THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX. PORTLAND, JUNE
1909.
M TIE
4.
fv WI.TEn F. BACKITS
w
HRNBVKR you f el lows want
some real .trout-fishing, whv
just come out our way and
flh the Deschutes. You may think you've
got fnitix good fishing around here, hut
believe me, we've got the finest trout
stream on Hod's green earth." Thin re
mark. maJo to me by a man from Bend,
sounded rather convincing:, and after lis
tening to equally forcible statements
from several other Rastern Oregon people.
I began to think that a trip to the much
heralded Deschutes was In order.
I found another fisherman in the same
frame of mind and we began laying plana
for the triry. As our time wa limited, we
decided that Rend would be too far. A
careful study of the map showed a fairly
good wagon road to 31ierar Bridge, 30
miles up the stream, and this was selected
as or destination. The next tiling was to
find some way of getting there from The
Dalles. From what we could learn, the
road was not especially hilly, so we de
cided to make the trip on our bicycles.
leaving Tile Dalles early Sunday morn
ing, we began climbing at once. The road
which is ordinarily very dusty, had been
put In beautiful shape by the rain of the
day before. For the first ten miles the
course was up and down, but always
more up than otherwise. A deep ravine
was encountered at Three-Mile Creek, and
another at Five-Mile. Eight-Mile Creek,
the first stream of any size, gave us a
long, hard climb. We reached the town
of Hoyd. 12 miles out. in Just three hours,
and passed Nansine, 19 miles out, two
hours later.
Then came six miles of the toughest
climbing I've had for a good long time.
Before us lay an endlettj stretch of roll
ing country, the hills clothed in a cover
ing of sagebrush. Every half mile or so
the waving green of a wheat farm would
relieve the monotony of scene. Inquiries
it the farmhouses all resulted in the same
sort of information so many miles more,
"d "Yes. all up-hill until you reach the
divide." Six miles may not seem a long
way, but it took Just three hours of push
ing, climbing and panting to cover the
distance. But when we did finally reach
the summit, the sight which greeted our
pyes was werth the climb. Below us. four
miles away, we could see the Deschutes
twieting Its way through the rocky can
yon. Around us lay a wilderness of hills
and canyons, dotted with stony cliffs,
patches of green plateau and occasional
glimpses of the dashing Deschutes, the
whole Kcene making a wonderful pan
orama. We had pushed our wheels up to this
point In hope that we could ride down
to the river, hut alt in vain. From the
summit the road iig-agged down, cover
ing a distance of five miles before reach
ing the stream. And in those five miles
we descended a distance great enough to
offset all the elevation readied in the
previous miles. My partner's wheel
whs equipped with a coaster brake: nev
ertheless. he was ohliged to dismount
every few hundred yards to avoid get
ting a hot box.
My wheel had the ordinary hub, so I
rigged up a, drag with a piece of baling
wire and an old fence post. Bv sticking
to the roughest part of the road and
pushing hack hard on the handlebars I
got along fairly well, though at times it
became a race between the bike and the
drag, with the latter an uncomfortablv
close second. The old post was dry and
rotten: the hard roadbed tore out splin
ters by the handful; then all at once at
a particularly dizzy point, the drag flew
off the road, almost taking me along
with it. and broke into three pieces on a
large boulder. After which 1 remem
bered that walking Is really good exer-
flnally reached the stream at S
. having taken fully nine hours to
the Srt miles. At the first view or
WHEN CRETE WAS
wwHK recent excavations in Crete
KVP made it necessary to recon
sider the whole scheme of Med
iterranean history before the classical
period. ,
Although many questions are still
undecided, it has been established be
yond any doubt that during the rule
of the Kighteenth Dynasty In Egypt,
when Thebes was at tha height of its
glory. Crete was the center of a great
empire whose trade and influence ex
tended from the North Atlantic to Tell
el Amarna and from Sicily to Syria.
he w hole sea-borne trade between"liu
rope. Asia and Africa was In Cretan
hands, and the legends of Theseus seem
to show that the Minoans dominated
the lireek islands and the coasts of
Attica. .
