Tracks of a Rolling Stone [85]
troubles to be assured by him that our separation had led to the final triumphal success.
Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had done for five months, under the stars. The officers liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I had met with. One's stomach had quite lost its discretion. And forgetting that
Famished people must be slowly nursed, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,
one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I was seriously ill.
An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had an unpleasant ending. Every evening, after dinner in the mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident, Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major's temper had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a handful of trumps, and - all four honours. As the last of these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the officers brought me a graceful apology.
As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb's 'Stranger,' we 'damned' the overland route 'at a venture'; and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to California.
On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred, Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night. The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end of it.
The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if about to take a 'header.' The water, in glassy ridges and dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic stroke of the paddle in the bow, another
Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had done for five months, under the stars. The officers liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I had met with. One's stomach had quite lost its discretion. And forgetting that
Famished people must be slowly nursed, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,
one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I was seriously ill.
An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had an unpleasant ending. Every evening, after dinner in the mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident, Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major's temper had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a handful of trumps, and - all four honours. As the last of these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the officers brought me a graceful apology.
As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb's 'Stranger,' we 'damned' the overland route 'at a venture'; and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to California.
On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred, Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night. The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end of it.
The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if about to take a 'header.' The water, in glassy ridges and dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic stroke of the paddle in the bow, another