right road to civilization again. This portage had formerly been made by pack-mules, and then by wagons; but recently a railroad had been constructed, after much hard blasting and costly wall-work, and now "Riding on a rail," there, with the Columbia boiling and roaring at your side, like the Rapids above Niagara, was exhilarating and superb. At very high water, these "chutes" or rapids somewhat disappear, though they still continue very dangerous. No attempt had been made to ascend them with a steamer; but the spring before, Capt. Stump had safely descended them, much against his will. It was high water in the Columbia, with a strong current, and his boat drifting near the rapids was suddenly sucked in, before he knew it. Clearly, escape was impossible; so he put on all steam, to give her steerage-way, and then headed down stream--neck or nothing. There was a good deal of bumping and thumping--it was a toss and a plunge, for awhile--and everybody he feared was pretty badly scared; but his gallant little boat ran the rapids for all that, and reached still water below safely at last. It was a daring feat, and worthy of this brave Oregonian. Just now, the Columbia was very low, rocks and reefs showing all through the rapids--among, around, and over which the waters boiled and rushed like a mill-race. The locomotive carried us to the Dalles, at the foot of the Rapids, a town of some two thousand inhabitants, with a maturer civilization than any we had seen since leaving Salt lake. It was but five or six years old; yet it was already in its decrepitude. A "rush" of miners a few years before, to alleged fine "diggings" near there, had suddenly elevated it from an obscure landing into quite a town; but the mines did not justify their promise, and the Dalles was now at a stand-still, if not something worse. "Mining stock" and "corner lots" had gone down by the run, during the past year or two, and her few merchants sat by their doors watching for customers in vain. The enterprise of the town, however, deserved a better fate. At the Umatilla House they gave us an excellent supper, at a moderate price, and the hotel itself would have been a credit to a much larger town anywhere. The mines on John Day River, and other dependencies of the Dalles, had formerly yielded $2,000,000 per year, and Congress had then voted a U. S. Mint there. We could but sincerely hope it would be much needed, some day or other.