Farnham; but we should like to see his fertile spot enclosed by rocks, such as is authority. Between these lofty portions, here and there to be found in this vast the central part of the range varies very stony wilderness, is picturesquely termed much in elevation-from low arid ranges to a "hole," a steep ridge a "bluff," conical. lofty peaks. The Sierra of Anahuac itself, peaks "butes," (French, butte,) while a dark, Mr. Farnham estimates conjecturally at narrow ravine is called a "kenyon"-the about 15,000 feet. origin of which name we cannot divine.

Mr. Farnham crossed the mountains in about lat. 40°, by a route we have never before seen described; but interesting in a geographical point of view, from being close to the central knot whence the great rivers flow in various directions ;-the Rio del Norte to the south, the Platte and Arkansas to the east, the Saptin, or south branch of the Columbia to the west, the great Colorado towards the Gulf of California. All these rise close together. Yet the general character of this part of the chain seems to be that of extreme aridity. Snow lies on the highest peaks; the rocky vales are bare and desolate as those of Idumea, and the sufferings of his party from drought and want of provisions were extreme. He even rises to the pathetic when he describes the sacrifice of their last dog, after a fast of fifty hours. "Some of the men declared that dogs made excellent mutton; but on this point there existed between us what politicians term an honest difference of opinion. To me it tasted like the flesh of a dog, a singed dog; and appetite, keen though it was, and edged by a fast of fifty hours, could not but be sensibly alive to the fact, that whether cooked or barking, a dog is still a dog everywhere."

West of the Rocky Mountains the desert extends again, from the Mexican border to the Columbia. The great Colorado of the west is said to flow many hundred miles through a ravine, cut perpendicularly in the flat, arid waste. Its banks are uncultivable, and its impetuous eddies defy navigation. Two Catholic missionaries once attempted to descend the stream in a boat, but their fate was never known. A party of trappers made the same experiment, but were soon forced to abandon their boat, and hardly escaped with their lives. North-west of this wild river lies the great salt lake of the Eutaws, the Dead Sea of North America. It has never yet been visited by civilized traveller: according to report, it lies in a fine climate; but its shores are a desert, composed of swells of sand and bare brown loam, on which sufficient moisture does not fall to sustain any other vegetation than the wild wormword and prickly pear. It is supposed to be two hundred miles in length and eighty broad; the water extremely salt and heavy. But all attempts to explore it have hitherto failed, from the utter want of fresh water on its banks, except where one stream flows in at the eastern extremity.

Still further to the north, from the same The great untrodden Sierra de Anahuac portion of the mountains, flows the Saptin formed a magnificent spectacle, as seen by or Lewis's river, the great southern branch Mr. Farnham from the ridges which enclose of the Columbia; and along which the the Arkansas. "It was visible," says he, main stream of internal traffic between the "for at least one hundred miles of latitude; eastern and western coast of the Continent and the nearest point was so far distant, that must eventually pass. Yet a wilder and the dip of the horizon concealed all that more unpromising region than the six hunportion of it below the line of perpetual dred miles traversed by this great river can congelation. The whole mass was purely hardly be imagined. Its valley seems to white. The principal irregularity percep. form a portion of that vast volcanic belt tible was a slight undulation on the upper which girdles the Pacific Ocean. It flows edge. There was, however, a perceptible over rugged platforms of black lava, or shading on the lower edge, produced, per-" cut rock," and through plains of sand and haps, by ridges protruding from the general scoria, furnishing nothing but the wild outline. But the mass, at least ninety miles wormwood and bunch-grass. distant, as white as milk, the home of the frosts of all ages, stretching away to the north by west full a hundred miles, unscaled by any living being, except perhaps by the bold bird of our national arms, is an objectes, which it cuts transversely in the whole of amazing grandeur, unequalled probably on the face of the globe."

