Boise

“ Fort Boise, established in 1836 near the junction of the Snake and Boise rivers, was a rendezvous for thousands of Indians, who gathered from all the country between the Pacific coast and the head waters of the Missouri River to trade and barter in horses, furs, and articles of adornment.
The discovery of gold in 1860 at a point on the Clear Water River in northern Idaho was followed by a vast immigration to that section; this led to the discovery of gold in other parts of the territory, and soon the placer mines in the vicinity of Boise and other places were developed. ”

“ When the trees are putting forth their leaves and the buds and blossoms begin to appear and the sun is shining and the birds are singing, and when all nature is putting on the habiliments of a new life, it is fitting that an old man should pass out of the winter of his life into the springtime of another and better existence. When the sun goes down it reflects upon the clouds that hang upon the horizon a golden hue and when a man like Judge Boise dies the record of his life reflects upon those who survive a radiance that resembles the glory of the setting sun. ”

“ Did not move camp. Very hot sun succeeded by a heavy shower ; was fearful it would continue all day ; but at length it cleared away, and I collected the people and gave them a sermon.
28. Camped on the river De Bullo.
29. On Malheur.
30. Arrived at Boise.
31. Was engaged writing letters. Evening, crossed over to the Fort, and wrote till a late hour. Musketoes troublesome. Slept in the Fort.
June 1. Left Fort Boise, came a few mi. to Owhyhee River ; waited till the canoe arrived from the fort, crossed, and camped. Careless men upset one load. ”

“ Fort Hall, 75 American 18 Falls, Raft creek, 23 Big Spring, 16 Snake River, 10 Goos Creek, 4 Snake River, 23 Dry Fork, 7 Cut Rock Creek, 12 Cut Rock Creek, 10 Cut Rock Creek, 12 Snake River, 15 Snake River, 8 Salmon Creek, 5 Salmon Falls, 5 Crossing, 27 Boise River, 80 Ft. Boise 50 1281 1229 1322 1338 1348 1352 1375 1382 1394 1404 1416 1431 1439 1444 1449 1476 1556 distance, the trail runs down the valley of the stream, which is mostly covered with excellent grass. Wood is scarce. At the Soda Springs, wood and grass are abundant. ”

“ The rays of the sun shot from the glacier peaks in long radiant shafts down into the valley. The calm mirror of the fiord glittered in the light and fairly dazzled the eye, and the sea-birds drifted in noisy companies about the jutting crags, plunged headlong into the sea, and scattered the spray high into the air. The blue smoke rose perpendicularly from the chimneys of the fishermen’s cottages along the beach, and the housewives, still drowsy with sleep, came out, rubbed their eyes and looked toward the sun to judge of the hour. ”

“ Gray and cold, cold and gray, mountain, sky, forest, and lake, all were the same. 218 The cry of a pileated woodpecker and the sputtering complaint of a Hudson Bay titmouse rang in my ears. Birds of the north, strangers to these cherished spots, why were they here? Why were their voices full of weird warning? The rain came softly, surely onward, over the glassy water, and with a shiver I hurried towards the fireside. After all, men, like birds and insects, flowers and leaves, feel the chill of autumn and tremble at it. ”

“ Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago, it might not inaptly have been termed “The last clearing in the world.” Nor to this day do I know of any in that direction which extends beyond it. Our bush-farm was situated on the border-line of a neighbouring township, only one degree less wild, less out of the world, or nearer to the habitations of civilisation than the far-famed “English Line,” the boast and glory of this terra incognita. ”

“ Perhaps here was once a torrent flowing from the basin-like hollow walled round with rock; at any rate, great bowlders were scattered all along the rim as though spewed from the basin by some mighty force of the bygone ages. The soil, as so often happens in the West, was fertile to the very edge of the Frying-pan and young pinons and bushes had taken root there and managed to keep themselves alive with the snow-moisture of winter, in spite of the scanty rainfall the rest of the year. ”

“ She rose with a fleeting glance, gathered the shawl round her, then gliding forward, wavering, tremulous, slipped across the road and into the swamp. The dark mystery of the Swamp swept over her; the place was hers. She had been born within its borders; within its borders she had lived and grown, and within its borders she had met her love. On she hurried until, sweeping down to the lagoon and the island, lo! the cotton lay before her! A great white foam was spread upon its brown and green; the whole field was waving and shivering in the sunlight. ”

“ Until very recent years, the most conspicuous feature of the bay was a vast field, almost a domain, sloping from a thicket of inland trees to the curving beach of the pleasant Quincy shore. In July, when the grass of the field had ripened to yellow hay, this pleasant open land poured down to the sea like a river mouth of gold. Cleared and cultivated, by the Indians long before the arrival of the whites, the old domain had that mellow quality which Nature sometimes assumes when long allied with man. ”

“ When shall the sandy bar be crost? When shall we find the bay?
The broadening flood swells slowly out o’er cattle dotted plains;
The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains;
The laborer looks up to see our shallop speed away.
When shall the sandy bar be crost? When shall we find the bay?
Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large,
Slow as an oak to woodman’s stroke, sinks flaming at their marge;
The waves are bright with mirror’d light as jacinths on our way.
When shall the sandy bar be crost? When shall we find the bay? ”

“ VESTY OF THE BASINS
I THE MEETIN'
Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin?
I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color!
From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a fog-horn. That is the gift of Melchias Tibbitts, deceased, to the Basin school-house. ”

“ A vast country lies stretched beneath your feet, and you look down upon an immense forest, whose tree-tops, moved by the wind, cause it to undulate like a green ocean. From this spot you may trace the four windings of the bay, to its junction with the blue waters of the Ontario. The last time I gazed from the top of this hill a thunder-storm was frowning over the woods, and the dense black clouds gave an awful grandeur to the noble picture.
The village of Rawdon lies on the other side of this table land, quite in a valley. ”