This civilization was as ancient and
as firmly established as it was won
derful. The beginning of the flint de
posits found beneath the palace at
Knossos Is considered b- Dr. Evans to
date from at least 10.000 B. C, and
from that time onward the develop
ment of the Minoan people can be
traced continuously. Between the neo
lithic age and the final sack of Knos
sos three great periods can be dis
tinguished which were roughly contem
porary with the threx great periods
in Ksypt namely, the Memphite or
Old Kingdom and the Eighteenth Dv
nasty or Theban Kmpirr. During these
periods there was close and constant
communication between Crete and
F.Kypt. A considerable trade was car
ried on between the two countries,
which was accompanie.1 bv a certain
exchange of Influence and ideas
On the other hand the Minoan clvil
tr.ntion was essentially Mediterranean,
and is most sharply distinguished from
any that arose In Kgypt or the East.
In some respects also It Is strikingly
modern. The many-storied palaces
some of the pottery, even the dresses
of the ladies, seem to belong to the
mm
it
the Deschutes at close range, one is im
pressed by the vast amount of water it
carries. It is a river in the full sense of
the word. Although not much wider, on
an average, than the Clackamas, its vol
ume of water is easily four times as
great. Ripping its way through the
rocky gorge at the rate of 15 miles an
hour, it frequently has a depth of 50
feet. For this reason, long-distance fly
casting is quite unnecessary. The best
results are obtained in the eddies along
shore. Putting on two No. 6 flies, a
Coachman and a Gray Drake. I started
down stream for the evening fishing. The
third cast in a likely pool brought up a
half-pound Redside trout, who fastened
himself to the Gray Drake and was
quickly landed. A few more casts in
the lower end of the pool brought out
several more, including one over a pound.
The last-mentioned fish was a beautiful
specimen of the Redsido variety, and I
stopped to give him a closer examina
tion. While these fish may be the same spe--are
a number of distinguishing points,
cies as our Clackamas rainbows, there
The Deschutes Redside is Inclined to be
broader and heavier: the spots are fewer
and more distinct, and the red stripe is
very pronounced in some cases covering
the entire side of the fish. Their fighting
qualities are all that could be desired A
pound fish on a 30-foot line wlIT keep
the angler quite busy for several min
utes. Another surprising thing was the im
modern rather than the ancient world.
At the same time the number of Min
oan sites and their extraordinary rich
ness far exceed anything that Crete
could be expected to produce, and must
be due in part to that sea power which
the ancient legends attributed to Minos.
Thus, when the Minoan power was
at its greatest, its rulers must have
seemed to the other nations to be
mighty indeed, and their prestige must
have been increased by the mystery of
the lands over which thev ruled (which
seemed to Syrians and Egyptians to be
the far West), and by their mastery
over that element which the ancient
world always held in awe. Strange
stories, too. must have floated round
the Levant of vast bewildering palaces,
of sports and dances, and above all of
the bull-fight. The Minoan realm,
therefore, was a vast and ancient power
which was united by the same sea
which divided it from other nations so
that it seemed to be h separate conti
nent with a genus of its own.
Suddenly a swift at.d terrible de
struction blotted out the Cretan power.
Confident in their long supremacy at
sea. the Minoans had left their cities
unfortified, and the neglect of their
land defences proved their ruin. The
evidence is conclusive that some shock
broke the sea power of Knossos when
it was still full of vigor, still grow
ing and developing: that a raid sacked
the capital and desolated the island
and that thereafter the whole Minoan
civilization decayed and finally van
ished. A new order of things arose; the
Phoenicians vtook the place of the Min
oans as traders and navigators, while
on the coast of Greece and Asia Minor
the Thalassocracies. mentioned by
Eusebius. ruled in turn. It is true that
Minoan Influence lingered on in the
art of the Aegean, but except for the
legends of Minos the very memory of
the Minoans perished. As a political
and commercial force. therefore
Knossos and its allied cities w ere swept
Rough But Joyous Experience of Two Port
landers Along Eastern Oregon's Great Stream
AN
x
mense amount of insect life along the
stream. The first few hot davs brought
out the flies in countless thousands
At times the air was filled with mvriads
of yellow, gray and brown gnats and
millers. Every trout we caught had
his stomach simply gorged with these
ir-t;ects. showing that the fish were
taking advantage of the situation. This
undoubtedly made quite a difference in
our fishing. Several times during the
morning 1 saw as many as 20 flies
dancing about in a poo; without get
ting a single rise from the well-fel
fish. At such times there was abso
lutely no use in trying to tempt them
with an artificial flv. The evening,
however, seemed to b? their feeding
time, and some beautiful fish were
lant'ed during the last two hours of
daylight. The Coachman, Brown
Hackle, Gray Drake and Caddis flies
were the most successful patterns.
