profitable farming: good houses, fine orchards, grain-fields, gardens, and fat cattle—the fattest and sleekest that ever we remember to have seen—sufficient proof of the nutritious qualities of "bunch-grass."
Just above the garrison-grounds is a beautiful view of Mount Adams, and another of Mount Hood. The little stream we are following up seems as if it came directly from the latter mountain, which does not look far off, but very real and solid, and near. We fancy that an hour's ride would take us up among the highest firs, quite to the glistening snow-fields; but it is forty miles away, still, with a very rough country between hither and yon, so that our hour would have to be lengthened to very many.
Chenoweth Creek, Three-mile Creek, and Five and Fifteen-mile Creek Valleys are all occupied by settlers. In every new country the first-comers choose the creek-bottoms and lowest valley-lands; especially in so dry a country as Eastern Oregon they have been considered of the greatest value. But farmers are commencing to experiment with wheat-growing on the uplands. To their own surprise they find the hills to be good grain-fields. Once the prejudice against the high-and-dry, rolling plains is done away with, there is no estimating the results; and yet we should say, on sight, that this country was only fit for grazing. So the fertile plains of California were once considered worthless for cultivation.
Wasco County, of which Dalles is the shire-town, extends along the Columbia River fully sixty miles, and toward the south nearly two hundred, covering an immense amount of territory; and is drained by two rivers, of one hundred and fifty and two hundred miles in length. The whole population, probably, does not reach four thousand; all those out of Dalles being either settlers on the small streams, or miners on the head-waters of John Day's River. Therefore Dalles has not yet much back country to sustain it. We are convinced, however, that in two or three years more a great change will have taken place in this respect, and that portions of Wasco County, hitherto entirely overlooked, will be made to "blossom as the rose."
A United States branch Mint had been partially constructed at Dalles, which was designed to coin the products of the mines of Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Oregon; but the opening of the Central Pacific Railroad, and the diversion of bullion to the Philadelphia Mint consequent upon it, have rendered a branch at Dalles superfluous; and the building will probably be converted to other purposes. A woolen mill has also lately been erected, which is to be supplied with material from the plains of Wasco County. A fine flouring mill manufactures a brand of "best Oregon;" the Oregon Steam Navigation Company have their machine-shops on a small island at the mouth of Mill Creek; and trades in general do a good business at this place. Churches and schools prosper among the Dalles people, and the population is rather more than ordinarily intelligent.
The name of Wascos was given to this division of the Des Chutes—so runs the Indian legend—in the following manner: The Indians being collected at the fishery, a favorite spot for taking salmon, about three miles from Winquat, one of them was so unlucky as to lose his squaw, the mother of his children, one of whom was yet only a babe. This babe would not be comforted, and the other children, being young, were clamorous for their mother. In this trying position, with these wailing little ones on his awkward masculine hands, the father was compelled to give up fishing and betake himself to amusing his babies. Many expedients having failed, he at length found that they were diverted by seeing him pick cavities in the rocks in the form of basins, which they could fill with water or pebbles, and accordingly, as many a patient mother does every day, adapted himself to the taste and capacities of his children, and made any number of basins they required. Wasco being the name of a kind of horn basin which is in use among the Des Chutes, his associates gave the name to this devoted father in ridicule of his domestic qualities; and afterward, when he had resolved to found a village at Winquat, and drew many of his people after him, they continued to call them all Wascos, or basins. To-day the tribe is little known, but the county of which Dalles is the metropolis bears the name once given in derision to a poor, perplexed father for descending to the office of basin-maker for his children.
The original Indian name of the place where Dalles stands was Winquat, signifying "surrounded by rocky cliffs." There are many Indian names attached to points in this neighborhood of poetical significations. "Alone in its beauty" is the translation of Gai-galt-whe-la-leth, the name of a fine spring near town. "The mountain denoting the sun's travel" is the meaning of Shim-na-klath, a high hill south of town, etc.
