up wreaths
of vapor. One of these precipices, or cliffs, is curiously worn by time
and weather so as to have the appearance of a ruined fortress, with
towers and battlements, beetling high above the river, while two small
cascades, one hundred and fifty feet in height, pitch down from the
fissures of the rocks.

The turbulence and rapidity of the current continually augmenting as
they advanced, gave the voyagers intimation that they were approaching
the great obstructions of the river, and at length they arrived at
Strawberry Island, so called by Lewis and Clarke, which lies at the
foot of the first rapid. As this part of the Columbia will be repeatedly
mentioned in the course of this work, being the scene of some of its
incidents, we shall give a general description of it in this place.

The falls or rapids of the Columbia are situated about one hundred and
eighty miles above the mouth of the river. The first is a perpendicular
cascade of twenty feet, after which there is a swift descent for a
mile, between islands of hard black rock, to another pitch of eight feet
divided by two rocks. About two and a half miles below this the river
expands into a wide basin, seemingly dammed up by a perpendicular ridge
of black rock. A current, however, sets diagonally to the left of this
rocky barrier, where there is a chasm forty-five yards in width. Through
this the whole body of the river roars along, swelling and whirling
and boiling for some distance in the wildest confusion. Through this
tremendous channel the intrepid explorers of the river, Lewis and
Clarke, passed in their boats; the danger being, not from the rocks, but
from the great surges and whirlpools.

At the distance of a mile and a half from the foot of this narrow
channel is a rapid, formed by two rocky islands; and two miles beyond is
a second great fall, over a ledge of rocks twenty feet high, extending
nearly from shore to shore. The river is again compressed into a channel
from fifty to a hundred feet wide, worn through a rough bed of hard
black rock, along which it boils and roars with great fury for the
distance of three miles. This is called "The Long Narrows."

Here is the great fishing place of the Columbia. In the spring of the
year, when the water is high, the salmon ascend the river in incredible
numbers. As they pass through this narrow strait, the Indians, standing
on the rocks, or on the end of wooden stages projecting from the banks,
scoop them