Large fish were not in evidence dur
ing our stay, as r.one o" ou- fish would
weigh over two pounds, but the aver
age was well over a pounu each
From what we could learn the fish
ing farther up the river is still bet
ter. In the vicinity of Sherar Bridge
there is no timber, nor for a long way
up. If a rainstorm chances to blo-v
over from the Cascades the water
comes rushing down, the dry canyon
and the stream soon takes on a muddy
hue. Several miles up the stream the
White River empties into the les-
cnuies. ihis is a glacial stream, head
IN ITS GLORY IN
away just when they seemed strongest
and safest. It was as if the whole
kingdom had sunk In the sea, as if the
tale of Atlantis were true.
The parallel is not fortuitous. If
the account of Atlantis be compared
with the history of Crete and her re
lationship with Greece and Egypt, ft
seems almost certain that here we have
an echo of the Minoans.
The story appears first in Plato. He
says in the Tlmaeus that Solon went to
Egypt, and was told by a priest at Sals
(which was then the capital of Egypt)
that in bygone ages there had been a
great island state in the West which
in an attempt at universal conquest
made war on Greece and Egypt, but was
defeated by the Athenians and was
overwhelmed by the sea for- its sins.
Henceforth the place where the island
had been was marked only bv mud
banks, which were a danger to ship
ping. Solon would have been contempor
ary with the reign of Necho II. exactly
when Gree.k influence was strongest
in the Delta, and when the two great
camps at Daphnae and Naucratis were
garrisoned by Greek mercenaries. The
wisdom of the Egyptians had a fascina
tion for the Greeks, and the conversa
tion between Solon and the priest, one
of the most dramatic in all literature,
may well have really taken place.
In any case the whole description of
Atlantis which is given in the Timaeus
and the Critias has features so thor
oughly Minoan that even Plato could
not have invented so many unsuspected
facts. He says of Atlantis: "The island
was the way to other islands, and from
these islands you i might pass to the
whole of the opposite continent which
surrounded the true ocean." It is signif
icant, too. that the empire Is not de
scribed as a single homogeneous power
like Plato's republic and other states
in fiction: on the contrary, it Is a com
bination of different elements dominat
ed by one city.
"In this island there was a great and
wonderful empire which had rule over
the wliole island and several others.
x '
xx.
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x " x ? -S
4 2 i i fm
"tt- sa
V
as well as over parts of the continent."
This sentence describes the political
status of Knossos as concisely as the
previous sentence describes the geo
graphical position of Crete. Again, in
the Critias we read that the island
was very lofty anil precipitous on the
side of the sea tas the Cretan coast
generally is), but that the country im
mediately about and surrounding the
city was a level plain sheltered from
the north. This agrees exactly with the
site of Knossos, which is on a low
hill that rises from a plain, and which
is sheltered on the north by a protect
ing chain of hills. As professor Bur
rows has observed. "It was these hills
that made its first stone-age citizen
se,ttle at Knossos as the nearest point
up the Kairetos River that was safe
from the eye of the wandering pirate."
It is, perhaps, not too fanciful to con
nect the neolithic settlement with the
"earthborn" man Evenor,' who was
found by Potseidon on the site of the
future city of Atlantis.
Further, the boundaries of the em
pire of Atlantis are identical with those
assigned to Minoan influence. Atlantis
Is said to have ruled over North Africa
as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far
as Tyrrhenia. Now. the connection be
tween Tyrrhenia and Minoan Crete is in
Itself a most interesting problem. Pliny
states on the authority of Varro -that
there were, altogether four Labyrinths,
and that the tomb of Lars Poisena of
Clusium was one of them, the other
three being at Knossos. Hawara, and
Lemnos. In worth Africa, too. the
Tursha, who settled near Gurob in the
Fayum, and in whose graves "Mycen
ean" pottery was found, seem to be the
same as the Turusha who troubled
Egypt in the reign of . Merenptah.
