own creation, visible every mile from its mouth to its source. A journey
upon its surface rivals one along the historic Rhine, the picturesque
Hudson, or the beautiful St. Lawrence. The panorama includes besides the
wilder grandeurs, economic scenes suggesting the fecundity of the earth
and the industry of the husbandman. To enumerate and describe these ever
so briefly would require an entire volume. This short chapter is a
suggestion only that "By reason of scenic grandeur, absorbing interest
of physical features, the majesty and mystery of its flow through some
of the wildest as well as some of the most beautiful regions of the
globe, and at the last by the peculiar grandeur of its entrance into the
greatest of the oceans, this 'Achilles of Rivers' attracts alike
historian, scientist, poet, statesman, and lover of nature."

In many places the natural appearances are the same now as when Gray,
Lewis and Clarke, the Astorians and the Northwest and Hudson's Bay
Company men first viewed its banks, with the exception that the shores
have in places been denuded of their largest timber and either a younger
growth has inherited the dominion or portions have been claimed for the
agriculturist.

[Illustration: "BRIDGE OF THE GODS"

CASTLE ROCK

CAPE HORN AND CIGAR ROCK

PACIFIC OCEAN FROM CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT LIGHT

ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER.]

Here and there may be seen the little fisherman craft, "chugging" away
from their moorings in the early dawn and returning at the setting of
the sun heavily laden with the famous Columbia river salmon that feed
thousands throughout the world. On sandbars or sand islands, of which
there are many in the lower part of the river, the "purse seiners" are
conspicuous and the horses dragging the nets strangled with the products
of the deep. In the deeper waters close to the shore, but far from the
sea, are the fish wheels whirling by the force of the same waters that
conceal the treasures being sought.

Cities appear at frequent intervals, both on the Washington side and in
Oregon. Before the entrance to the Snake River is reached, one will have
passed Ilwaco, Cathlamet, Kalama, Vancouver, Camas, Washougal,
Stevenson, White Salmon, and Wallula on the Washington side, besides
many important cities on the Oregon shores: namely, Astoria, the site of
the first settlement on the Columbia; Portland, the largest city in
Oregon, near the mouth of the Willamette; and The Dalles, for many years