Halting at the Dalles over night, the next morning we took the side-wheel steamer _Idaho_, and ran down to Upper Cascades--some fifty miles--through the heart of the Cascade Mountains. Here we took the railroad again for six miles--to flank more rapids--and at Lower Cascades embarked on the _W. G. Hunt_, a large and elegant side-wheel steamer, that some years before had come "round the Horn," from New York. The Columbia, soon issuing from the Mountains, now became a broad and majestic river, with good depth of water to the ocean all the year round, and larger vessels even than the _W. G. Hunt_ might readily ascend to Lower Cascades, if necessary. Our good boat, however, bore us bravely on to Fort Vancouver, amidst multiplying signs of civilization again; and as we landed there, we realized another great link of our journey was over. To return a little. Our sail down the Columbia, and through the Cascade Mountains, altogether was a notable one, and surpassed everything in the way of wild and picturesque river-scenery, that we had seen yet. Some have compared the Columbia to the Hudson; but it is the Hudson many times magnified, and infinitely finer. It is the Hudson, without its teeming travel, its towns and villas, its civilization and culture; but with many times its grandeur and sublimity. The noble Palisades, famed justly throughout the world, sink into insignificance before the stupendous walls of the Cascade Range, which here duplicate them but on a far vaster scale, for many miles together. Piled along the sky on either side, up two or three thousand feet, for fifty miles at a stretch, with only a narrow gorge between, the Columbia whirls and boils along through this, in supreme mightiness and power; while from the summit of the great walls little streams here and there topple over, run like lace for a time, then break into a million drops, and finally come sifting down as mist, into the far depths below. Some of these tiny cascades streaked the cyclopean walls, like threads of silver, from top to bottom. Others seemed mere webs of gossamer, and these the wind at times caught up and swayed to and fro, like veils fit for goddesses. These Mountains, all through the cañon of the Columbia, abound with such fairy cascades; whence their name. Just below Lower Cascades, where the river-bottoms open out a little, stands Castle Rock, a huge red boulder of comparatively moderate dimensions at the base, but seven hundred feet high. Its walls are so perpendicular they seem inaccessible, and on top it is covered with a thick growth of fir-trees. Its alleged height appeared incredible at first, but on comparing it with the gigantic firs at the base, and those on the summit, the estimate seemed not unreasonable. All along, the vast basaltic walls of the cañon are shaped and fashioned into domes and turrets, ramparts and battlements; and surely in point of picturesque grandeur and effect, the Columbia would be hard to beat. We had not