THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, OCTOBER 4, 1903.
APPRECIATION BY A LOVER
OF NATUPE WHO WRITES
AT LONG DISTANCE
KANOAS YOUNG WOMAN
WRITES HOME CONCERNING
WONDERFUL OREGON
By.
V ab
Rev Alfred R. Glover, formerly arch
deacon. Diocese M Oregon.
REGOX! The very name carries
with It the poetic atmosphere and
i biding natural charm of that vast
auction of our great Northwest, of which
iie poet sang so sweetly and grandly
nigh onto a century ao: (
"The continuous woods where rolls the
Oregon, and hears no sound save his own
dashlnss."
- No man knoweth to this day the true
origin of the name of the state, but
whether from the Algonquin "Wauregan,"
"Beautiful water," or from the old Span
ish Aragon, we .care not, since her always
radiant and perpetual beauty, seen in
towering- mountain and tropically rich
valley, in plunging; waterfall and ma
jestic river, all tend to make one some
what negligent of her dim past, to center
one's thoughts In the contemplation of
her present fadeless glory. Yet even In'
her name there is enshrined a modicum
of sentiment snd loveliness, for In the
commonly accepted Indian sourc of the
original name of her great river, we are
unwittingly carried back to that primi
tive age. When this mighty flood "Heard
no sound save Its own dashlngs." while
In the alleged Spanish origin we catch the
Slow of that classic kingdom In old Spain
Castile. In fact, whether It be her poetlo
name or her entrancing scenery, her eter
nal bills or her many laughing waters,
Oregon, at all times. Is enhaloed In a
beauty that is peculiarly her own. that
emercisesi an almost weirdly fascinating
Influence over the hearts of those who
once come to live within the magic circle
of her wide boundaries.
Why this very garden of the gods re
mained so long a terra Incognita -to the
outer world, no one can tell, but when,
at last tier sublime natural secrets were
uncovered to a wondering world. Oregon
began to entice wlthtn her charming em
brace the very best blood of our Eastern
States. Aye. from over the sea. from
Britain and the Continent, came men and
women who, once settled within her wel
come borders, never oould think of ever
bidding- her farewell! This great state, of
9s.nft0 squsre miles In area, is naturally
divisible Into three characteristic parts,
of which the langcst lies east of the Cas
cade Mountains, the smallest between the
Coast Range and the Ocean, while the
central occupies the extensive valleys be
tween the two great mountain ranges, and
each of these has its own natural at
tractions Its individual scenlo beauty.
From distant Astoria, in the extreme
north, on the Columbia River (Old "Ore
gon") down to the California boundary
line, there Is a reach of sea-coast second
to none inthe world In Its Immortal green
vales and rich soil, backed by the Coast
Range with Its towering crest.
Tou have heard of the big trees of
California? True, they are big, but they
are few In number, and you must travel
far to aee them, while up there In West
ern Oregon, fed by the condenaed vapors
of "old ocean's melancholy waste," you
may behold a whole forest. 400 miles
long, msde up entirely of big trees! Not
me ran be less than a century old, while
their average sjre is 600! Many run Into
the limits of Srt) and W. I love Cali
fornia's big trees, but these vast stretches
of Oregon's mountain forests, entirely
made up of glanta ranging from 100 fo
'it years of age, appeals to one far more
sensibly than the few giants of the Golden
State. So dense and luxurious Is the
vegetable growth of the region of the
Oregon Coast Range. ' that one may be
easily lost In Its depths within a few
minutes' w-alk of his back door!
Standing In the dark and silent Oregon
forests, amtd this tropic verdure, the
companion, for the moment, of millions
of pine trees centuries old, one realizes
strange feelings In the heart's region
lost in the revelry ol the houiln the
contemplation of this awful, solemn maj
esty. But when we cross over to the
Cascades, the visions we then behold are
even lovelier and more awe-inspiring still.
The glory of the Cascades is acknowl
edged to be Mount Hood, that lifts its
bald summit In the air over 12.0(0 feet.
Always capped with snow and reflecting
the rays of the sun. varying In its mani
fold tints from purple to richest crim
son. Mount Hood, when seen from Fort
land across the to miles of Intervening
tableland and forest, is Indeed a thing of
Indescribable grandeur and loveliness
combined. Tou say that you have seen
pictures of Mount Hood, bathed in the
purple glory of the sunset, but did not
quite believe the artist? Well, we shall
pardon you your unbelief, only come with
me to Portland, and. ascending the
heights on the west of this prflud city,
look yonder toward the cast and then
acknowledge your mistake.
