cached his howitzers previous to a stolen retreat to the south bank of the Snake River.
Farmington seemed a town of considerable population, with good houses and fencing. Rockford is in the edge of a lumbering region, and is an old town built scatteringly on the piney slopes, which furnish timber for milling. Taking it all in all, there is little to remark on the journey, which ends after nightfall.
I was told in Walla Walla that I should not like Spokane Falls, because it was "right in the woods." If this had been said about many places west of the Cascades, there would have been no surprise; but a town "right in the woods" in the arid region called a halt to my previous and, as I believed, wellfounded impressions. It was therefore with curiosity that I peered through the window beside me, as night drew on, to catch the first view of the northern forest which I was assured surrounded the Phoenix of the Plains. But before I had discovered it the train rolled into the well-lighted streets of a cheerfullooking town, and the guard called out "Spokane!" By good luck I went to a hotel just below the falls which gave the city its name, and where I enjoyed from my room a view different from, but strongly reminding one of, the great cataract of Niagara. It is true there is not the heavy roar of a large lake pouring over a great height as at Niagara, but there is enough water and enough fall, or rather succession of falls, all roaring and foaming together, to make a good deal of noise and a very attractive spectacle. To the music of these waters I slept joyously, if I may be allowed the term, and waked the following morning with a feeling of exhilaration to commence my quest for information.
What a strange town! Ten years ago it was a pioneer settlement of half a hundred houses, and bad been struggling up to this degree of grandeur for a previous ten years. Only ten months ago thirty business houses, valued at six million dollars, were consumed by fire. To-day the only reminders of this disaster to a young city are the piles, not of burnt rubbish, but of fresh building-material, which obstruct the broad avenues. Nor are the buildings which are replacing the former structures of a temporary nature, but of granite, brick, and iron, from three to seven stories in height, and fashioned after the most elegant modern styles. An opera-house costing over a quarter of a mil
