Vancouver
The Oregon Argus
November 24,1855

Although we have now been in Oregon over seven years, we never saw Vancouver till last Monday. We pronounce it decidedly the most lovely and romantic spot we have seen in the West. The water of the Columbia is so deep that ships of fifteen hundred tons burthen can lie at anchor within a few feet of the shore. The banks immediately on the river are probably twenty feet high. 

Ascending this you land upon the first bench, which is a level prairie stretching some two miles up the river, and extending back to the north about one fourth of a mile. This is held by the Hudson's Bay Company, on which stands their fort, the Governor's house and other improvements. Leaving this bench, you begin the ascent of the second one. which gradually rises to the north, for something less than half a mile, until you come to the skirt of fir timber which environs it to the north. 

This second bench is reserved by the government and is occupied by buildings suited to the convenience of the army. This tract of prairie stretches up the Columbia some two miles. The soil is rich, and is now covered with a carpet of beautiful green having much the appearance of an English velvet lawn in May. The proud Columbia stretches away to the east for some five or six miles, and equally as far to the West in almost a straight line. 

Looking east immediately along the line of the River, Mt. Hood at the distance of over forty miles looms up in awful grandeur, piercing the clouds with its everlasting frosts, and telling of the mighty convulsions which ages since have shaken this western world. A person just landing at Vancouver from the States would not suppose the mountain to be more than ten miles distant. Its hight has been variously estimated by scientific travelers. 

The calculations range from fourteen to nineteen thousand feet. We have never been able to make it quite fifteen thousand feet. Capt. Cram, of the Topographical Engineers, in formed us that he intended to apply to Congress for a small appropriation to enable him to make such accurate explorations and measurements as to enable him to solve a problem which has never yet been solved, namely, the height of perpetual snow on the Pacific coast.

Vancouver is certainly a lovely spot, and we thought, as we reluctantly bid it adieu, that we should be willing to live and die there if we had a small field we could call our own. The soldier who has the soul of poetry in his composition, (and there are some there who have.) must thank his stars for being permitted to bivouac on a plain which the Goddess of Nature has surround ed with as many charms as the one where the "Sacred Nine" rested their weary wings, in their first flight from Parnassus.