pearance of this cliff, so different from the worn and mossy faces of most of the rocks that border the river, suggested to the savage one of his legends concerning the formation of the Cascades: which is, that Mount Hood and Mount Adams had a quarrel, and took to throwing fire-stones at each other; and, with their rage and struggling, so shook the earth for many miles around that a bridge of rock which spanned the river at this place was torn from its mountain abutments, and cast in fragments into the river. So closely does legend sometimes border on scientific fact!
While I am making this grave reflection upon the scientific truth of legends, some one presents me with a story, in rhyme, which he assures me is the true, original Indian legend of the formation of those other notable points on the river,—the Dalles, Horse-tail Falls, Crow's Boost, as also the Falls of the Wallamet and Mount Hood. Making all due allowance for poetic license in some of the details, the story and the manner of its telling are worthy of notice; and I give it as a pleasing chapter of the early, romantic history of this romantic country!
THE SONG OF KAMIAKIN.
|Should you ask me where I caught it—
Caught this flame and inspiration—
Should you ask me where I got it—
Got this old and true tradition—
I would answer, I would tell you:
Where the virgins of the forest
Sit with quills thrust through their noses,
Eating calmly cricket hashes;
Where the tar-head maid reposes;
Where the proud Columbia dashes,
Hearing nothing but his dashing.
Hias skookum[1] Kamiakin,
Of the vale of Klikatata—
Which I know each nook and track in
As well as Johnny knew his daddy—
Was the chief of all the Siwash,
And the great high-cockalorem—
As his fathers were before him—
- ↑ Great, strong.
