The devil is always credited with an interest in remarkable places, which is a direct compliment to his royal nibs; at least so it appears to me. The Josephine Caves are no exception to the rule, but have in the upper one a Devil’s Banquet Hall, seventy-five by a hundred and fifty feet, and sixty feet in height. It is decorated with huge rocks suspended from the ceiling appearing ready to fall at a breath; black cavities yawn in the distance; impish shadows haunt unexplored recesses; over the floor are spread rocks great and small; and so, perhaps, after all, it is well enough to resign the proprietorship of so unlovely a place to His Satanic Majesty; especially since there are bright and dazzling chambers, and pools and water-falls, more to our taste in other parts of this wonder-house of nature.
Curry County, named after George L. Curry, who was governor of Oregon when it was organized,—that is, in 1855,—is the coast division of the Hogue Eiver Yalley, and, having no transportation, except by pack-train or wagon, over the difficult mountain passes, has, although highly productive, made small progress in population and development. Only a small portion of the county is surveyed. Its valuation is placed at about one million dollars, and its population at not more than two thousand. Lumbering and salmon-packing are its principal industries. Ellensburgh was made the county-seat in 1858.
Port Orford is the seaport of Curry County and the whole Rogue River Yalley, so far as Oregon is concerned; although Crescent City in California was the actual port in use in early mining times, supplies being carried from that harbor over the mountains to Yreka, and again over the Siskiyou Range into this valley by mule-trains. This picturesque feature of mining life has disappeared, when at the head of a procession of longeared, neat-footed burden-bearers the “ bell-mare” tinkled her silvery commands to her followers as they climbed the rocky steeps or wound through devious mountain defiles. Hot infrequently the cloud of dust raised by the train gave information to the dusky foe, and the ambush was prepared where the trail led down a steep grade through a narrow pass, or across a stream that must be forded. There the unlucky muleteers were put to death or to flight and the train confiscated.
When the Pacific Mail Steamship Company used to run