The Saptin conducts the traveller to the great Columbia-a wild romantic river, dashing its enormous mass of waters through pass after pass of the mountain ridg

of its course. Its valley forms the "Oregon territory," which has been lately made The nomenclature which the hunters the subject of so much brave speaking in have bestowed on the various features of Congress; and which remains debatable these mountains is rather peculiar. A small ground between ourselves and the Ameri

cans. And, notwithstanding the length to which our geographical researches have already run, we must be pardoned for bestowing a few words, in conclusion, on a region which promises to be more interesting and important than most of our read ers are probably, at present, aware.

Rocky mountains to the sea, cuts transversely three or four distinct mountain ridges, running north and south; one of them, which the Americans call the President's range, of very great height, attaining the elevation of 15,000 or 16,000 feet in single peaks, some of which frown almost immediately over its waters. As might be supposed from the character of the country, this river presents a succession of magnificent rapids, perhaps unequalled in grandeur by those of any other American stream. Mr. Farnham thus describes the "Cascades," the greatest impediment to the navigation of the river, which occur where it cuts through the "President's range."

"The bed of the river here is a vast inclined trough of white rocks, sixty or eighty feet deep, about 400 yards wide at the top, and diminishing to about half that width at the bottom. The length of this trough is about a mile. In that distance the water falls about 130 feet; in the rapids, above and below it, about twenty feet, making the whole descent about 150 feet. The lable. But an approximate idea of it may be quantity of water which passes here is incalcuobtained from the fact, that while the velocity is so great that the eye with difficulty follows objects floating on the surface, yet such is its volume at the lowest stage of the river, that it rises and bends like a sea of molten glass over a channel of immense rocks, without breaking its surface except near the shores; so deep and vast is the mighty flood.

For, however paradoxical the assertion may appear, this is the last corner of the earth left free for the occupation of a civilized race. When Oregon shall be colonized, the map of the world may be considered as filled up. The romantic days in which every new adventurer saw, in the first green shores which greeted him, the nursery of some new empire to be called by his name, are gone by for ever. The world has grown old in the last two hundred years, more rapidly than in the preceding two thousand. Our future conquests must be over the power of the other elements. Earth has little more surface left to dispose of. Of Australia we know nearly all that will ever be worth knowing; and, although there is room enough there for a great multiplication of inhabitants, there are no new spots of value for the foundation of fresh colonies. Of the beautiful islands of the Pacific, the loveliest and the largest are already appropriated. Asia belongs to another race. The vast and teeming solitudes of South America afford room for Empires; but their air breathes death to the northern colonist. The only region of any extent, of temperate climate and agricultural capability, which still invites swarms from the old hives of mankind, is that which stretches along the west coast of America, between the extreme settlements of the Mexicans and those of the Russians. Formerly, this coast was nearly inaccessible: lying to the windward of the steady easterly currents of air, it was North of the Columbia the country is in of difficult and uncertain approach; and the general a labyrinth of mountain ranges, but seas which wash it were unknown to com- interspersed with extensive valleys, and Now, steam will render it ap- covered with a growth of heavy timber; proachable at every season, and from every the climate mild for the latitude, but moist quarter. The mouth of the Columbia lies but eight or ten days' sail from the Sand-count given of the north-western corner of and tempestuous. The following is the acwich Islands, now as well known as the Azores, and as much visited by European and American vessels. This country, once settled, will command the Pacific. It will communicate directly with New Zealand, Australia, and China; and should the transit across the Isthmus of Darien be effected, it will be within forty or fifty days' voyage from the shores of Britain.

merce.

Generally speaking, Oregon consists of mountains. The Columbia river, its chief geographical feature, in falling from the

In the June freshets, when the melted tains, the Cascades must discharge more snow comes down from the Rocky Mounwhole store of 350,000 square miles. The water than Niagara; they carry off the accessaries of the scene are of a very dif ferent kind; black craggy rocks, covered with forests of enormous pines, surmounted by glaciers and snowy peaks.

the continent, between this river and the Arctic regions, by Mr. Brinsley Hinds, surgeon to the recent expedition of Captain Belcher, in his rather fanciful apportionment of the globe into "regions of vegetation," in the appendix to that work:

of mountain and valley, without the least pre"The surface is irregular, consisting entirely tensions to plain; the former composed chiefly of primitive rocks, among which granite is abundant, quartz is sometimes seen, and rarely, believe, limestone. The soil is often rich, from

