On One Of These We Landed To
Rest Our Indians And Feed.
Towards evening we again put
ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night.
The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of
the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in
Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length
portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale
of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the
European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one
has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as
one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the
Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a
white-bait dinner at the end of it.
The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the
beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a
succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement
of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like
being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow
of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if
about to take a 'header.' The water, in glassy ridges and
dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly
against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no
time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which
seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway
speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred
yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One
clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is
surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic
stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the stern, and
the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind;
and, for the moment, we are gliding on - undrowned.
At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go
further), we had to debark. A settler here was putting up a
zinc house for a store. Two others, with an officer of the
Mounted Rifles - the regiment we had left at the Dalles -
were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and
insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they
called champagne. There were no chairs or table in the
'house,' nor as yet any floor; and only the beginning of a
roof. We sat on the ground, so that I was able
surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the
earth.
According to my journal: 'In a short time the party began to
be a noisy one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed,
compliments to our respective nationalities paid in the most
flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race were destined to
conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation
under the sun - that is to say, they had been. America, of
course, would take the lead in time to come.
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