November, 1880.
THE WEST SHORE.
a 85
for fly-fishing that I have whipped, in
a residence of twenty-seven years on
this coast,) there is a warm spring of
lime. I also found a hot lake on the
road between Union and La Grande,
which is superb for anything like rheu-,
matism or skin diseases. For the lat
ter, it is not a whit behind the far-famed
Schlangen Bad in Bavaria; but I would
advise no one to go up there before Au
gust 10th, as the mosquitos are apt to
be troublesome.
There is an August-like fitness in the
location of these countless sanitary
fountains where Nature invites you to
come and regain her lost gifts of health
and strength. Far from the busy
haunts oi men, amid cloisters of pine
and aisles of tamarack, they bubble up
at the beck and call of II) gia to nerve
anew the shattered frame of man and
restore what dissipation or neglect has
filched from him. Far from the hoarse
cough of the panting steamer, the rum
ble of the clattering car, or the whirr
of the busy spindles, they pour forth
their sparkling treasures amid the
balmy perfumes of the pines and cedars,
amid the scarlet of the rhododendron
and the creamy tinted blossoms of the
syringa. ' How long are you to let pass
unneeded the lesson of Nature? How
long will you go before you learn that
there is something to live for in the
world beside money ?
Granting, for the nonce that you are
not an invalid, but an ardent sportsman
loving the chase, you can find nothing
to exceed the wild sports on the head
waters of the John Day. On the Mid
dle Fork, there are elk, bear, mule deer
and antelope, bounding in "suspended
impulse of their flectness" through
canyons wilder than the Trosach's glen.
There are cold springs there, too, that
trickle from glaciers of silver-bearing
range.' And there is roadside tavern,
In case you don't like to camp out, kept
by a very hospitable old lady who can
not Jo too much to make your stay a
pleasant one. She has a son living in
Portland, and the last time I was there
I heard a man older, and perhaps more
learned than he, address him as u Your
Honor."
My poor pen is weak to describe the
beauties of the forests along the East
cm slope of the Blue Mountains, with
their tall spires of tamarack and taper
in? minarets of nine. If vou eo out
into the woods of the Cascade range,
you find yourself lost lit thicket ere
you have gone ten yards. But on the
Eastern slope of the Blue Ridge you
can walk for miles through these tem
ples of Nature and gaze on their mass
ive columns in silent awe. You feel
the Sacred Presence everywhere about
you. It chants its Laudatt in the carols
of the lark and robin; it breathes its
orison, soft and gentle as a mother's
prayer, in the breeze which sways the
nodding firs that yield their obeisance
to the white cloudy throne above; and
wails its Misertrt in the deep diapason
of the thunder storm that brings the
September rain.
It rained one day while I was in the
valley of the Grande Komle, the Cha-
mount of Oregon. The clouds came
first red and then lowering into a pur
ple mantle that gradually became a pall
of black. Then out blazed the red ar
tillery of heaven and down came the
blinding rain. Yes, and the beautiful
rain as well. Baht suppose you did
get wet? This blinding shower that
drenches you to the skin and chills the
very marrow in your bones; this cold
and pitiless rain, had also its silver side.
It brought new hope to the parched
earth that licked it up with greedy
palate, new grass to the fields where
the lowing cattle were huddled 'neath
the alders and willows. It brought
new verdure to the pines, new blood to
my heart, new light in my eyes and
new courage to my spirit. Why, then,
should I chide the beuutiful lain? The
bounteous Giver sends His welcome
showers that the Earth may be born
anew; and His work of regeneration,
both of man and world, is the task
eternal through which shines out the
never-failing goodness,
In two years more, the Eastern slope
will be no longer a Itrra incognita to the
citizens of Oregon's metropolis, lor the
railroad will leave the passengers at the
scene of the Cayuse massacre in the
same time it now takes to go from Port
land to The Dalles and then, dear
reader, if you love repose in summer
you shall journey thither by easier route
than I did and shall feel what I have
felt. The sulphurous spring shall clasp
your enervated limbs in its gjowing cm
brace and tend new life into your pares.
The chalybeate fountain shall stir up
and purify the sluggish life-current with
which you left the heated town. The
rock-walled lake shall part it blue
of a mountain and whm "night
draws its sable mountain down, to pin
it with a star," the soughing pines shall
croon your lullaby to a sleep that the
dwellers in cities shall never know.
The bleak winter rains shall drip
upon the camp that I have lost for a
year, and the snow fall in blinded rage
upon the banks where I lay down to
read after the noon meal of trout and
venison. But I shall never know any
thing about it, In my memory's treas
ure box there is no winter In the year,
for the beautiful land where my body
was born anew and the blood ot boy
hood came back Into my veins recol
lection carries mo back to morning with
my light canoe on the placid lake; at
noon, I climb again the woody hill and
see the deer sunning his tawny flanks
on the moss-grown cliff; and at night,
the pine drops its light needles on my
pillow and bids me drop my cares as
well. I hear the gurgle of the brook
and the deep bay of the hounds in the
day, and at night I listen to the clang
ing wildfowl, as with mighty but weary
pinions, they fan the thin, frosty air.
They are seeking a warmer clime and
I heed their warning, though their
forms I cannot see.
" You men of figures inecr, I know
Csll me sn title, dreamy fellow (
Hut my chief builneu here below
It, Ilk the apple, to grow mellow.
" I com the fiih In cove or creek I
My light akin nodt on rocking billow
Or weary in nine ahsde t seek
A mouy hummock for s pillow,
"Itut, if uf life I get ties!,
The um of wesllh without ill fetter,
Am I more idle thsn the real .
Or wiaer than the money-getters?"
" Mamma, what must I say when I
feci like being naughty ?" said a little
girl whose conscience had smitten her
for some misdemeanor. M Why, my
child, you must say, Get thee behind
me, Satan,' and you will not be tempt,
ed," replied the mother. The little
youngster paused a moment, and then
said i " I did say that, and do you know,
mamma, the old debit said: Mia I ha 1 1
am behind you, and don't you forget
it!"
A quack Informs the public that ho Is
not exclusive. u If a patient want it
gentle and mild, I'm a homeopath; and
when anybody wants thunder and
llpa to bid you, welcome to the waves lightning, I'm art atlfrpath."