ots of still more brilliant white. I cannot
express their vague, yet vast and intense splendor, by any other word
than incandescence. It was as if the sky had suddenly grown white-hot in
patches. When we first looked, we thought St. Helen's an illusion,--an
aurora, or a purer kind of cloud. Presently we detected the luminous
chromatic border,--a band of refracted light with a predominant
orange-tint, which outlines the higher snow-peaks seen at long
range,--traced it down, and grasped the entire conception of the mighty
cone. No man of enthusiasm, who reflects what this whole sight must have
been, will wonder that my friend and I clasped each other's hands before
it, and thanked God we had lived to this day.

We had followed down the beautiful valley of the Willamette to Portland,
finding everywhere glimpses of autumnal scenery as delicious as the
hills and meadows of the Housatonic. Putting up in Portland at the
Dennison House, we found the comforts of civilization for the first time
since leaving Sisson's, and a great many kind friends warmly interested
in furthering our enterprise. I have said that I do not know why
Portland was built on the Willamette. The point of the promontory
between the Willamette and the Columbia seems the proper place for the
chief commercial city of the State; and Portland is a dozen miles south
of this, up the tributary stream. But Portland does very well as it
is,--growing rapidly in business-importance, and destined, when the
proper railway-communications are established, to be a sort of Glasgow
to the London of San Francisco. When we were there, there was crying
need of a telegraph to the latter place. That need has now been
supplied, and the construction of the no less desirable railroad must
follow speedily. The country between Shasta Peak and Salem is at present
virtually without an outlet to market. No richer fruit and grain region
exists on the Pacific slope of the continent. No one who has not
travelled through it can imagine the exhaustless fertility which will be
stimulated and the results which will be brought forth, when a
continuous line of railroad unites Sacramento or even Tehama with the
metropolis of Oregon.

Among the friends who welcomed us to Portland were Messrs. Ainsworth and
Thompson, of the Oregon Steamship Company. By their courtesy we were
afforded a trip up the Columbia River, in the pleasantest quarters and
under the most favorable circumstances.

We left Por