Mount Hood! Into what raptures tliou
dost throw me, at the sight of thy
changeless glory! The purple mists of
evening, mingling with the sun's revs
slanting over the Coast Range, clothe this
giant peak In robes that artist may only
faintly portray on canvas. No- the pur
ple merges Into crimson, now into most
delicate pink that hasy pink that allur
ing pink. Mellowing, mellowing, dark
blues succeed, to be tollowed by the black
of night, snd out of the east the full
moon lootVs up triumphant to bathe the
monarch of the Cascades th the silver
sheen of the Queen of the Heavens!
looking north through any one of
Portland's streets, one beholds another
mountain gem in the beautiful Mount St.
Helens. Of the appearance of a sugar
loaf, always white with snow, smooth as
a carpet, glistening In the sunshine.
Mount St. Helens Is always In light. It
is as much a Portland landmark as Is
Mount Hjod. and when the latter la hid
den from . sight by clouds. Mount St.
Helens rises out of the north hoary and
glorious. Mount Adams, northeast of
Portland, across the Columbia, together
with Mount Jefferson, and one peak of
the Three Sisters, toward the southeast,
complete the diadem of white mountain
summits always in view from the fair
shore rolling away bare and rounded,
while on the south they rise sheer from
the river's edge, well watered, covered
with dense forests, and fairly sllve with
laughing waterfalls. As the train rushes
along we catch a glimpse of Latourell,
Multnomah and the Briaal Veil, Just a
few miles out of the metropolis, dashing
down from dizzy heights and making
pictures of natural beauty not only equal
to those of the Yellowstone and the Yo
semlte. hut. above all, are right In the
path of daily travel and easy of access
to the humblest. These cascades all
flow out of the snow-covered sides of
Mount Hood, which looms up about 23
miles to the southward. The cascade
Range was Indeed suitably named when
one realizes the number of its leaping
waterfalls.
Far towards the south, on the southern
spurs of this range, loom up hlh snow
covered peaks like Mounts Pitt and 8cott
old volcanoes, most of them, while here
BT ESTELLE RIDDLE.
EAR People at Home When-you are
ready to make that visit out West,
pack all your trunks, as well as the
household furniture, for when you have
seen this country well, you will surely
want to stay. And do come quickly: you
ought to see the flowers in Portland!
They tell me this Is a poor time of the
year to judge of Portland's flowers, but
the roses are quite lovely enough for me
as they are. Every yard has Its border
ing row of the beauties, pink and yellow
and white, and they do smell so sweet!
Every Portland business man goes to his
daily . task lit up with a rosebud, and
the roses seem to make the business more
than half pleasure. Every home is deco
rated with them as lavishly as we deco
rate when we are giving elaborate par
ties and spending lots of money with the
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city on the Willamette I suppose that
no city but Portland Is so charmingly sit
uated. What with mountains forever In
view, north, east and south, and high
wooded bluffs shutting out the chilly
'winds from the ocean on the west, the
Willamette bathing her feet, with Its
many green islands dotting its surface,
and the mighty Columbia flowing onward
toward the sea a few miles to the north,
Portland Is Indeed one of the favored
cities of the world.
The scenic attractions along the Colum
bia above Portland for about 100 miles
rival anything that 'can be seen from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. On either
side giant mountains rear their heights
above the river, those on the north
also lies Crater Lake, occupying the heart
of an extinct volcano. The scenery here.
In some respects, surpasses mat of the
Columbia Elver, and the fame of Crater
lAke has become widely spread during
the past six or eight years. It is almost
a new discovery and only a few have yet
visited It. The water is a clear as crys
tal and Its bottom has never been found.
Over all this retired spot breathes the
spirit of nature's alluring majesty.
The whole range of the Cascades is ris
ible from the car windows as one travels
north or south on the Southern Pacific
road, and only, in cloudy weather are the
prominent peaks shut out from view. The
whole of Western Oregon, from the Cas
cades to the sea. and from the Columbia
to the California line, is one matchless
panorama of successive, entrancing, dis
solving visions of natural beauty and im
pressive grandeur, and Portland seems to
have been, providentially, a kind of nat
ural center from which a good sham of
Oregon's glory may be seen and realized.
With one sweep of the horizon from Port
land heights, the eye catches beauties
never fading, in the wide reach of Na
ture's comprehensive perfection. Some
people have a dread of the desert, but Or
egon's high desert plateau, east of the
Cascades, has no terrors la store for the
tourist or settler. Across it run sparkling
rivers, teeming with fish. and. ever and
anon, one drops down Into luxuriously
green valleys, thousands of acres In area,
vielding those rich golden harvests of
wheat and other grain, that make up a
scene of agricultural loveliness. There
thousands of head of cattle browse, as
well as sheep, lending to the landscape
visions of pastoral calm and charm, that
transfigure the Oregon desert Into a para
dise. And O. what of sunrise and sunset
on the desert! We have seen the glory
of the sunset on the slopes of Mount
Hood but, out in the wide expanse of
Eastern Oregon one sees sunset and sun
rise that no artist might dare essay to de
pict. Whlie from Portland one vlewa
those delicate tints of pink and purple,
coloring the peak and rugged slopes of
Mount Hood, out in the desert east of the
mountains the sky at sunset Is robed In
the most brilliant hues of mingled violet,
yellow, orange and red. shading off at
times into magenta, and throwing the
Cascades into high relief. The desert.
