Part 13

Crater Lake lies in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, and at so great an elevation—6,257 feet—as to be rendered inaccessible, except in summer, by the depth of the snow in the surrounding forests. It is about one hundred and twenty miles from Ashland, and may be reached from that city, or from Medford, by stage. The road follows the banks of the tumultuous Klamath River, and passes through the Klamath Indian Reservation, near Fort Klamath, which was abandoned in 1889, as being no longer necessary. A narrow defile known as Mystic Cañon is also of interest, and it is well to bear in mind that in the older guide-books Crater Lake is put down as Mystic Lake. Mystic it certainly is, but its present name is preferable because more definite; for Crater Lake is really a body of water which, like Lake Tahoe, fills up a volcanic orifice. And a most gigantic crater it was, for the circumference of the lake is more than twenty miles. There is only one place where one can climb down to the water; the rest of the shore consists of precipitous walls from fifteen hundred feet to three thousand feet in height, which are less slanting than they appear in photographs. These high walls, which are mirrored in the water with their fringe of trees, effectually shut out the mountain breezes, so that the water is placid, and rarely ruffled. There is something mysterious about this water; for it has no visible or discoverable inlet or outlet, and yet it is always clear and sweet. Fish, however, do not inhabit it, probably because none ever succeeded in getting there; and even water-fowl, it is said, avoid this solitary, silent mountain lake. In the middle of the lake stands an island, about three miles long, of volcanic origin, rising to a point eight hundred and forty-five feet high, and ending in a crater four hundred and seventy-five feet in diameter. There are caves along the shores which may have some connection with the water-supply, as a current is observable near them. The depth of the lake has never been ascertained, but it has been sounded for two thousand feet without reaching bottom.

A few years ago an effort was made to have the Crater Lake region reserved as the Oregon National Park, and in 1888 a bill to this effect passed the United States Senate. As there is much valuable timber on the neighboring mountain ranges, and much fine grazing land, there is reason to believe that a branch road will ere long connect Crater Lake with the Oregon and California Railroad; and when that has been built, every visitor to the Pacific Coast will feel that he can no more afford to miss this lake than the other two scenic wonders of Oregon—the Columbia River and Mt. Hood.

Going northward towards Portland, the wonderful fertility of the Willamette Valley is what chiefly arrests the attention of tourists. Wood being cheaper than coal in this region, the train frequently stops to get a fresh load of fuel from the huge piles of timber which at intervals extend along the road, sometimes a quarter of a mile without a break. During these stops, some young man may be seen running to a neighboring wheat or oat field to compare height with the stalks, sometimes to his disadvantage. But these rich agricultural lands were all taken up long ago, and the emigrant with a slender purse and a desire for government land has to seek a region more remote from the railway. The towns along this route, including Roseburg, Eugene, Albany, Salem, and Oregon City, have not grown so fast during the last ten years as Portland, or as the towns of Washington and California; but the inhabitants confidently believe that their day will come when the more sensational California and Washington towns have passed through their boom period, and they modestly claim that they prefer steady and slow growth to a boom which too often becomes a retrograde boomerang. At Oregon City, tourists should be on the lookout for the falls of the Willamette, below which the Indians formerly used to spear salmon, but which now serve the more prosaic purpose of furnishing water-power to the woollen mills on the spot, and electric power to Portland twelve miles away.

The Willamette Valley, through which our train has passed on the way from Roseburg to Portland, is the garden of Oregon. Twenty years ago wheat and apples were almost exclusively cultivated in this region. Then the discovery was made that the soil and climate are remarkably well adapted to hop culture, and most of the farmers at once gave up their grain-fields and orchards and raised hops. Farmers have their fashions as well as city folks, and they are just as apt to go to extremes. The hop-raising business was overdone; prices fell; and now many of these farmers are returning to their grain and fruit, in which no other State surpasses Oregon, in quality as well as in quantity.

Concerning Oregon fruit I can speak from personal experience, as I was brought up near an orchard numbering two thousand apple, pear, and plum trees. For peaches and grapes the climate of Northern Oregon is hardly warm enough, and the apples and pears, too, are perhaps a little _smaller_ than they are in California, but in flavor they are vastly superior. Indeed, neither in the East nor in any part of Europe have I ever tasted apples to compare with those of Oregon. They have a richness and delicacy of flavor which must persuade any one that, if apples were less abundant, they would be considered superior in taste and fragrance to those tropical and semi-tropical fruits which are more highly valued because of their scarcity in our latitude. In most parts of the East an apple is an apple, and few people know or care about the names of the different kinds; but an Oregonian would no more eat certain kinds of apples than he would a raw pumpkin. An epicure is no more particular in regard to his brands of wine than an Oregonian is in the choice of his favorite variety of apples; and there are half-a-dozen kinds which I have never seen at the East, and the systematic introduction of which in the New York market would make any dealer’s fortune.

