THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 165
side of the River, and the problem of competitive boats to the wheat fields of the Inland Empire would have been com- paratively easy had the Cascades been the only obstruction. But along the north side of the Dalles-Celilo obstruction the physical conditions would permit of no portage road being built to connect the middle and the upper stretches of the River without prohibitive expenditure of money, and no attempt to do so was ever made during the existence of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
But this narrative would not be complete without other ref- erence to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company during its skillful and energetic control of the Portage and the River. No one has left a better pen picture than Mr. Samuel Bowles, the famous editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, who in company with Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, and other distinguished men, visited The Dalles and Celilo on July 21st, 1865, and as the guest of the Company was given facts and figures which appear to have since been verified by examination of their books. His written account is as follows:
"The Dalles marks another interruption to the navigation of the river, and another railway portage of fifteen miles is in use. The entire water of the Columbia is compressed for a short distance into a space only one hundred and sixty feet wide. Through this it pours with a rapidity and a depth, that give majestic, fearful intensity to its motion; while interfering rocks occasionally throw the stream into rich masses of foam. Through these second rapids of fifteen miles, the rock scenery at first rises still higher and sharper, and then fast grows tame ; the mountains begin to slink away and to lose their trees ; the familiar barrenness of the great interior basin reappears ; and the only beauty of the hills is their richly rounded forms, often repeated, and their only utility pasturage for sheep and horses and cattle. The fifteen miles of railway, which, with the lower portage of five miles, are built as permanently, and serve as thoroughly, with the best of locomotives and cars, as any
