The spectres of history rise up at every stage of a journey along Snake River. But we cannot pause. We pass on from the crossing of Snake River and soon find ourselves approaching Walla Walla. This is the most historic city of the Inland Empire and the oldest of the entire State of Washington, with the exception of Vancouver. The pleasant-sounding name signifies in the native tongue "Many Waters," though more literally, as the author has been told by an old Cayuse Indian, "Place where four creeks meet." The city of Walla Walla is thirty-two miles from the Columbia River in the midst of a broad and fertile valley, through which dozens of clear rivulets issuing from springs make their way through the birches and cottonwoods. The warm climate, rich soil, and abundant water, with multitudes of trees, give the "Garden City" an appearance of almost tropical luxuriance. On all sides for many miles stretch the wheat-fields, orchards, gardens, and alfalfa-fields. It is a land of plenty. It is commonly said that Walla Walla has more automobiles, more bicycles, more pianos, more flowers, and more pretty girls in proportion to population, than any other town in the North-west. The special historic interest of Walla Walla is found in the fact that it was the location of the Whitman Mission and that the Whitman massacre took place at the Mission Station, Waiilatpu, six miles from the city. That spot is now marked with a marble crypt in which the bones of the martyrs rest, and a plain but imposing granite shaft stands upon the crest of the hill just above. [Illustration: Canyon of the Stehekin, near Lake Chelan. Photo. by T. W. Tolman.] A more living monument to the missionary is found in Whitman College. This institution, planned on the model of Amherst, Yale, and Williams, though co-educational, was founded by Rev. Cushing Eells in 1859 as an academy. It was not till 1883 that college work was undertaken. During that period the self-denying missionary and his family supported the infant institution by selling the products of their farm and devoting to it all except what was absolutely necessary for their own support. During years of slow, patient growth under very discouraging conditions, Whitman College has made friends East and West, and within the last few years it has become equipped with buildings and general facilities of high grade. An effort is now in progress, apparently sure of fulfilment, to raise two million dollars for buildings and general endowment. Walla Walla is becoming peculiarly known as the educational centre and the home city of the Inland Empire.