probable that the island was once a continuation of this point—a peninsula, in fact, which was finally cut off by some heavy winter flood forcing its way over and through it. Numerous small islands form quite an archipelago above the head of the principal island. As they are all densely wooded with willow, cottonwood, and other water-loving trees, they present a very picturesque view.
Supposing ourselves to be standing on the hurricane deck of a steamer, passing among these islands, between the Columbia and the Wallamet, with stretches of both in sight; with the heavily wooded shores of both rivers plainly visible; with the Cascade Range drawn in blue on the eastern horizon, and the white peaks of St. Helen, Hood, Adams, and Jefferson rising sharp above it; and over all a rosy, sunset sky, its reflection coloring the rivers and tinting the snow-peaks—we would hardly expect ever to meet a lovelier picture than this one before us.
The Wallamet River, unlike the majestic Columbia, divides, nearly in half, a level valley of open prairie-land. Hence, and because the earliest settlers of a country always select the lands easiest of tillage, we find nearly the whole of the Oregon population in the Wallamet Valley. Had we entered by the lower mouth, and come up on the south side of Sauvie's Island, we should have found the land on either side divided into farms, and have witnessed the shipping of stock, and other signs of local trade; although here the valley is limited to a plain of half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth, bounded by a ridge of high, fir-clad hills.
From the head of the island up to Portland, a distance of little more than six miles, the hills continue
