THE WEST SHORE. f; drr and rricp atmrr here wan most healthful in its it ...... if n.t it fiTin ftrar. icg, m the whole city wid1 to turn out, making the nrrwion one of outdoor exercise and fun. fu-l.T the Wm influence of a gontlo breeze railed a "Chinook," Wring warmth from the trop ical current of the Pacific, the cold has disappeared m wddenly and yet as quietly as it came. A marveloua phenomenon to me is the fresh, green gram, clothing lawn and field, as the snow has diiApi'-arod, with a rich sward, as in April. Our eitire trip was a prolonged picnic, I divid ed it into four htagea of alxjat eight hundred miles curb, pipping Kl Paso and visiting my old friend, Judge llingham, United States consul at Paso del Norte, and at m Angeles, Sacramento, and finally Portland. I am particularly pleased that we approached Ore gon by way of the Southern Pacific railroad, as it en abled me to make a comparative observation of the country traversed, immensely in favor of Oregon. Western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and South ern California present an unbroken scene of aridity, a Uinndlcha waste of deflation and monotony of such forbidding aject a overcast, with a shadow of gloom, the spirit of a Imisianian, accustomed to the unre itrainM ret el of an exhutarant plant life. IVing Middcnly transited from the magnolias and lire oak, the rosea and orange trees of New Or b nuft, the vine-tangled forests of Terrebonne, and the royal parki of the Tcche, to the meequit bushes and chaparral of Texan, invoked a sadness and a sense of In-ing forsaken, preaently intensified by tho weather worn gulch.-H, tho cactus-grown mesas and alkali des ert i t Arizma, into a feeling closely akin to terror. No wonder the Arabs and all other tribes having like larrouiulingi are d.eply imbued with fearful su irit)tioi)n aUjut p. ctres of the desert These ghost ly notion Kro Il0, t) tho URturRj chiJren of the tl.MM-rt, but NMom the foster children as well for I u toll at Port Yuma a legend of that place by a fcvntl,mn who aaid he could vouch for the facta aWt an army office who died there one summer! and ai l m pamed to hear, went to hell The next Light hu .,! came wandering across the desert, and he become back for his overcoat Wave probably heard the btory, but I saw the " h bow the guard- Formally for I W UnJw wan kept in endurable abov - .mmiun WLhlantly uggi.6tej. A f, .table pullm&Dt filWwithiW crodoffldlowrongers,tog,tLorwiththnL ciable fact that we were gliding along over this seem, ingly inhospitable region, where " holding up a train" is considerably more than a legend, toward a happy land of showers and plenty, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, had most to do with keeping out the melon, choly spirit of loneliness which broods over mountain and plain in that rainless region. Approaching Oregon over such a line of travel as I have faintly described (and the trip over the South era Pacific railroad would well repay any tourist), you may imagine the glorious enchantment of field and forest, of the surrounding ocean of verdure that greeted us as we rolled into the immense valley of the Willamette. When we reached Portland, although in midwin ter, the rows of vigorous trees and the dark forests of magnificent timber rolling away toward Puget sound, far beyond the vision, assured us of our best-loved friends the trees and the green fields and I made a vow that no enticements of fortune or of fame shall long separate me from such friends. But the trees and the flowers and the showers go together as nat ural associates, and not the trees and the flowers and artificial irrigation. Looking over the vast territory which separates the Mississippi from the Pacific slope, I can now ap preciate the magnificent courage of the "Forty niners," and of the vast advance corps of heroic spir its which followed in ox wagons and carts, with wives and children, toiling day by day and month by month, opposed by obstacles of such formidable kind as na ture might have devised had it been her intention to barricade the Pacific slope from the encroachments of civilization. Although human graves and bones of cattle and horses mark, with a broad swath, the trails of the emigrant, yet the fittest survived and pushed on to , the "western shore," to establish here a civilization, which, even in these few years, rivals in wealth and refinement that of the Atlantic seaboard and the Mis sissippi valley. I bow in reverential awe before the history of this people. As for their future, judging from their his tory and the prospect plainly before them, the prom ise is too immeasurably grand for them to compre hend or for any mind to compass. The vastness of domain, the variety and unlimited extent of their resources, the healthful and invigorat- uB cumaie, me loveliness, the majesty and spienaor of scenery all combine to compel greatness by urging upon ambition an incentive of action, which, in torn, must realize wealth and develop state pride and love of countrv. tful Th rith tl.A i lue e88eBAi elements oi progress appro- I highest conceivable attainment of social distinction