from the south, the railroad on one side, and teeming gardens and attractive houses on the other. A handsome bridge spans it in the centre of the town. Roseburg, like Drain, is to have a railroad to the sea.
Proceeding south through a charming country to the Myrtle Creek Hills, the scenery at this place strongly suggests Harper's Ferry, without its costly improvements. Soon we enter the canon of Cow Creek, a wild and wonderful pass, rendered historic in the winter of 1889–90 by the blockade of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which lasted for more than a month. This remarkable obstruction to travel was occasioned by a combination of causes, but primarily by the construction of the road itself through the canon, and the cutting away the foundation, so to speak, of the steep hill-side where it occurred.
Cow Creek is a pure mountain stream, from fifty to a hundred feet in width, not very deep at its usual stage, but very crooked, the rugged points around which it makes its sharp turns necessitating frequent tunnels. As the canon is narrow, the road had to be cut along the mountain-side at a height sufficient to