The name thus falls into line with the
group of names of invading tribes which
can now almost certainly be equated with
Achaoans. Teucri and banal; that is to
say. with the Nations associated with
the later Kefts whom the Egyptians con
futed with the earlier Minoans. Al
thougn the legend of huw Theseus slew
tf
-x -x SL S,x
x- " '
Jx xx.
10,000 B C.
I the Minotaur with the help of the Cretan
I Princess whom he afterward deserted is
probaoly an echo of the raid that sacked
Knossos. yet the facts and the date are
still uncertain. It is quite certain, how
ever, that men of Minoan race and ap
pearance headed a great coalition of these
peoples to conquer Egypt and to rule the
whole of the Eastern Mediterranean.
This coalition was defeated by Rameses
III. and his own account of the invasion
can still be read on the walls of Medinet
Habu. The reliefs' and inscriptions to
gether .placi beyond doubt all the main
features of this great fight on land and
sea. the earliest known of the decisive
battles of the world.
It is immaterial to tne present argu
ment whether the men whom Rameses
defeated were true Minoans or whether
they were the later Mycnaeans. for the
Egyptians themselves hopelessly con
fused he two peoples. The central fact
remains that men whom the Egyptians
consi lered Minoans did head a confed
eracy of Nations and did aspire to what
seemed universal conq,uest; and. although
fhis attack was defeated by the Egyp
tians, yet the legends indicate that Knos
sos itself was overthrown by the pre
Dorian inhabitants of Greece proper, who
were represented in Solon's time by the
Athenians.
v An obvious difficulty in Identifying
Crete with Atlantis Is that Crete is in
side the Pillars of Hercules, whereas At
lantis is stated most expressly to have
been outside them. Although this objec
tion seems formidable, the confusion can
be shown to have arisen in a perfectly
natural manner, if we imagine ourselves
at Sals and take the same geographical
point of view as the Egyptian priests. It
is the nsme which has caused the .diffi
culty, and we are expressly told that the
names in the story had been translated
into Egyptian and were given Greek
equivalents by Solon. The Egyptian ver
sion probably said "an island in the fur
thest west." Crete, an island in the open
sea, would Indeed have seemed in the
furthest west to the coast-hugging ma-
X . x C
X. ,, - , - , X X.
s x??sj
A Wonderful Civilization That Flourished During the
- 18th Dynasty of Egypt Was Crete Atlantis?
rimers of the Memphite or even the The
ban kinc-dom. It was probably the only
voyage they made in which -they lost
sight of lard. But In Solon's time the
gcogripl ical .horizon had widened, and
the Phoenicians had long been accus
tomed to trade with Spain. He was even
contemporary with their circumnaviga
tion of Africa in the service of the King
of Egypt. Romance, therefore, must be
sought further west, out in the real ocean
beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Possibly
here we have an echo of an Egyptian
phrase which said beyond the Four Pil
lars of the World, which Crete would
have been according to early Egyptian
reckoning, for at first the Four Pillars
were Identified with actual mountains.
But a stronger argument is furnished
by the strange and persistent tradition
of the shallowness of the Atlantic Ocean
and the mud-banks which marked the
place whore Atlantis had been. We can
not imagine that the first navigators
who sailed west of Gibraltar brought
back tales of the shallowness of thoso
seas; on the contrary, they must have
been impressed with their depth, vast
ness and absence of Islands. But if At
lantis were Crete the explanation Is easy,
for if through bad weather or faulty reck
oning a ship were to miss Crete and
pass it on the south it would soon find
itself on the quicksands off the Tunisian
co-tst, the Syrtes which were dreaded
even in Roman times. After the Minoan
power had been swept away in perhaps
little more than the "day and a night"
given by the legend it would be easy to
consller that these shoals were the re
mains of the island Kingdom that had
been engulfed In the sea by the gods.
