CHAPTER X.
A GLIMPSE AT IDAHO AND WASHINGTON.
Lewiston, in Idaho, where we find ourselves waiting for the semi-weekly steamer from the Dalles, is a place of only a few hundred inhabitants, situated on a sand-spit at the junction of the Clearwater with the Snake River, and between the two rivers. Immensely high bluffs of picturesque forms, bordering the northern shore of either, redeem the place from the appearance of insipidity which dead levels and barren sands ordinarily conspire to produce. In a business point of view, the location is a good one, whenever the development of the country, by means of settlement, shall demand a commercial centre. In flush mining times it was a lively place, being at the head of continuous navigation on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The most interesting of its institutions, to-day, is the depot for pack-trains, where miners' property is received, taken care of, and released to the owners upon the payment of certain dues.
Like Dalles and Walla Walla, Lewiston was at first considered hopeless as a soil for trees and flowers; but within three years past, their cultivation has been undertaken, with every prospect of gratifying success. We remark about Lewiston the same appropriation of high lands to wheat-growing that we have commented upon at Dalles. In fact, the highest level ground, in sight from Lewiston, is a table on top of the extremely
