Clark's Fork of the Columbia, or the Columbia proper, makes a sharp bend north at Wallula, and for 300 miles, he said, was unnavigable, until you reach Fort Colville near the British line, when it trends east and south, until it disappears in the far off wilds of Montana. Just above Fort Colville, it became navigable again, and a small boat was then running up to the Great Bend region, over 200 miles farther, where good placer mines had been discovered (Kootenay) and worked a little. This boat could connect with another, already plying on Lake Pond Oreille (a part of Clark's Fork), and this with still another then building, that it was believed with short portages would extend navigation some 200 miles more, or into the very heart of Montana, within two or three hundred miles only of Fort Benton--the head of navigation on the Missouri. These were weighty facts, marrying the Pacific to the Atlantic; but Captain Stump thought the O. S. N. company could accomplish them, or anything else, indeed, it seriously undertook. Just now it was bending its energies in that direction, and he said would beat the Northern Pacific Railroad yet. No doubt we have a fine country up there, near the British America line, abounding in lakes and threaded with rivers, and roomy enough for all enterprises, whether railroad or steamboat. Puff! Puff! And so we were off down the Columbia, at last. How exquisitely pleasant, how cosy and delightful, our little steamer seemed, after 2,400 miles of jolting and banging by stage-coach and ambulance! The state-rooms were clean and tidy, the meals well-cooked and excellent, and we went steaming down the Columbia without thought or care, as on "summer seas." Occasionally rapids appeared, of a serious character; but as a rule the river was broad and deep, majestic in size and volume. On the banks were frequent Indian villages, with their hardy little ponies browsing around--apparently on nothing but sage-brush and cobble-stones. These Indians fancied spotted or "calico" horses, as the Oregonians called them, and very few of their ponies were of a single color. They spend the summer mostly in the Mountains, making long excursions in all directions; but as winter approaches, they return to the Columbia, and eke out a precarious subsistence by fishing, etc., till spring comes. Timber was scarce, and frequently we saw numbers of them in canoes, paddling up and down the river in search of drift-wood, for their winter's supply of fuel. Past Owyhee rapids and the seething caldron of Hell-Gate, we reached Celilo, eighty-five miles from Umatilla, with its long warehouse (935 feet), and its mosquito fleet of five or six pigmy steamers, that formed the up-river line. Here we disembarked, and took the Railroad around the "chutes" or rapids, some fourteen miles, to still water again below. The shrill whistle of the locomotive and the rattle of the cars were delightful sounds, after our long exile from them, and soon convinced us we were on the