Cascade falls Horse-tail; and another has the rather hackneyed name of Bridal Veil, which, of course, it does not in the least resemble.
Above Multnomah Fall, on the Washington side, is a high, precipitous wall of needle-pointed, reddish rock, coming quite down to the river, and curving in a rounded face, so as to form a little bay above. This is the Cape Horn of the lower Columbia—a point where the Wind Spirit lies in wait for canoes and other small craft, keeping them weather-bound for days together. Fine as it is steaming up the Columbia in July weather, there are times when storms of wind and sand make the voyage impossible to any but a steam-propelled vessel. It is at our peril that we invade the grand sanctuaries of Nature in her winter moods. The narrow channel of the river among the mountains, the height of the overhanging cliffs,—which confine the wind as in a funnel,—and the changes of temperature to which, even in summer, mountain localities are subject, make this a stormy passage at some periods of the year.
Sitting out upon the steamer's deck, of a summer morning, we are not much troubled with visions of storms: the scene is as peaceful as it is magnificent. Steaming ahead, straight into the heart of the mountains, where they rise to a height of four thousand feet, each moment affords a fresh delight to the wondering senses. The panorama of grandeur and beauty seems endless. As we approach the lower end of the rapids, we find that at the left the heights recede and enclose a strip of level, sandy land, in the midst of which stands a solitary shaft of basalt called Castle Bock, about six hundred feet in altitude. How it came there, is the question which the beholder first asks himself, but which, so far, has never been satisfactorily answered.
A mile or two beyond Castle Rock, situated on this bit of warm, sandy bottom-land, on the Washington side, is the little mountain hamlet known as the Lower Cascades. Why it is that one name is made to serve for so many objects, in the same locality, must ever puzzle the tourist in Oregon. At the Cascades the tautology threatens to overwhelm us in perplexity. Not only is it the Cascade Range, which the cascades of the river cut in twain, but there are no less than three points on
