sandy loam at the foot of the cliffs which are taken up by fruit-farmers. As the steamer comes down, it being July, she gathers up thousands of boxes of berries, peaches, and early apples, to be shipped by rail to Walla Walla and Spokane Falls. These small farms are irrigated by water led on to them from springs, or pumped up from the river by steam-power.
Lewiston, although an Idaho town, was built up by Oregon capital as an outfitting place for the Florence and Salmon River mines, in 1862. It is located on the point of land between the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, which form a junction here. It was on the latter stream, some twelve miles above here, that Lewis and Clarke encamped with the Nez Perces, with whom they left their horses to be cared for while they visited the coast, in 1805; and the town was named in honor of the explorer, Merriwether Lewis.
The site of Lewiston is a particularly pleasing one, the land sloping gradually up to the beautiful undulating country back of it, and having a water-front on both sides of the point bounded by the rivers. North of the Clearwater the land rises abruptly to a great height. It is over beyond this bluff and on this elevated plateau that the famous grain lands about Moscow and Genesee are located, which are tributary to Washington, being reached by the O. R. and N. and Spokane Falls and Palouse Railroads.
Lewiston has a charming climate, albeit rather warm in summer. It has about twelve hundred inhabitants, who are waiting for a railroad to infuse new life into its business system. It has gone ahead very little since the days when it had a transient population of several thousands, the chief improvement being in shade-trees. Both the Northern and the Union Pacific Railroads are making preliminary movements towards giving Lewiston the outlet it needs.
Between Lewiston and Mt. Idaho is a good farming country, to see which one must travel by stage, passing the beautiful Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and climbing toilsomely to the second plateau above Snake River, where is a pleasant lake resort,—or what would be a pleasant resort were the Lake House anything but a board shanty,—the fare being excellent.
Thirty miles beyond, the traveller comes to a rolling plateau,
