among the foot-hills of the Cascade Mountains. Not a mile of the passage has appeared monotonous from Astoria to this point. We have enjoyed river, forest, mountains, and snow-peaks, with little intervals of human interest, all along; and enjoyed these in absolute comfort, for the steamboat service on the Columbia is excellent, thanks to the original Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and its successors.
We arrive now at what the tourist must ever regard as the most interesting portion of the river—the gorge of the Columbia. Here wonder, curiosity, and admiration combine to arouse sentiments of awe and delight in the beholder. Entering by the lower end of the gorge, we commence the passage, of fifty miles or more, directly through the solid mountain range of the Cascades. The snow-peaks, which looked so lofty at the distance of eighty miles, as we approach them gradually sink into the mountain mass, until we lose sight of them entirely. The river narrows, and the scenery grows more and more wild and magnificent.
Fantastic forms of rock—some with names by which they can be recognized—begin to attract our attention. Crow's Roost is a single, detached rock on the right, which time and weather are slowly wearing down to the "needle" shape, so common among the trappean formations. It stands with its feet in the -river, at the extremity of a heavily-wooded point; and in the crevices about its base, and half-way up, good-sized firs are growing. Above the Crow's Roost the mountains tower higher and higher. Frequently from lofty ledges and terraces of rock silvery water-falls are seen descending, hundreds of feet, to some basin hidden by intervening curtains of wooded ridges. From the steamer's deck they look like mere ribbons; some of them, indeed, are dashed into invisible spray before they reach the bottom.
One of the handsomest of these is Multnomah Fall, which has a straight descent of several hundred feet to a pool surrounded by mosses, ferns, and drooping foliage, after which the stream hastens impetuously to a second plunge over a ledge of rock, and speeds on to the Columbia. A rustic bridge spans the torrent just above the lower fall. Somebody more given to ponies than to poetry, has named one of the highest of these