For some reason or other the Oregonians seem less enterprising than their California neighbors, and instead of sending their fruit East, they often allow it to rot on the trees—including superb plums, and Bartlett pears that would fetch eight to ten cents apiece in New York. Eastern capital is wanted to start transportation enterprises; and a still more important desideratum in Oregon is a larger population. The growth of the State has been remarkably slow, considering its agricultural advantages and its fine climate. In the census of 1880, the population numbered only 174,767. But there were already “16,217 farms, and their products are tabled at a cash value of $13,234,548,”—a curious commentary on the exclamation of a member of Congress forty-five years ago, that he would not “give a pinch of snuff for the whole Territory.”

Eastern notions regarding the climate of Western Oregon are almost as widely astray as they are regarding Alaska. Barrows points out that, although the mouth of the Willamette is two hundred miles further north than Boston, no ice has been formed on it thicker than window-glass since 1862; and that in some of the counties snow has not covered the ground for three consecutive days for a score of years. The rainy season, which takes the place of the Eastern winter, is trying to the patience of some; yet this rain is very different from our muggy, foggy, sultry winter rains in New York. It is known as a “dry” rain, because however it may drizzle, it does not seem to saturate the air and depress the spirits by impeding the natural evaporation and healthy action of the skin. Doubtless this peculiarity of climate is largely responsible for the remarkably beautiful complexions of Oregon and Washington women, though something may be due to the fact that, as children, they live almost entirely on fruit. The heat of Oregon summer days is not often oppressive, being generally mitigated by a gentle breeze, and the nights are always cool enough for refreshing sleep.

XI.

PORTLAND AND ITS SEA-BEACHES.

A PICTURESQUE SITUATION—FIVE SNOW-PEAKS IN SIGHT—PORTLAND VERSUS LOS ANGELES—CLEARINGS—CHINESE ANECDOTES—PROPITIATING THE GODS—APPRECIATION OF FEMALE BEAUTY—SUMMER RESORTS—YAQUINA BAY AND LONG BEACH—BATHING IN THE NORTH PACIFIC—CATCHING CRABS AT LOW TIDE—A SAD ACCIDENT—CLATSOP BEACH AND TILLAMOOK HEAD—AN EXPOSED LIGHT-HOUSE—IN THE VIRGIN FOREST—OREGON MOSSES, FERNS, AND TREES—FLOWERS AND BERRIES.

If the greatest commercial advantage which a city can enjoy is to be situated on a large river, it is equally true that of all possible æsthetic advantages no other is equal to that of having a scenic background of snow-mountains. It is to this that so many cities of France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy owe their principal charm. To find anything similar in the United States we have to go far West, and especially Northwest. Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle are the three most picturesquely situated cities in the United States, and of these three I would assign the palm to Portland, from a purely scenic point of view. For although Mt. Hood does not seem quite so near and imposing at Portland as Mt. Tacoma does as seen from Seattle or Tacoma, it must be remembered that the Portlanders have full-size views from their streets, not only of Hood but also of St. Helens, while the summits of Tacoma, Adams, and Jefferson are seen from the hills which encircle the city. And while Portland has no Puget Sound, it is only twelve miles from the Columbia River, which is scenically superior even to the “American Mediterranean,” as Puget Sound has been aptly called.

Architectural monuments of importance there are none as yet in Portland, but the trees and gardens which frame in all the houses are equally attractive in their way, and, from a sanitary point of view, more desirable. Garden City or Forest City would seem an appropriate name for Portland, as seen from the Portland Heights, which every tourist should visit; and the Cascade Range to the east, with the Willamette River separating the city from East Portland and Albina, gives the ensemble a slight resemblance to Stuttgart, if not to Florence, though neither of those cities can boast of a line of five volcanic snow-peaks like Portland.

Of Mt. Hood in particular the Portlanders have a magnificent view from their house-tops or from the heights west of the city. Though it is about fifty miles away, there is not a hill between to impede the view; and, as the particular Cascade ridge with which Mt. Hood connects is of insignificant height, the peak stands revealed from head to foot in solitary grandeur, with snow reaching down two-thirds of the way even in August. As previously stated, it is a peculiarity of all the Oregon and Washington peaks that they thus rise abruptly from the ground, without any clustering neighbors to lean upon; and this isolation, combined with the lowness of the snow-line, adds much to their grandeur and apparent height. With such fine scenery constantly in view, and with trees and flowers around every house, it is perhaps not surprising that the wealthy Portlanders have hitherto shown a remarkable indifference to the condition of their parks and streets. The large piles of wood in front of every other house appear more useful than ornamental, and give parts of the city a semi-rural aspect. They make excellent and cheap fuel, however, and the large quantities of pitch they contain give them a delightful fragrance. Another peculiarity of Portland streets is that the blocks are uncommonly small. Fewer streets and wider ones would have been much more acceptable. The waste of space involved in the present arrangement is beginning to be felt now that real estate is rapidly rising in value.