“ The land-breeze just murmured aloft, the sleeping water of the bay was dotted with the twinkling images of the stars, and all [Pg 111] around the dusky hills flung their forest ridges high into the balmy air—wreaths of mist and vapour, like broad white ribbons, showing where the rich alluvial valleys and ravines clove the sweep of the wooded uplands. ”

“ Anything more in contrast with the gloom of a northern forest would be hard to discover. Much of the ground near the brook was covered by yew bushes, on which, brilliant as jewels, gleamed their pendent and slightly attached red berries. The mosses and lichens were the glory of the wood. Never parched by thirst in these perpetual shades, they grew luxuriantly on boulders, fallen logs, standing trees, the faces of ledges, and over the moist brook banks and beds of leaf mould. What the great forest was to us, that the mosses must be to the minute insects which live among them. ”

“ We dipped into the basins and troughs of the land, surmounted ridge after ridge, crossed water-courses and ravines, passed by cultivated fields, and through villages smelling strongly of cattle, by good-natured groups of natives, until, ascending a long, gradual slope, we heard, on a sudden, hurrahing in front, and then we too, with the lagging rear, knew that those in the van were in view of the Great Lake! ”

“ What we see immediately before us is a basin, it may be a quarter of a mile, it may be half a mile broad, and two miles long; a wild expanse of broken granite rocks and boulders strewn hap-hazard, some of them showing the red of the syenite and others black and polished and shining in the sun; a field of rocks, none of them high, of fantastic shapes; and through this field the river breaks in a hundred twisting passages and chutes, all apparently small, but the water in them is foaming and leaping and flashing white; and the air begins to be pervaded by the multitudinous roar of rapids. ”

“ As we look up stream we see a crescent-shaped lake completely embowered in the forest. There is nothing to be seen but the smooth black mirror of the water on which there is now the slightest discernible bluish mist a foot high, and thickset alders and willows and the green woods without an interstice, sloping steeply upward from its very surface, like the sides of a bowl. ”

“ When the lovely valley teems with vapour around me, and the meridian sun strikes the upper surface of the impenetrable foliage of my trees, and but a few stray gleams steal into the inner sanctuary, then I throw myself down in the tall grass by the trickling stream; and as I lie close to the earth, a thousand unknown plants discover themselves to me. ”

“ Near the outlet of the lake is a bold rocky bluff, rising right up out of the deep water twenty feet, against which the waves dash, and around which a romantic bay steals away to hide itself in the old woods. This beautiful bay is always calm, for even the narrow strait which connects it with the open water is divided by a rocky, but wooded island, shutting out alike the winds and the waves from disturbing its repose. ”

“ The whole bay, with its rocks and woods and ice, reverberates with their roar. How many glaciers may be disclosed in the other great arm that I have not seen as yet, I cannot say, but, judging from the bergs it sends down, I guess not less than a hundred pour their turbid streams into the fiord, making about as many joyful, bouncing cataracts. ”

“ Millions and millions of men and women have lived on those river-banks, and what has become of them now? Geology. And I thought of the millions of prayers wailed out there to the sun and stars, to stone idols in the temples, to crocodiles and snakes and the river itself, the sacred river. And the air, Merle—the air received them, and vibrated for a second—and that was all. And even so our prayers go up, to this very day. We press our warm lips to a cold stone, and think to leave an impression. ”

“ From its summit you look south into a vast wilderness basin, a great stretch of forest little trodden, and out of whose bosom you can hear from the heights on a still day the loud murmur of the Boquet. This basin of unbroken green rises away to the south and southeast into the rocky heights of Dix's Peak and Nipple Top,—the latter a local name which neither the mountain nor the fastidious tourist is able to shake off. ”

“ But he is well used to snow and cold, and he does not mind it a bit.
In a few seconds father and son have reached the bottom of the valley, and before them is a steep incline, overgrown with leafless birch and elder forests. It is there where they have their snares, made of braided horse-hair; and as bait they use the red berries of the mountain ash, of which ptarmigan and thrushes are very fond. Now comes the test of their strength; but the [173] snow is too deep and loose to wade through, and to climb a declivity on skees is by no means as easy as it is to slide down a smooth hill-side. ”

“ Our course at first lies along the highway, under great chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping, then through an orchard and across a little creek, thence gently rising through a long series of cultivated fields toward some high, uplying land, behind which rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain, the most sightly point in all this section. Behind this ridge for several miles the country is wild, wooded, and rocky, and is no doubt the home of many wild swarms of bees. ”

“ But a great part is uncultivated prairie-land, grass, with sparse bushes and patches of brushwood and a few rare trees, and continual clumps of large golden daisies. Occasional rough black roads wind through the brush and into the towns, and die into grass tracks along the wire fences. ”

“ The mountains slope into a level field with cattle and kine growing fat in the lush grasses. The field rolls to a precipitous edge of rock which falls a thousand feet into the Bay of Biscay. The beach is a conch with sand as smooth and white as the heart of a sea-shell. ”

“ The river Ouse meanders through a wide, fertile flat, or what the Scotch would call a strath, which gently rises on each side into pleasantly undulating uplands. Parks, groves, copses, and hedge-row trees are interspersed very happily, and meadow, pasture, and grain-fields seen through them, with villages, hamlets, farm-houses, and isolated cottages, make up a landscape that grows more and more interesting as you contemplate it. ”

“ Many a time as I have been hidden by sheltering boughs, scanning the lake and its shores for signs of life, I have seen a dark shadow glide across the water, and then a broad-winged bird alight noiselessly on a dead limb from which the whole surface of the lake could be seen. ”