About three miles above Dalles is a noted fishery of the Indians, as mentioned above, and opposite to it is the site of the Indian village of Wishram, spoken of by the earliest writers on Oregon. No village exists there now—at least not any thing which could well be recognized as such. Like the ancient Chinook, it has dwindled to nothing.
Just opposite to Dalles is a handful of rather indifferent houses, constituting the village of Rockland, in the county of Klikitat, Washington Territory.
Aside from the river itself there is little to interest one between Dalles City and Celilo, the upper end of the gorge of the Columbia. There are rocks all about in every direction, a little grass, a great deal of sand, and some very brilliant flowers growing out of it. There are also a few Indian lodges, with salmon drying inside, whose rich orange color shows through the open doorway like a flame; and a few Indians fishing with a net, their long black hair falling over their shoulders, and blowing into their eyes in a most inconvenient fashion. But every thing about an Indian's dress is inconvenient, except the ease with which it is put on! Some of these younger savages have ignored dressing altogether as a fatigue not to be undertaken, until with increasing years an increase of strength shall be arrived at.
The railroad takes us along under overhanging cliffs of plutonic rock, one of which is called Cape Horn, like its brother of the lower Columbia. As we near Celilo we discover that we have by no means left behind high banks and noble outlines. Just here, where we re-embark for the continuance of the up-river voyage, is a wide expanse of tumbling rapids, between lofty bluffs, rising precipitously from a narrow, sandy beach.
Of Celilo there is not much more than the immense warehouse of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, nine hundred feet in length—built in the flush times of gold mining in the upper country—and the other buildings required by the company's business. Lying along the shores, in little coves, are numerous sailing craft of small size, which carry freight from point to point on the river above. The sun of an unclouded morning gilds their white sails, and sparkles in the dancing rapids. The meadow-lark's voice—loud, clear, and sweet—reaches us from the overhanging banks. It is at once a wild and a peaceful scene.
A short distance above Celilo the Des Chutes River empties into the Columbia, through a deep canyon. A remarkable feature of the rivers of Eastern Oregon is the depth of their beds below the surface of the country which borders them. The Des Chutes flows through a canyon in places more than a thousand feet deep. Where it enters the Columbia its banks are not so high, because the great river itself has its course through the lowest portions of the elevated plains; and its bed is nowhere at any very great elevation above the sea-level. At the Dalles, two hundred miles from the sea, the level of the river is one hundred and nineteen feet above it; and the Walla Walla Valley, at a distance of three hundred and fifty miles, has an elevation of a few feet over four hundred. Away from, the Columbia, the elevation of the plains varies from live hundred to twenty-five hundred feet. Hence the great depth of the canyons of streams flowing on the same level with the great river.
Along this portion of the Columbia the traveler has plenty of time to conjecture the future of so remarkable a country—not being startled by constantly recurring wonders, as he might have been on the lower portion of the river. There certainly is great majesty and grace expressed in the lofty forms and noble outlines of the overhanging bluffs which border the river for great distances; and that is all. There is neither the smoothness of art, nor the wildness which rocks and trees impart to natural scenes; and the simple beauty of long, curving lines becomes monotonous. If it be summer, there are patches of color on the sere-looking, grassy heights; rosy clarkia, blue lupine, and golden sunflower. We hear the voices of multitudes of meadow-larks; and see a few prairie-hens stooping their long necks shyly among the bunch-grass; or discover at long intervals a cabin, or a flat-boat, or a band of Indian ponies feeding.
We have leisure to study the peculiarities of this region: A great river, with a fertile country on either side of it, extending for hundreds of miles back, and having an annual "rise" as regular as that of the Nile. But this overflow does not affect the lands bordering upon it, because they are too high. What then? Is the country unproductive? No. It is a dry, but not a rainless country. Rain falls at intervals from September to June. Light snows cover the ground a portion of the winter season. The soil is of a mellow quality that does not bake with drought.
