the same side and eighteen miles farther up, contains a score of buildings. As we ascend the Columbia, the white summits of Mounts St. Helen's, Rainier, Jefferson and Hood, covered with perpetual snow and rising to a great height, offer sublime spectacles which one never wearies of watching.
Twenty miles beyond St. Helen's, you come to Vancouver, consisting of some hundred houses, besides the fort recently built for the use of the troops. There is a little frame Catholic church, which has the title of cathedral ; a bishop and his grand vicar, and two little schools for boys
and girls. The last is directed by some very fervent and zealous sisters. Vancouver is considered the most flourishing of the towns on the Columbia.
Thirty-six miles above Vancouver, and at the distance of 132 miles from the sea, the river passes through the mountainous Cascade range. For a stretch of five miles it is strewn with great masses of rock, accumulated in a quite narrow place, which form those rapid and insurmountable
currents called the Cascades. The view of the mountains on each side of the river is truly ravishing and grand. Their flanks are covered with trees and high brush, and especially now in the fall the different-colored foliage augments greatly the beauty and magnificence of these pictur
esque places. The numerous streamlets that are seen falling from rock to rock contribute greatly to set off the
beauty of the region. The village called Cascade is destined, I doubt not, to become a very important centre.
After sixty miles of navigation above the Cascades, we reach the Dalles, another fall of the Columbia, which boats cannot pass. The aspect of the country becomes less in
teresting as we ascend the river. The lofty hills on both sides are almost wholly bare of vegetation or verdure. The new city that has just been started here has taken the
name of the place - Dalles City. It has upward of Too
houses, some of which are of stone. A fine future is pre
dicted for it by reason of its position. A number of large