66 FISH HARVESTING. 



transport of coals and provisions necessary to 

 keep the life-stove burning, floated free of freight 

 up to the very doors of the Indian's wigwam. 

 The way he harvests this store, and preserves 

 it for winter use, we shall see as we follow the 

 course of the salmon in their ascent of the 

 Columbia river. 



The Cascades, where the salmon first meet 

 with a hindrance to their upward course, is a 

 lovely spot. The vast river here breaks its way 

 through the Cascade Mountains, a mountain-gap 

 unequalled, I should say, in depth and extent, 

 by any in the world. Some parts are massive 

 walls of rock, and others wooded slopes like to 

 a narrow valley. One can hardly imagine the 

 possibility of so great a change in climate, and 

 consequently vegetation, as there is betwixt 

 this place and the Dalles, only a few miles 

 farther up the river. I have left the Dalles 

 when the ground was covered with snow, and 

 within a distance of forty miles entered this gap, 

 and found the climate to be that of summer. 

 The sloping forests brightly green, shrubs of 

 various sorts, tropical in appearance, immense 

 ferns, the emerald moss clothing the rocks, over 

 which dozens of waterfalls, unbroken for a thou- 

 sand feet, tumble from the hills into the river 