I

the great accumulation and rapid decompo- | than a foot in length; the seed are as large sition of vegetable remains. as the castor bean." Fine grassy glades Being fully exposed to winds from the diversify the intervals of the forest. The ocean, and westerly winds prevailing, the climate is mild, moist, and variable for six climate is considerably modified. Compared with Europe it is far cooler for the latitude, and months of the year; but the rain, even with the opposite coast, without those extremes then, is so light, that Mr. Farnham obso common there. It is, however, much more served that the vegetable mould lay on the moist than either, and the rainy days are very steep hills;-a sure proof that they are frequent. In 56° N. lat., the mean temperature not liable to be swept by heavy storms. has been ascertained to be 46° 5', and the range This is a very singular circumstance, when of the year from 2° 5' to 91° 9'. Only thirty- it is considered that this country has a seven really clear and fine days were experi-westerly exposure, and fronts the vast exenced; on forty-six snow fell, and on the rest

Archangel.

more or less rain. This was at Sitka, or New panse of the Northern Pacific. Such is Oregon, a land of magnificent "Though the inequalities of the surface are scenery, and a healthy climate; of limited great, soil is abundant, and the investing vege-agricultural capabilities, with a large protation vigorous. The constant moisture favors portion of unproductive soil, but with ferpremature decay, and thus the trees are early tile ground enough to form the home of undermined, and, falling from their ranks in the

forest, cover the ground in vast numbers. It is a new nation: poor in harbors, and definot easy to conceive how thickly the surface is cient in navigable rivers, but yet by no crowded with these, unless by recalling some-means inaccessible, and possessing an adthing like the vast accumulations of the coal mirable geographical situation for commeasures. Within the tropics I have never mercial purposes. The tribes of Indians seen any thing equal to the scene of desolation which wander over its surface are few in the northern part of this region presents: number, chiefly subsisting by salmon fishbranches of trees, of great length and clear of branches, are seen on all sides strewed in tiers, ing and on roots, and very inferior in physiand covered with a dense agamic vegetation. cal power and in ferocious energy to their It would often seem as if they were unable to brethren of the Prairies. But, for this very attain a good old age-as, always exposed to reason, they offer the less obstructions to moisture from the repeated rains, they have the operations of the colonist; and, it must yielded to its influence immediately that that be added, that their simple, inoffensive period of life arrived when the activity of vege-habits of life are found to be accompanied

tation diminishes."

in many cases with a moral elevation, which ranks them in the scale of humanity South of the Columbia, the character of far above most savages; and forms but too the country completely changes, and, as we striking a contrast to the morals and habits have said, very suddenly. The forests give of the wandering whites and half-breeds place to an open undulating country, still who visit them from the East. No race of clad with magnificent trees on the moun- men appears to live in so much conscioustain ridges. In the interior the plains are ness of the immediate presence of the inperfectly arid, the soil volcanic, and buf- visible world. "Simply to call these peofalo's dung supplies the place of fuel. But ple religious," says Irving, in the character the tract intervening between the western-of Captain Bonreville, speaking of some most of the parallel ranges of mountains tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean, enjoying more "would convey but a faint idea of the moisture than the rest, produces trees of a deep hue of piety and devotion which persize hardly equalled within the tropics. vades the whole of their conduct. They This portion of Oregon appears to be the are more like a nation of saints than a herd favorite habitat of the universally dis-of savages." Among such people as these, seminated tribe of pines. The hemlock, the exertions of a few Missionaries have spruce, and red cedar of Eastern America met with rather more than usual success; grow here in profusion, besides other vari- but extermination treads rapidly on their eties, of which rare specimens only have heels. Christian Indians are found here found their way to this country. The and there up the wildest valleys of the beautiful Pinus Douglassii grows 200 feet tributaries of the Columbia. "Crickie," a from the ground without a limb, and is five, Skyuse, who accompanied Mr. Farnham as seven, or even nine fathoms in circumfer- a guide, not only said his prayers morn ence near the root. On the Umpqua, ining and night, but was in the daily habit of latitude 43°, the pines grow to 280 feet in using "a small mirror, pocket-comb, soap, height; "the cones or seed vessels are and a towel," in his travels-a union of in the form of an egg, and oftentimes more piety with cleanliness rarely to be found,

we suspect, among the most gifted brethren | In this they seem to have thoroughly sucof the churches of the States.

