FAR AND NEAR 



more winding. The geologists speculated upon the 

 formation as it was laid bare in places ; the bota- 

 nists upon the wild flowers that painted the shore ; 

 the ornithologists upon the birds seen and heard. 

 Swarms of cliff swallows were observed about the 

 basaltic rocks near the water. 



There were not many signs of rural life, — here 

 and there low, rude farmhouses on the deltas of 

 land at the mouths of the side gorges, and at least 

 one very large fruit farm on a low, level area on our 

 right. A novel sijjht was the Ion": wooden and wire 

 wheat chutes for running the wheat down from 

 the farms back on the high mountain tablelands to 

 the river, where the boats could pick it up. They 

 were tokens of a life and fertility quite unseen and 

 unsuspected. 



MULTNOMAH FALLS 



The ride in the train along the south bank of the 

 Columbia toward Portland, past The Dalles, past 

 the Cascades, past Oneonta Gorge and the Mult- 

 nomah and Latourelle Falls, is a feast of the beau- 

 tiful and the sublime, — the most delicate tints and 

 colors of moss and wild flowers setting off the most 

 rugged alpine scenery. In places the railroad em- 

 bankment is decked w^ith brilliant patches of red 

 and purple flowers, as if garlanded for a festival. 

 Presently the moss-covered rocks are white-aproned 

 with the clear mountain brooks that cascade down 



18 