Portland owes its growth and its commercial importance to the fact that the Willamette River is navigable up to its wharves by the largest ocean steamers; so that the rich farm products of the Willamette Valley can be at once shipped to all parts of the world without a long and expensive railway transportation.

In a book dated 1855—Thornton’s “Oregon and California”—we read that “ships drawing twelve or fourteen feet of water ascend the Willamette to the pleasant and flourishing village of Portland, twelve miles below Oregon City.” This “pleasant and flourishing village” is now a city of at least sixty thousand, which hotly disputes with Los Angeles the honor of being the second largest city on the Pacific Coast. The Los Angeles papers claim seventy thousand for their city and speak encouragingly of Portland as a promising city of forty thousand; while the Portland papers reverse these figures, claiming seventy thousand for their city and generously conceding to Los Angeles forty thousand. One thing is certain: that Portland is growing very rapidly, as is proved by official statistics, showing that the grand total of receipts and payments of money order and postal funds increased more than a million dollars from June 30, 1888, to June 30, 1889. Portland, however, has never had a real “boom” like her southern rival, or like Tacoma and Seattle. Oregon, indeed, has been somewhat unjustly neglected, being thrown into the shade by her more brilliant neighbors, California and Washington. Her growth has been gradual, and not by spurts, but it has been as steady as it has been quiet, and the total result is surprising. Salem, the State capital, has not, indeed, greatly outgrown the condition in which it was found a number of years ago by Mr. Joaquin Miller, who referred to it as “rather thickly settled for the country, yet far too thinly settled for a city”; but Portland has always gone on ahead, thanks to the fact that it has been, and still is, the headquarters for wholesale supplies not only in Oregon, but in Washington and Idaho. This, combined with the fact that it is the outlet for one of the richest grain and fruit States in the Union, accounts for the metropolitan aspect of Portland. Front Street, where the large wholesale houses are, might be easily taken for a street in New York or Chicago. Farther away from the river, elegant rows of residences occupy the ground where a few years ago ferns and mosses grew, and the festive stump asserted its omnipresence. A large and magnificent hotel has just been completed, the Portland, one of the finest and most sensibly constructed in the country, every room being practically a front room, with plenty of light and air. This hotel was much needed. I have known tourists to leave Portland disgusted because they could not get comfortable quarters in the overcrowded small hotels. Cable and electric roads have also been introduced recently, and besides all these things, there is evidence of Portland’s prosperity in the appearance of the daily _Oregonian_, which is at present compelled to add four pages almost every issue to its usual eight pages, just as were the Los Angeles papers during the “boom” in Southern California. The _Oregonian_ is one of the best edited papers in the United States, liberal in its views, and generally on the right side of important questions. It has obtained such a firm hold in Oregon soil that rival papers find it almost impossible to make headway against it; and Portland is perhaps the only city of its size in this country which has only one first-class daily paper.

Some Portlanders are distressed at the fact that Second Street, one of the three principal business streets of the city, has fallen almost entirely into the hands of the Chinese; but in her general treatment of Chinamen, Portland differs widely from her rival cities in Washington. From Tacoma the Mongolians were driven formally, a few years ago, by a mob, headed by the mayor and a brass band. Seattle tried the same game, but there the mob was foiled by the interference of the sheriff. Portland, on the other hand, deals gently with its two thousand Chinamen, because they are found useful, and sometimes indispensable. A Portlander has explained this matter as follows: “In a city where white help cannot be got at the rate of thirty dollars a month for plain cooks and twenty dollars for chambermaids, Chinamen at those prices, either in the kitchen or overhead, are a blessing. Indeed, the amicable relations between the Chinese and the whites here is due largely to a tacit agreement on a division of labor. All over the city you see that the men employed on street-mending and other public works are white. Wherever you see a pile of cordwood and a man sawing, splitting, and carrying it in, you will find him a Chinaman. When a well-to-do Chinaman wants a drive in a hack, a white man sits before him on the box. The Chinese have not intruded into any of the skilled trades to the exclusion of the whites. Their barbers shave only their own countrymen. Their cobblers confine their mending to Chinese shoes. Their compositors set only Chinese type. Their carpenters are employed on Chinese buildings and cabinet work exclusively. You will often see a drayman delivering freight with a Chinese helper, or a white gardener directing his Chinese assistant in the use of the hoe and the rake. The absurd notion, so prevalent in some parts of the East, that the Chinaman works for almost nothing, is quickly dispelled when you come to strike a bargain with one. If he is to dig in your garden as a common laborer, he stands for his dollar a day as firmly as the white man. He will saw your wood gladly, but he must have a dollar a cord for it, or a dollar and seventy-five cents if he also splits it, carries it in, and piles it up in your cellar.”