The first explorers of these high plains gave it as their opinion that trees would not grow below an elevation of two thousand feet, and that the lands adjoining the Columbia were only fit for grazing. This opinion, either borrowed from the early explorers, or suggested by the absence of trees in a wild state, was also held by the first settlers; not only with regard to trees, but to all kinds of grain as well. There certainly could have been no more unpromising ground for the planting out of trees than that at Dalles. Yet, after four years of experiments, the streets of Dalles are lined with thrifty young shade-trees, and its gardens filled with fruit-bearing trees. Experiments with wheat have shown that it is not the bottom-lands alone which will produce crops, but the hills and ridges back from the rivers.
At Walla Walla—the lowest point near the centre of the Columbia River Plains—we are told that the same results have been obtained from experiments there. Five years ago Walla Walla was a seemingly barren spot; now its homes are embowered in shade from trees of a most astonishingly rapid growth. The wheat product of the Walla Walla Valley is no longer procured from its creek-bottoms alone, but farms are being laid out more and more among the rolling hills. Irrigation, where it can be made available, is resorted to; but from what we have learned, we have great faith in the soil and climate to produce all that is necessary to man's support.
Civilization began in either hemisphere in the rainless countries of Egypt, Peru, and Mexico. The reason is evident. Civilization depends on the ease and security with which man harvests the fruits of his fields. The crop in the Nile Valley was unfailing, from the certainty and uniform duration of the Nile overflow. In Peru, from the constant presence of moisture eliminated from the atmosphere in the form of heavy dews, the cultivation of the earth repaid man's labor surely. On the high table-lands of Mexico irrigation was necessary, but once accomplished, there, too, agriculture flourished unfailingly; and men, instead of roaming from place to place, settled and remained, until civilization arose and declined, by the natural processes of the growth and decay of nations,
In these countries, superior intelligence also resulted from the dryness of the climate; as it is well known a pure, dry air is stimulating to the mental faculties, while a moist, dull, or cloudy atmosphere is depressing. It is evident that men in a savage state, having the obstacles of want and ignorance to overcome, have been aided by these circumstances. Nor are they to be overlooked in considering the future of countries in the infancy of their development. The Columbia River Plains, owing to their elevation above the level of the draining streams, will probably require a system of irrigation by artesian wells, except those parts bordering on mountains whence water can be conducted with comparative ease. With this addition to the amount of moisture furnished by the light rains and occasional snows of winter, this great extent of country, now given up to the pasturage of Indian horses and a few bands of cattle, might be made to support a dense population, producing for them every grain and fruit of the temperate zone, in the highest perfection.
We are told, that when the missionaries went, in 1836, to look for a suitable place for a mission farm and station in the Walla Walla Valley, they estimated that there were about ten acres of cultivable ground within thirty miles of the Columbia River; and that was a piece of creek-bottom at the junction of a small stream with the Walla Walla River. These same explorers decided, that there were small patches of six or ten acres, in places, at the foot of the Blue Mountains, which might be farmed. As for the remainder of the country, it was a desert waste, whose alkaline properties made it unfit for any use. A few years' experience changed the estimate put upon the soil of the Walla Walla Valley; and now it is known to be one of the most fruitful portions of the Pacific Coast, and the quality of the soil really inexhaustible—its alkaline properties supplying the place of many expensive manures. And yet the capacity of the plains for cultivation has only just begun to be comprehended.
Thirty-one miles above Dalles, we pass the mouth of the John Day River—a stream, in all respects, similar to the Des Chutes—with the same narrow valley, and the same depth below the general level of the country. What bottom-land there is along this river is already taken up, and there are mining-camps upon its head-waters, from which a steady gold product has been derived for the last eight years. The high bluff's intervening between the Columbia and the interior country quite conceal any appearances of settlement, and leave upon the mind the impression of an altogether uninhabited country—an impression quite erroneous in fact, though there are thousands of square miles still vacant.
Willow Creek is a small stream, coming into the Columbia thirty-three miles above John Day River, with a small, fertile valley well settled up. After an interval of another thirty-three miles, we find ourselves at Umatilla—a small town set in the sands at the mouth of the river of that name. It serves simply as a port to the mines of Eastern Oregon, and, as such, has a trade disproportionally large for its size. Here the steamers disembark their passengers and freight; and the stages and pack-trains take up what the steamer leaves, to convey it to the interior and the mines.