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moreover, is covered with crystal lakes guard his mystic realm. So alluring Is the
and mighty rivers, with. ever and anon a
lone high hill rising out of the level floor,
and relieving the flatness of this vast re
gion, while far toward the west the whole
scene is dominated by Mount Hood's crys
tal summit, rising like a giant sentinel to
so-called "Oregon desert." that many cul
tured Eastern people have settled there,
captivated by Its mysterious charm and
the glory of its sunsets.
So. from east to west, from north to
south, Oregon teems with natural beau
ties. Towering mountains and pleasant
vaJlevs. rushing rivers and placid lakes,
glorious skies by day and by nisht, all
mingling together to lure the stranger
from afar to rest within the wide circle
of Oregon's matchless expanse.
San Diego, Cai, September 28.
florist. And they bloom nearly all the
year round in the open gardens. Think
of that, roses all the year round!
What makes It most attractive, per
haps, is the 'contrast to those miles of
desert and sand between the Rockies and
here. I never realized there was so much
desert in our United States. Alii the way
across Wyoming and Montana and Idaho
I gazed, on the great bare brown plains,
with the majestic mountains rising bleak
and calm on either aide, and the stretches
of mesqulte and sage brush so quiet and
solitary and grand that I wondered rail
road builders ever had the assurance to
invade their magnificent solitudes. Yet,
lonely as it seems, the desert is today
giving way to habitation. Great fields
of hay along the edges of the green and
winding rivers, and miles of immense
haystacks, tell of the Industry of the
American rancher. Then here and there
patches of Irrigated land dot the desert
with oases, blooming prollfically. Irriga
tion is accomplishing great things in
this Western country.
I saw tltat demonstrated at Ontario, a
little town In Eastern Oregon, which is
just next door to an Irrigated district, but
not quite In it . Ontario reminded me of
Kansas towns, as they must have looked
30 years ago, with Its long-stretched row
of one-story business houses along ' a
single street, its nodding poplar trees and
its plank sidewalks, white with the fine
dust that blows Industriously nearly
every day of the year. Tills dust lies
so thick in roads and fields that the
farmers' teams usually wear bells, be
cause two teams meeting raise such
clouds of it they quite hide themselves.
The real estate men and their prospective
buyers, when they go cut to look at
land, always wear linen dusters to pro
tect themselves, so that the linen duster
has become quite recognizable as the re
galia of the real estate man. But just
the same, that dust is mighty productive.
Spill a few buckets of water anywhere,
and you can have a peach orchard or
an alfalfa field almost Before you know
it. I donned a linen duster one day, and
went for a drive across the Snake into
Idaho, where the Payette-Boise ..Irriga
tion project has turned the desert Into a
garden. We passed peach orchards
where the trult hung as large as croquet
balls from branches fairly breaking with
their weight. Here, too. we saw the dried
raspberry- field. A fruit raiser has I
don't know how many acres Itl black
raspberries, which( when they ripen, he
allows to dry on- the vines. Then the
vines are cut, and threshed, arid the fruit
sold for fine evaporated berries. They
are fine evaporated berries, but produced
in the roost original way I ever heard
about. The clever fruit man has saved
all the expense of flicking and drying the
berries, and Is making a big thing frosn
his experiment. I was told he gathers
-000 pounds of dried fruit from the acre
At Ontario I ate plums and grapes, apri
cots and prunes, watermelons and canta
loupes, as fine as any t have ever
dreamed about, and all grown on desert
land, reclaimed by grace of the ditch
and the flume.
Every town in this thirsty, land talks
Irrigation. Every hamlet has Its irriga
tion project, in reality, on paper, or in
the imagination. Every settler has his
desert claim, which he Is holding- with
the hope that some day it will otwatored.
The dust, they say. is not plain dust: it
Is volcanic ash. than which nothing Is
more fertile. All this great country, you
remember our physical geographies used
to say, from Puget Sound to the Rockies,
was once the bed of an Immense inland
lake, which was formed by that volcanic
action which first lifted these wonderful
mountains out of the ocean. That may or
may not be a true theory, but at any
rate all this sandy ground Is full of round
smooth pebbles, water-worn. If ever peb
bles were. You cannot find a rough or
jagged stone snywhere. save perhars at
the foot of some of the rocky cliffs ris
ing near the Columbia. Dig down for
six feet, you excavate only pebbles,
smooth, round and polished. And over
them sifted this yellow sand, soft and'
shifting like seashore sand, but so pro-,
ductlve It will grow anything given a
little water. ;
I wait at Pasco you remember we read ;
about Pasco In "The Spenders." That !
was where She met Him. you know, j
You have heard the saying. "Keep your
eye on Pasco"? The sand blows so,
much of the rime there that the Pas-1
covers have perverted that saying into j
"Keep Pasco out of your eye." The
man wno mveniea umv
began to advertise Pasco 80 years ago.
