To one who has seen real cities it is but a little place; but some of its twenty-one or twenty-two thousand inhabitants raise claims to greatness and even supremacy that make it difficult to suppress a smile. In thirty-five years the place has grown from a collection of log-huts, set down as if by chance, to its present dimensions, and, no doubt, could go on growing as fast as Oregon developed, could the same conditions last. The city consists of near a dozen streets running parallel with the Willamette, and about twenty-three at right angles. Front Street and First Street contain some brick buildings, remarkable for so very young a place: the former backs on the Willamette, and on it front the warehouses and wharves, against the backs of which the ships are moored; the latter contains nearly all the city's stores and shops of any consequence. [Sidenote: _THE PUBLIC LIBRARY._] The United States District and Circuit Courts sit at Portland. The former is and has been for several years presided over by the Hon. Matthew P. Deady. This gentleman's name will be long associated with the jurisprudence of Oregon, having been one of the original compilers of the Code, and reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State, until, promoted to the bench of the United States Court, he has taken a high place as a conscientious and able judge. To him also Portland mainly owes that which I consider the chief ornament and pride of the city, rather than the ambitious but faulty structures in wood, stone, and iron on which most of the citizens glorify themselves--I mean the Public Library. This institution has its headquarters in spacious rooms over Messrs. Ladd & Tilton's Bank; the shelves are filled with upward of ten thousand well-selected books, and the process of addition is going on under the same careful oversight. Here every evening are groups of readers, and it must be a source of constant satisfaction to the judge to have been the means of organizing and continuing the successful working of an institution which is effecting silent but untold good.