The Umatilla River, on account of its valley, is one of the most important streams of Eastern Oregon. The Umatilla Valley, together with the bottom-lands of several tributary creeks, furnishes a fine tract of rich, alluvial land, having a high reputation for its agricultural capacity. About seven thousand acres, nearly all bottom-land, are under cultivation in Umatilla County, the whole area of which is over forty-seven thousand square miles. Of course, large bodies of land are open for settlement; the variety of surface, in this county, ranging from mountainous and wooded to rolling prairie, covered with bunch-grass, and lastly, the narrow, but rich bottoms of streams, rendering it easy to select a farm or a timber claim, as may be preferred.
There is an Indian Reservation in the Umatilla Valley, where some farming is done by the Indians. Efforts have several times been made to have this reservation opened for settlement; but, probably, this will not be accomplished, as the Indians have no wish to sell. At an Agricultural Fair, held in this county, in 18G4, the Indians took prizes on garden products. Indian corn, melons, vegetables, and fruits of all kinds attain great perfection in the Umatilla Valley, which is cultivable for a length of about sixty miles.
Thirty-five miles up the valley is the small, new town of Pendleton—the county-seat, beautifully located, and situated on the main lines of travel. A fine court-house is already erected by subscription of the citizens of the county. There is an excellent water-power in the vicinity, and every natural facility for convenient settlement. On the Indian Reservation, close by, are a saw-mill and grist-mill, and, in other parts of the county, six other mills manufacturing lumber; the timber for which is all procured from the forests of the Blue Mountains—the lumbering region of all this portion of Oregon, and of the south-eastern portion of Washington. There are about eight hundred square miles of timber belonging to Umatilla County.
The Indians on the reservation are the remnants of the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla tribes, and number, altogether, less than one thousand. They are a partially civilized and peaceable people; yet whose presence as neighbors can not be particularly desirable. Their territory is unnecessarily large, amounting to a square mile to each individual.
All the way from the Cascade Mountains to Umatilla—a hundred miles, more or less—we have found the rivers all coming into the Columbia from the south side. Rising in the Blue Mountains, which traverse the eastern half of Oregon from north-east to southwest, they flow in nearly direct courses to the Columbia, showing thereby the greater elevation of the central portion of Eastern Oregon over the valley of the Columbia. At the junction of the Umatilla the Columbia makes a great bend, and flows nearly parallel with the Cascade Range instead of perpendicularly to it, receiving the rivers flowing east from the Cascades.
It is nearly sunset when the steamer quits Umatilla to finish the voyage we have entered upon, at Wallula—a distance of twenty-five miles farther up stream, in a direction a little east of north. We steam along in the rosy sunset and purple twilight, by which the hills are clothed in royal dyes. About eight in the evening we arrive at Wallula, too late to be aware of the waste of sand and gravel in which it is situated, and late enough to feel the need of rest; for albeit there is little enough of activity in steamer travel, there is plenty of fatigue, especially when one is sight-seeing, with the faculties of memory and attention continually on the alert.
Wallula is the port of Walla Walla Valley, and was long a post of the Hudson's Bay Company. As a site for a town, it has much to recommend it, in the way of beauty and convenient location; and, also, much to condemn it in the matter of high winds, sand, and the total absence of vegetation. The bluffs bordering the Columbia at this place repeat those harmonies of grandeur with grace, which won remark from us on other portions of the river. The Walla Walla River, which comes in just here, is a very pretty stream, with, however, very little bottom-land near the Columbia.
The sand of Wallula is something to be dreaded. It insinuates itself everywhere. You find it scattered over the plate on which you are to dine; piled up in little hillocks in the corner of your wash-stand; dredged over the pillows on which you thoughtlessly sink your weary head, without stopping to shake them; setting your teeth on edge with grit, everywhere. And this ocean of sand extends several miles back from the river, on the stage-road to Walla Walla, whither we are going. Let us hope for such a merciful interposition as a shower!