enlightened or refined anterior to the Christian era. The Tiber is rich in historic associations of the proudest empire the world ever knew. What romances of Moorish power and splendor are conjured up by the mention of the Guadalquivir! The Rhine is so enwreathed with flowers of song, that the actual history of its battlemented towers is lost from view; and yet the mention of its name gives us a satisfying conception of the ideal Germany, past and present.
So the Thames, the Rhone, the Danube, are so many words for the English, the French, and the Austrian peoples. In our own country, what different ideas attach to Connecticut, Hudson, Savannah, and Mississippi! How quickly the pictures are shifted in the stereoscope of imagination by changing Orinoco for San Joaquin, Amazon for Sacramento, or Rio de la Plata for Columbia, upon our tongues. It is not that one is longer or shorter, or wider or deeper, than another: it is that each conveys a thought of the country, the people, the history, and the commerce of its own peculiar region.
In comparison with other rivers of equal size and geographical importance, the Columbia is little known. That generation has not yet passed away which was taught that the whole of the Northwest Territory was Oregon, that it had one river, the Columbia, and one town, Portland, situated on the Columbia.
Above Astoria, for some distance, there are no important settlements on the river. But the grandeur of the wooded highlands, the frequently projecting cliffs covered with forest to their very edges, and embroidered and festooned with mosses, ferns, and vines, together with the far-stretching views of the broad Columbia, suffice to engage the admiring attention of the tourist. In consequence of fires, which every year spread through and destroy large tracts of timber, the mountains in many places present a desolated appearance, the naked trunks alone of the towering firs being left standing to decay. This remark applies to the north bank, on the lower portion of the river, for an archipelago of islands on the south rises not far above the surface of the river, covered with a luxuriant growth of trees, and in high water the river covers many miles of low land.
Opposite Puget Island, the largest of the group, is Cathlamet,
