Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/126

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
120
OREGON AND WASHINGTON.

high bluff on the north bank of the Clearwater; and this elevated plain is waving with green wheat-fields: that is, we take it for granted the wheat must be waving, up in that breezy locality—and waving is the conventional term for all cereals.

Lewiston is not without its notable resorts, of which a trout lake, about twenty miles away, is one; and many are the fishing parties who resort there to enjoy a catch and a basket-dinner.

"We did not take time to visit the lake, but did take a ride out to Lapwai, the old mission station, and, more recently, military post and Indian Agency. The road to the Agency leads over the high prairie, where we find the tall grass—actually waving, this time—in the fresh breeze of morning, and very delightful it looks. The surface of the country about us is only slightly rolling, and covered with a bountiful crop of grass, which is rapidly being made into hay by a mowing-machine. Here, as everywhere we have traveled east of the Cascades, are the same varieties of flowers, in the same profusion; the same ever-present choir of sweet-throated larks; the prairie-hen, and grouse, and curlew. One other bird, the oriole, has its nest swinging from the branches of the cottonwoods in the vicinity of the Agency.

The little valley of the Lapwai is exceedingly pretty. The scene from the high prairie, before descending through the canyon of the creek, is in effect like a beautiful picture—with the garrison and the Agency, nestled each in its own nook, not fur from each other. Lapwai Valley is very fertile, and, in early missionary times, was considered more productive than Waiilatpa in the Walla Walla Valley. When there was not grain enough at the latter station, it was brought from this