In the country, the Chinamen are even more indispensable than in the city; and the demand for them during harvesting and hop-picking time is always greater than the supply. They are hired through the agency of Chinese bosses, who send them wherever they are wanted, with cooks and a general outfit, and pay them a small sum a day, keeping the lion’s share for themselves. At other times of the year the Chinese are employed in making “clearings” for agricultural purposes. Oregon has about fifteen million acres of timber land, with a soil that is excellent for grain or fruit, provided the timber can be removed. To do this with white labor is so expensive as to take away the possible margin of profit. But the Chinaman does it for a smaller sum, and thus, instead of being the farm-laborer’s enemy, he enables him to earn a living on the ground cleared by the heathen. The cost of clearing an acre varies from twenty-five to one hundred dollars.

Market-gardening in Oregon, as in California, is almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese, and where-ever in the neighborhood of Portland you see a brook large enough to irrigate a garden, you will usually find a Chinaman in possession of the ground. Even where the gardens or orchards belong to Americans, Chinamen are hired to do most of the work. And they do it well, with rare exceptions. Usually they have a separate hut, where they do their own cooking; or else they occupy a portion of the barn, in which case, if the chickens lay their eggs therein, it is sometimes found that the number of cackling chickens exceeds the number of eggs found in the trough in the evening.

To judge by the articles found in their provision stores, the wealthier among the Chinese appear to be as great epicures as their countrymen at home; while of the poorer ones, if you ask one what he had for dinner, he will invariably reply, “I eatee licee” (rice). Yet they are always glad to get what is left over at the table, and this makes it the more remarkable that they are so contented with their insipid boiled rice, without condiment of any sort.

Heathen John is, of course, quite as willing to work on Sunday as on any other day; but once in a while a day comes along which is marked sacred in his calendar, and then it is difficult to persuade him to do anything. I once witnessed a curious scene on a farm near East Portland. Strawberries being over-ripe, the four Chinese laborers had been persuaded to pick all day, though they had expressed a great desire to have a holiday. In the evening they had a grand performance in front of their barn. A whole roast chicken was brought out in a plate and placed on the grass, surrounded by half-a-dozen bowls of rice-wine, and a number of burning candles, though it was still daylight. The oldest of the men went through a series of bows and genuflections, and then poured out libations of the wine, after offering some to the spectators, who politely declined it. Then a few dozen perforated papers with Chinese characters on them were thrown into the flame, one after another, the chicken was carried back into the barn, and the ceremony was over. One of the younger Chinamen explained to us that what we had witnessed had been done to conciliate the gods. “We workee to-day, long (wrong). ’Ligious holiday. Now allee lightee” (right). He added that he and the other two young men would not have done it, but that the old man was very strict in his religious observances and had induced them to join him.

Afterwards we asked this same young man to sing for us, which he did after much coaxing, and a solemn and repeated promise that we would not laugh. He sang three verses in a shrill falsetto voice, each time a few notes higher, the effect being similar to that of the Edison phonographic speaking-dolls. He accompanied his song with dance and pantomime, but when one of his companions tried to accompany him on a peculiar instrument which sounded like a cross between a violin and oboe, he did not encourage him, and explained to us “he no play.”

John sometimes manages to pick up a fair knowledge of English, but one word he cannot get into his brain, and that is the word “get.” Tell him to “go and get the milk” and he will have no idea what you want. “Catchee” is the word for him; and if you say “John, go catchee him milk,” he will go at once and get it. His logic also is sometimes peculiar; and if you make a bargain with him at so much a month, he will work exactly one Chinese month, or four times seven days, and then refuse to do anything on the two or three remaining days of the month unless he gets extra pay. Nash, in his “Two Years in Oregon,” relates a funny story of a Chinaman who accompanied him on a trip through the country. On arriving at a steep hill, he got off the wagon and made John get off too, much against his will, apparently; for presently, on looking around, he noticed that John had crawled up again from behind. On being remonstrated with, John exclaimed, “Never mind; horsee no see me get in; they know no better.”