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