ceeded. The attempts of the Americans to At present the only fixed inhabitants of establish a fur-trade of their own, one by one this vast wilderness, may be said to be the have ended in disappointment. Their own people of the Hudson's Bay Company at trappers and hunters prefer the markets of Fort Vancouver, and a few hundred Eng- the Company. Its agents seek out the lish and Americans; chiefly men tired with Americans-so, at least, they complainthe wandering life of the deserts, who have outbid them, and under-sell them, in every established themselves as agricultural set-point to which they can penetrate. The tlers in the valley of the Wallamette, near "Pacific Fur Company," the scheme of the mouth of the Columbia. They have at John Jacob Astor, commemorated by present no government-being recognized Washington Irving, those of Captain subjects neither of Britain nor the United Wyeth, and many other American advenStates-but are demanding loudly, accord- turers, have failed against the strength and ing to Mr. Farnham, to be included within perseverance of the old monopoly. Its the boundaries of the great Republic. traders supply the demand, such as it is, However this may be, they are at this mo- both of Indians and white hunters for Euroment partially under the control of a power pean goods over all the north-west; for not very responsible to either State, but of they are said to sell twenty or thirty per which all the instincts and habits are tho- cent. cheaper than the Americans; and roughly British and anti-American- the "there seems a certainty," says Mr. FarnHudson's Bay Company. ham, "that the Hudson's Bay Company

Pacific, as it has that of Oregon." So powerful is this body on the continent, that it has actually established a kind of gamelaws over a region twice as large as Europe, regulating the quantity of "trapping" to be done in particular districts, and uniformly diminishing it whenever the returns show a deficiency in its production of animals. It keeps both savages and whites in order, by putting into serious practice the threat of "exclusive dealing." Mr. Farnham met with an American in Oregon, who informed him that, in consequence of some offence taken, (very unjustly of course,) "the Hudson's Bay Company refused, for a number of years, to sell him a shred of clothing; and as there are no other traders in the country, he was compelled, during their pleasure, to wear skins!"

Few among us are aware of the extraor-will engross the entire trade of the North dinary resources and wide-spreading plans of this remarkable Society, which has exercised in its barren domains a steady enterprising policy not inferior to that of the East India company itself; and now, in Mr. Farnham's language, occupies and controls more than one-ninth of the soil of the globe. The great business of this Company is the fur-trade, of which it is now nearly the sole monopolist throughout all the choicest furbearing regions of North America, with the exception of the portion occupied by the Russians. The bulk of its empire is secured to it by charter; but it is in possession of Oregon as debatable land, under stipulations between Britain and the United States. The stockholders are British; the management of its affairs in America is carried on by "partners," so called, but, in point of fact, agents paid by a proportion of the net income of the company. These are scattered in various posts over the whole territory between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific. The governor-general resides in York Factory, on the former. They are chiefly Scotsmen; and a greater proportion of shrewdness, daring, and commercial activity, is probably not to be found in the same number of heads in the world. Before 1820, this body carried on a fierce contest with the North-West Company-attended with hideous battles of Indians and half-breeds, and the burning and sacking of each other's posts. In 1821, the two Companies were consolidated; since which time they have had no British rival, and have exerted all their policy to repress interference on the part of the Americans.

