In the few pages which follow, my aim is to smooth the way for others by a very simple account of what I myself saw and enjoyed.
[Illustration: VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA.] And first as to the Cascades and the Dalles of the Columbia.

You leave Portland for Dalles City in a steamboat at five o'clock in the morning.
The better way is to sleep on board this steamer, and thus avoid an uncomfortably early awakening.

Then when you do rise, at six or half past, you will find yourself on the Columbia, and steaming directly at Mount Hood, whose splendid snow-covered peak seems to bar your way but a short distance ahead.

It lies, in fact, a hundred miles off; and when you have sailed some hours toward it the river makes a turn, which leaves the snowy peak at one side, and presently hides it behind the steep bank.
The little steamer, very clean and comfortable, affords you an excellent breakfast, and some amusement in the odd way in which she is managed.

Most of the river steamers here have their propelling wheel at the stern; they have very powerful engines, which drive them ahead with surprising speed.
I have gone sixteen miles an hour in one, with the current; and when they make a landing the pilot usually runs the boat's head slantingly against the shore, and passengers and freight are taken in or landed over the bow.