delightful, being covered with a grand forest of the noble sugar-pine intermingled with other trees of the same family, and with the shrubby chinquapin, laurel, alder, and maple, according to locality or altitude. The air is bright, clear, and buoyant, almost intoxicating in its vivifying quality, and sweet with the balsamic odor of the Pinus Lambertina. Wherever there is an opening to the sun on the hill sides, there blossoms the rhododendron, the mock-orange, the Spiroea ariafolia, and other ornamental shrubs. Where the dust of the road has lain undisturbed from the day before, it is full of prints of tiny feet of birds and other timid creatures which shun our observation by day, but run about on their errands during the night or early morning.
Descending to the valley, the historical Table Rock, where General Joseph Lane fought the Rogue River Indians in 1853, becomes an object of interest. It is simply a high perpendicular bluff overlooking Rogue River,—the Gibraltar of the Indians in their wars. It brings us back to the contemplation of humanity in phases ill in accord with our late impressions of nature. It is a pity that the former should ever obliterate the latter.
I know how I, if I were a painter, I should personify the young giant Oregon. Lithe, strong, beautiful should he be, with empire written on his brow, and power tempered by mildness beaming from his eyes. Of fair complexion he, with tawny blonde hair and curling golden beard. His robe should be of royal purple embroidered with wheat-ears, and his crown of burnished gold. His throne should be among the rugged mountains, with a lake at his feet, rolling yellow plains on one hand, and smiling green valleys on the other. His sceptre, shaped like the tapering pine, should be of silver, set with opals, emeralds, and diamonds. On his right should roll the magnificent Columbia, to which ships in the distance should seek entrance; and over his shoulder the white crest of Mount Hood stand blushing in a rosy sunset.