We have purposely abstained from all discussion of the question now pending between Britain and America as to the sovereignty of Oregon. We have been anxious, on the present occasion, only to point out the existence, and the capabilities of this region-the remotest nook of the world, and the last vacant space, as we have said, for the plantation of a new people. The land which is to command the North Paeific, and give the law to its myriad islands, cannot long remain unoccupied. It calls loudly on those who have foresight on those who can estimate the promise of the future-to forecast its destiny. The Americans never show themselves deficient in this branch of political wisdom. They are familiar with what we can scarcely realize -the rapid march of time in the western

world. Almost before we have satiated uttermost limits of practicable enterprise, ourselves with the mere contemplation of a newly-discovered portion of the wilderness-before its lines are mapped out, and the names of its natural features become familiar to our ears-the wilderness is gone, the mountains stripped of their forests, the rivers alive with navigation. The Far West will change as rapidly as the East has done. In the words of Washington Irving-"The fur-bearing animals extinct, a complete change will come over the scene; the gay fur trapper and his steed, decked out in wild array, and tinkling with bells and trinketry; the savage war chief, plumed, and ever on the prowl; the trader's cavalcade, winding through defiles and over naked plains, with the stealthy war party lurking on its trail; the buffalo chase, the hunting camp, the mad carouse in the midst of danger, the night attack, the scamper, the fierce skirmish among rocks and cliffs-all this romance of savage life, which yet exists among the mountains, will then exist but in frontier story, and seem like the fictions of chivalry or fairy tale."

regardless of the teeming and inviting regions he may leave behind. Still, with these natural obstacles between, we cannot but imagine that the world must assume a new face before the American wagons make plain the road to the Columbia, as they have done to the Ohio. In the mean time, the long line of coast invites emigration from the over-peopled shores of the old world. When once the Isthmus of Darien is rendered traversable, the voyage will be easier and shorter than that to Australia; which thirty thousand of our countrymen have made in a single year. Whoever, therefore, is to be the future owners of Oregon, its people will come from Europe. The Americans have taken up the question in earnest; their Press teems with writings on the subject; we need only mention the able Memoir of Mr. Greenhow, Translator to the Department of State,' in which their claim is historically deduced with much ingenuity. French writers, as may be supposed, are already advocating the American view. Let us abandon ours, from motives of justice, if the right be proved Surely it well behoves us, who have an against us; from motives of policy, if it be interest in every new corner of the earth, proved not worth contesting-but not in to note the signs of these changes, and turn mere indolence. Let us not fold our hands them to our profit when we may. And one under the idle persuasion that we have colthing strikes us forcibly. However the po- onies enough; that it is mere labour in vain litical question between England and Ame- to scatter the seed of future nations over rica, as to the ownership of Oregon, may the earth; that it is but trouble and expense be decided, Oregon, will never be colonized to govern them. If there is any one thing overland from the Eastern States. It is on which the maintenance of that perilous with a view of pointing out the entire dis- greatness to which we have attained detinctness of the two regions that we have pends, more than all the rest, it is Colonigone, perhaps at tedious length, into a de-zation; the opening of new markets, the scription of the geographical peculiarities of the vast space which separates them. It is six or seven hundred miles from the westernmost limit of the fertile part of the Prairies, to the cultivable region of the Columbia. Six months of the year, the whole of this space is a howling wilderness of snow and tempests. During the other six, it exhibits every variety of hopeless sterility ;-plains of arid sand, defiles of volcanic rock, hills covered with bitter shrubs, and snowy mountains of many days' journey; and its level part is traversed by the formidable predatory cavalry we have described-an enemy of more than Scythian savageness and endurance, who cannot be tracked, overtaken, or conciliated. We know and admire the extraordinary energy which accompanies the rambling habits of the citizens of the States; we know the feverish, irresistible tendency to press onward, which induces the settler to push to the

creation of new customers. It is quite true that the great fields of emigration in Canada and Australia promise room enough for more than we can send. But the worst and commonest error respecting Colonization, is to regard it merely as that which it can never be a mode of checking the increase of our people. What we want is, not to draw off driblets from our teeming multitudes, but to found new nations of commercial allies. And, in this view, every new colony founded, far from diverting strength from the older ones, infuses into them additional vigor. To them as well as the mother country it opens a new market. It forms a new link in the chain along which our commercial inter-communication is carried-touching and benefiting every point in the line as it passes. Thus, in former days, the prosperity of the West India Islands was the great stimulus to the peopling of North America; the newer colony