The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-03-01
In uloud Land.

Mount Hood stands about sixty miles
from the great Pacific, as the crow flies,
and about two hundred miles up the
Columbia River, as it is navigated.
Mount Hood stands utterly alone. And
yet he is only brother. bigger and
taller brother, of well-raised family of
seven snow-peaks.
At any season of the year, you can
stand on almost any little eminence
within two hundred miles of Mount
Hood and count seven snow-cones, clad
in eternal winter. piercing the clouds.
There is no scene SO sublime as this in
all the world. asX
The mountains of Europe are only
hills in comparison. Although some Of
them are quite as high as those of Ore
gon and Washington Territory, yet they
lie far inland. and are so set on the top
of other hills that they lose much of
their majesty. Those of Oregon start
up sudden and solitary, and almost out
of the sea, as it were. So that while
they are really much higher than the
mountain peaks of the Alps, they seem
to be about twice as high. And being
all in the form of pyramids or cones,
they are much more imposing and
beautiful than those of either Asia or
Europe.
But that which adds most of all to the
beauty aud sublimity of the mountain
scenery of Mount Hood and his environs
is the marvellous cloud effects that en-
compass him.
In the first place, you must under
stand that all this region here is one
dense black mass of machless and mag
nificent forests. From the waters edge
the dark green fir, pine, cedar, tama-
rack. yew, and juniper. Some of the
pines are heavy with great cones as
long as your arms; some of the yew
trees are scarlet with berries; and now
and then you see a burly juniper bend
ing under load of blue and bitter
fruit. And nearly all of these trees are
mantled in garments of moss. This
moss trails and swings lazily in the
wind, and sometimes droops to the
length of hundred feet.
+ In these great dark forests is a dense
underground of fvine-maple, hazel. noun
tain ash, marsh ash, willow, and brier
bushes. Tangled in with all this is the
rank and ever-present and imperishable
fern. --
Up and through and over all this
darkness of forests, drift and drag and
lazily creep the most weird and wonder
full clouds in all this world. They move
in great caravans. They seem literally
to be alive. They rise with the morn
Ing sun, like the countless millions of
.snow-white geese, swans, and other
Waterfowl that frequent the rivers of
Oregon, and slowly ascend the noun
tain sides, dragging themselves through
and over the tops of the trees, heading
straight for the sea, or lowering about
the mountain peaks, like mighty white
winged birds. weary Of flight and
wanting to rest.
They are white as snow, these clouds
of Oregon, feecy, and rarely, if ever,
still; constantly moving in contrast with
the black forests, these clouds are
strangely sympathetic to one who wor-
ships nature. On A
r. OF course, in the rainy season, which
is nearly half the year here, these cloud
effects are absent At such. times the
whole land is one vast rain-cloud, dark
and dreary and full Of thunder.
Tosee assnow-peak in all its sublimity
you must see it above the clouds. 1t is
not necessary that you should climb the
peak to do this, but ascend some neigh
boring hill and have the white clouds
creep up or down the valley, through
and over the black forest, between you
and the snowy summit that pricks the
blue home of stars. What color! Move
menti Miraculous life!-Joaquin Milier,
in ST. Nicholas for February.