It took all this time to set things mov
ing But In the psst ten months Pasco
has built an entire new town, brick
store buildings, cement sidewalks, a fine
new hotel and hundreds of new resi
dences. The railroads have made It a
division point, you see, and have been
building miles of trackage In their yards
there. But the sand still blows. It has
such a way of piling up on the side
walks that now they build the sidewalks
up on stilts, to let the sand flow under.
AnA the Pasco habit Is to wear brown
shoes, for the sand makes black ones i
look too forlorn for any use.
1
Thst Is the flace for Summer girls! (
In pleasing contrast to the average Sum-j
mer resort, there are plenty of young j
men and no girls. You can be a belle ,
In Pasco and not half try. Name almost
any college you choose, and you can !
find it represenled among the young ,
men there. This Is the young men's,
country.
Pasco 1s the town from which they have
built that new North Bank road, offl-'
dally known as the Spokane. Portland
& Seattle, which Is now operating trains
from Pasco to Vancouver, and will some
day be connected by bridges across the
Columbia, with every town along the
northern boundary of Oregon: The lit
tle stations along Its route, established
as stopping points for Its trains, are al
ready all laid out. and are thriving
towns on paper. It won't be long,
either, until they are really towus.
That's the way things do out here:
grow. I came down part way on the
North Bank to The Dalles. Stopped at
a little red station in the midst of the
sand hills to ferry across to the south
side. When I alighted from the train
and stood on the pebbly platform, I
could not see a building nor a sign of
habitation as far a I could look. As
I hesitated, a little plaid ginghamed
girl approached me and asked, "Do you
want to go to the ferry?" When I
said I did she pointed out a gray-looking
house among some poplar trees
about a mile away. I had not seen It
-before because it was so near the same
color as the hills. "That Is the ferry
house." she said, "and my father Is
the ferry man. You go there and he will
take you across." I wondered how I
should get my heavy grips there, too,
but she explained that her father had
a "rig" and he would drive tip after
them. So I struck off down the rail
road track and then across the rattle
snake hills to the ferry-house, and found
the lady of the house engaged In get
ting out a large-sized family washing.
She announced that "Jim" would soon
be In, so I waited. . and pretty soon
"Jim" drove up. He was a shock
headed individual, who drove a pair of
shaggy mules to a rattling, ragged-1
looking huckboard. After he got my,
grips from the station I climbed Into;
the buckboard and we drove to the
ferry. "Jim" was a communicative ras
cal. He informed me that Umalllla, my,
destination, was a poor sort of place.
"They voted "er dry at the last elec
tion." he said, "and I hsin't seen a
man there since." He hopes to remeity
that difficulty by establishing a sa
loon on the ferry-boat.
.
"Take the Bailey Gatzert from The
Dalles." my friends in Portland had
written me, and at The Dalles began ,
the best portion of my Journey. The
trip down the Columbia Is truly beauti
ful, for on a clear day the mountains
can be seen in all their grandeur the
snowy caps of Mount Hood snd Mount
Adams are to be plainly seen, and all
the purple distances between are con
tinually thrilling to the beholder. It is
quite as beautiful, though In a far dif
ferent way, as the trip down the Hud
son. Here and there rise Immense rocky
knobs, that look as If they had been
squeezed up out of the molten Interior
of the earth, and hardened Just ss they
squeezed through. Numbers of rushing
falls stream from the summit of the
rocks into tHe clear green river. -Waterfalls,
I heard gome one on the bo;it
call them, with the accent on water,
as If he expected them to be some other
sort of falls. Perhaps he looked, to see
this wonderful country literally flowing
with milk and honey, as all the adver
tising literature would lead us to be
lieve. Portland Is to me very like Kansas
City. Built among the hills, and on the
brows of the hills. It has much the same
effect as hilly old Kansas City. But It
Is free from coal smoke, which Is one
great thing In its favor, for everything
looks fresh and clean in Portland, not
dingy and dusky as Kansas City is grow
ing. And Portland has not yet been
built up to flats and apartment-houses
so generally as Kansas City, but people
have their own pleasant homes, and bet
ter than all. their own flower gardens. It
Is acquiring the skyscraper hsblt, though,
more's the pity, and a half dozen tall
buildings are now in process of construc
tion, with as many more to follow soon.
I wish they would pass a sky-line ordi
nance, restricting the height of the build-
(Concluded on Page 11-).