1865.]

FASCINATION OF THE DEEP GULF.

499

Down the stream I could find no place where I dared attempt to descend the almost unbroken wall to the water's edge. But just below the brink I crept out to the edge of the projecting rock. Clinging to a hardy cedar, I saw the peaceful waters two hundred and fifty feet below me. Above, the surface of the water is broken into five channels by little islands. Thence I saw the river come gliding swift, clear and smooth to the dizzy edge; the long plunge; and the caldron, which boils beneath, under wafting clouds of spray. The fall itself is of purest white, interspersed with myriads of glittering glassy drops-a cataract of snow with an avalanche of jewels. Mocking and belittling all human splendor, Nature is here in her lace and pearls, her robe of diamonds and tiara of rainbow.

'The world, how far away it seemed, and God, how near!' Under the deafening roar, how the firm-set earth quailed and vibrated! How deep the chasm from which rose pearly mist, hiding forever from human eyes the secrets of its troubled heart! Long I lay upon the rock-shelf, gazing over the brink, riveted by the great white cataract, and the absorbing fascination of that profound, tempting gulf. How easy, by one leap, to leave behind all earthly cares and griefs-to solve the solemn mysteries of deathperchance to join the loved and lost, who wait us in the life beyond!

The river has several other picturesque falls within forty miles. Returning to the stage-road we continued our journey. At sunset came another mirage, in the west, where lakes of gold reflected mountains of cloud-'seas of mingled glass with fire.' When these faded, the actual mountains in the north were lapis lazuli; but the clouds beyond and above mirrored them as mountains of marble and sapphire.

In the dusk of the same evening, by a rope ferry, twenty miles below the Great Fall, we crossed the Snake, descending to the bottom of its deep chasm by precipitous roads. At the log station, half a mile from the river, we walked out by moonlight, to view a dark gorge, shut in by basaltic walls, three hundred feet high.

From one of these, fifty feet above the ground, gush twenty springs, varying in size from a man's arm to a flour-barrel. All

500

A BLOODLESS IDAHO WAR.

[1865. lashed into silver spray they leap down jutting rocks, at whose base they merge into one. forming a stream a hundred feet wide. This wonderful spring, which has not even a name, is supposed to be the resurrection and new life of the Mahlad river, which died and was buried in the desert sixty miles away. To see it was a fit ending for an ever memorable day.

In nine days from Virginia Montana, my stage ride ended at Boise City. On the whole lonely road from Bear river we saw hardly a single team, nor any human habitation except stage stations. Indeed the most noticeable evidences of civilization we encountered were all lying together in the road: a whisky bottle, an old newspaper, and an empty match-box bearing a United States revenue stamp.

· Boise, capital, commercial metropolis, and geographical center of Idaho, is a trading not a mining town, with about two thousand inhabitants. It is in the smooth valley of the Boise river-a valley fifty miles long by five or six in width, and with some agricul tural capacity. The broad, level, treeless avenues, with their low, white, verandahed warehouses, log-cabins, neat cottages and ever shifting panorama of wagons and coaches, Indians, miners, farmers and speculators remind one of a prairie town in Kansas or Iowa. It is overlooked by Fort Boise, which has a noble parade-ground, surrounded by tasteful buildings of sandstone; and is a singu larly beautiful frontier post.

The capital was established here only after a violent conflict. The legislature, with the governor's approval, removed it from Lewiston, on the extreme western border of the Territory. The Lewistonians declared this illegal; armed and drilled for forcible resistance, and vowed they would never submit without bloodshed. Nevertheless, the law was carried out; and the threatening sovereigns finally acquiesced. As Webster ponderously suggested of Hayne's speech: 'It is not the first time in the history of human affairs, that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.'

Within a hundred miles of Boise are nearly all the present population and mining districts of Idaho:-1. The Boise Basin, of which Idaho City (containing five thousand people) thirty-five miles northeast, is chief town. The 'basin,' a deep, saucer-like

1865.]

UNATTRACTIVE STATE OF SOCIETY.

501

tract among the mountains, twenty-five miles in diameter from rim to rim, contains some good ledges of gold-bearing quartz, and large, rich placer diggings. It has little farming land; but is timbered with noble pines. 2. Alturas county-chief town, Rocky Bar, ninety-five miles northeast. It embraces abundant pasturage and vegetable lands, including the Coamas prairies and the chief, almost the only, portions of Idaho giving farming promise. Here are few placers; but Rocky Bar, Red Warrior, Volcano, Yuba and other rich quartz districts. 3. Owhyee Region, seventy miles south; with very little. farming land or placer gold, but the richest and most abundant lodes of gold and silver-bearing rock ever found in the United States.

At the time of my visit, Idaho society was not attractive. Murders were frequent; for with a majority of industrious, law-abiding settlers, the Territory had also many late rebel soldiers and Missouri runaways; and the worst desperadoes from California, Nevada, Oregon and Montana. The legislature contained just one Union member; and during the war

EVIDENCES OF CIVILIZATION.

there was more disloyalty than in any northern community except Utah. Old Parson Strong of Hartford, the fierce political preacher in the days of Federalism, was accused of charging, from the pulpit, that all the democrats were horse-thieves. He replied:

'It is a slander; I never asserted any thing of the kind. But what I do say, and what I can prove, is, that all the horse-thieves are democrats.'

So in this community the Disunionists were not all desperadoes, but all the desperadoes were Disunionists.

502

THE CHINOOK JARGON.

[1865. Our new Territories in their early history show wonderful uniformity. At its first elections each invariably votes the democratic ticket. As time passes, each has its fevers of speculation, its wild inflations and paralyzing reactions, its bitter contests about locating the capital. Each elects some of its weakest and most corrupt men to office; and, sooner or later, is driven into purging itself of thieves and murderers through the application of Lynch law.

There are about fifty Indian tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. No two speak precisely the same language; but a strange patois, known as the Chinook Jargon,' is comprehended by nearly all of them, and by most white settlers. As in all rudimentary

languages, the same word is either a noun or a verb, according to the context; as 'Ni-wa-wa,'-'I speak,' or, 'My word.' Here are a few common terms of the Jargon, which frequently enters, as a sort of local slang, into general conversation:

While in Idaho, imprisoned by the storms of early winter, I found much attraction and instruction in studying the quarrying and reduction of gold and silver ore. Conducted on a large scale, it is a peculiarly fascinating pursuit. The interior of a great steam mill with its heavy, complicated machinery turning out thousands of dollars in bullion daily, is full of interest.

First, the quartz is broken by sledge-hammers into fragments like apples. Next, it is shoveled into the feeders, where huge iron stamps, of from three hundred to eight hundred pounds weight, rising and falling sixty times a minute, thunder and clatter, making the building tremble, as they crush the rock to wet powder.

Quiet, silent workmen, with movements almost as mechanical as the stamps and wheels, run this pulp successively through settling-tanks, amalgamating-pans, agitators and separators—the refuse material passing away, and quicksilver collecting the precious metal into a mass of shining amalgam, soft as putty. This goes into the fire-retort, where it leaves the quicksilver behind; and finally into molds, whence it comes forth clear and pure, in bricks and bars of the precious metals.

Swift and simple appears the process which transforms dull worthless-looking rock into glowing gold or shining silver. Yet by what tedious toil, consummate skill and endless experimenting was this rare alchemy achieved; through what weary waiting and divine patience was this philosopher's stone discovered!