his tomahawk rests upon the ground; his huntinggrounds wave in rustling corn; his war-whoop dies upon the passing breeze, to be answered by the shrill whistle of the iron courser, whose fiery breath proclaims the departure of a past race to its eternal huntinggrounds. "Lo! the poor Indian!" he has left no written language, no laws, customs, arts, nor architecture to perpetuate his memory; his stone-axe, poison-arrow, and bloody record proclaim for a brief period his fierce career; while his euphonious names, like jewels of antiquity, cling to our lakes, rivers, and mountains, to recall to the future historian the existence of a race whose origin is a mystery, whose career and extinction are not unalloyed with romance and incomprehensible fatality. CHAPTER XXXVI. IDAHO TERRITORY. Area--Geography-Mountains-Rivers-Forests-Lakes-Scenery -Waterfalls-Valleys- Agriculture- Climate-Indians-Gold and silver mines-Material progress-Railroads-Cities and towns -Population. THE Territory of Idaho embraces an area of 90,932 square miles. It was formerly embraced within the Territory of Oregon, and more recently within the area of Washington Territory; and was, in 1863, with its present limits, organized with a territorial government by act of Congress. The Territory in length, from the northern line of the State of Nevada to British Columbia in the north, running the whole length of Oregon and Washington Territories, is about five hundred miles. At its northern end it is narrowed to about fifty miles, lying between the western slope of the Rocky mountains and Washington Territory on the west. From this point, extending south until it reaches its southern boundary, it gradually widens, until it finally attains a width of three hundred miles. Idaho is bounded on the west by Oregon and Washington Territory, north by British Columbia, east by the Rocky mountains and Wyoming Territory, south by Nevada and Utah; the crest of the Rocky mountains forming the entire eastern line, leaving the whole of this Territory west of that range of mountains. The surface of Idaho is a succession of lofty mountain chains, rugged hills, alkaline and volcanic flats, rolling pasture-ranges, and numerous fertile valleys. The Territory is well supplied with water by several rivers of magnitude, and innumerable dashing streams, fed by the eternal snow of the mountains. The chief river in Idaho is the Snake, sometimes known as Lewis river; having its source in the western slope of the Rocky mountains, and coursing in a westerly direction across the entire width of the southern part of the Territory, a distance of more than three hundred miles, until it reaches the eastern boundary of Oregon, where it turns directly north, and for a distance of two hundred miles forms the line between Oregon and Idaho. A few miles north of this point, at the city of Lewiston, where the Territories of Washington and Idaho are divided by this stream, it turns directly west, and for one hundred additional miles keeps this course, until near Wallula, in Washington Territory, it empties into the main Columbia, and is carried to the Pacific ocean. The Snake river, in its circuitous passage from the Rocky mountains to Lewiston, runs through a great variety of country-sandy desert, elevated table-land, rich valleys, deep cañons and gorges; and often cutting through and leaping over high mountains, creating in its passage impassable and lovely cascades and falls of great magnitude and beauty. The Shoshone falls, in the southern portion of the Territory, but thirty-five miles north of the point where Utah and Nevada join upon the southern line of Idaho, and one hundred and fifty miles from the western line of Wyoming Territory, is surpassed only in magnitude by Niagara and the Yosemite. The Great Shoshone has an uninterrupted descent of two hundred feet, pouring its mighty flood below, presenting a scene of unsurpassed beauty, and cuts off the further passage of the salmon, which abound in all the waters from this point to the Pacific ocean. |