In broad outlines, therefore, the his
tory and geography of Minoan Crete cor
respond exactly with what Plato tells us
of- Atlantis: but the similarity in detail
Is no less striking. The great harbor, for
example, with its shipping and its mer
chants coming from all parts, the elabo
rate bathrooms, the stadium, and the
solemn sacrifice of a bull are all thor
oughly, though not exclusively, Minoan;
Ing near Mt. Hood, aid brings down a
vast amount of sand end silt, which
tends to keep thins: roily. But In
spite of these drawbacks. combined
with . moonlight nights. we enjoyed
some excellent fishing.
Good accommodations can be had lit
the bridge. The old Sherar House
stands on .the bank directly overlook
ing the stream, and is a remarkable
dwelling for its part of the world.
After coming down the five miles of
tortuous mountain road, the sight of
a roomy, neatly-painted house is most
piee.slng to the eye. A quarter-mile
aboe the house the Interior Develop
ment Company is doing the preliminary
work on a damsite. .Im'.gtns; from its
appearance the Deschutes should fur
nish enough power to light every town
in Kastern Oregon-
W e experienced some -very hot
weather at least, we considered It as
such, although the natives assured us
nat it was nothing to w-nst they would
hrve later on. During our last c'ay on
tl e stream the thermometer reached
97 degrees in the shade, and mighty
little shade anywhere. Twenty miles
farther up the road is a place called
Bake Oven, and I have no doubt that
it is most appropriately named. The
sun glares down from a cloudless sky.
it., burning rays reflected on the bare,
rocky cliffs. Add to this an utter
absence of wind, and you have a pretty
warm proposition. It is no wonder
that we dreaded climbing out of the
canyon under such conditions. The
first part of the climb was one . of
those events one doesn't care to re
member, but the last portion was al
most pleasant, for as we neared the
summit a strong, refreshing breeze
came over the ridge from the Cas
cades and made us forget our troubles.
The toll bridge at Sherar's Is a relic
of the old days when all the freighting
was done by teams. Toll rates are
still in effect. On tha front of the
hotel is a weatherbeaten signboard,
probably arranged by some rural paint
er who. In his desire to display his
knowledge of Knglish. worded the fol
lowing unconscious bit of humor:
: Horse and Wagon $L0ft 1
: Ditto Cart. . 75 :
: Stock, Horses - Cows... .10 :
: Ditto, Sheep & Pigs 03 :
x- w'xjSSisT.'x.:
- ax!xx?ife.-'
but when we read how the bull is hunted
"in the temple of Poseidon without wea
pons, but with staves- and nooses", we
have an unmistakable description of the
bull-ring at Knossos, the very thing
which struck foreigners most and which
gave rise to the legend of the Minotaur.
Plato's words exactly describe the scenes
on the famous Vaphio cups which cer
tainly represent catching wild bulls for
the Minoan bull-fight, which, as we know
from the palace itself, differed from all
others which the world has seen in exact
ly the point which Plato emphasizes
namely, that no weapons were used.
Thus there is an historical basis for
Plato's legend, as in the case of Gyges.
But Plato himself professes to have taken
hie story not from Egypt but from the
poem which Solon contemplated. Hence
the Athenian state, which in its idealized
form Is fictitious. For Solon seems tu
have conceived the idea of an epic in
which all the non-Hellenic nations of the
world shojld rally round Atlantis in a
struggle against Hellas, of which Athens
was the champion. To ensure poetic
unity he would omit the attack on Egypt
by Atlantis and would even use the
wonders of Egypt and Babylon to em
bellish his island empire; his poem should
be as much greater than "the tale of
Troy divine" as Minos was- greater than
Priam. The Critias probably represents
the beginning of the poem, which be
cause of his political labors was never
finished. Critias probably really had the
original manuscript of Solon, as Plato
states, and for this reason his name was
given to the unfinished dialogue. The
greatness of the theme, the romance of
its inception, the dramatic irony and the
strange chances of the preservation of
this epic are unequalled in all literature.
The much wider question of the co
relalion of the great movements of the
Mediterranean peoples at this period has
already been dealt with by Profest-or
Currelly. of Toronto. Here it is sought
to demonstrate that the long lost Atlan
tis Is neither more nor less than Minoan
Crete. London Times.