How he soared and towered, beyond and above everything, as if communing with the Almighty! Lofty as were the rest, they seemed small by his majestic side. St. Helens, however, though not so imperial, was perhaps more simply and chastely beautiful. An unbroken forest of fir, deep green verging into black, girt her feet, while above she "swelled vast to heaven," a perfect snow sphere rather than cone, whose celestial whiteness dazzled the eye. She looked like a virgin's or a nun's white breast, unsullied by sin, and standing sharply out against the glorious azure of that December sky, seemed indeed a perfect emblem of purity and beauty. Farther down the river, we detected a light smoke or vapor, drifting dreamily away from her summit, and Capt. Conner of the _Oriflamme_ said this was not unusual, though St. Helens was not rated as a volcano. He thought it steam or vapor, caused by internal heat melting the snow, rather than smoke; but the effect was about the same. We reached the mouth of the Columbia, the same evening; but Capt. Conner thought it risky to venture over the bar, until morning. The next morning early, we lifted anchor, and steamed down to Astoria--a higgledy-piggledy village, of only four or five hundred inhabitants still, though begun long before prosperous Portland. Her anchorage seemed fair; but ashore the land abounded in a congeries of wooded bluffs and ridges, that evidently made a town or farms there difficult, if not impossible. A short street or two of straggling houses, propped along the hillsides, was about all there was of Astoria; and yet she was a port of entry, with a custom-house and full corps of officials, while Portland with all her enterprise and commerce was not, and could not get to be. What her custom-officials would have to do, were it not for the business of Portland, it seemed pretty hard to say. A venture of John Jacob Astor's a half century before, as a trading post with the Indians, she had never become of much importance, because lacking a good back country; and it appeared, had no future now, because wanting a good town-site. This was unfortunate perhaps for Oregon, and the whole Columbia region; but over it Portland rejoiced, and continued to wax fat.