{210} We next passed through a thick and mountainous forest, where hoary pines lay prostrate by thousands—and where many a giant tree, in its full vigor, had been levelled to the ground by the raging tempest. On issuing from the forest, an extensive marsh presented itself, through which we had to plod, up to the knees in mud and water; this trouble was trifling compared to the past, and we were still more encouraged at the sight of a beautiful and verdant plain, where four reindeer were seen carousing, bouncing, and jumping in the midst of plenty. No doubt they, as well as ourselves, had issued forth from the snowy and icy cliffs, and felt light-hearted and joyful at the delightful prospect of mountain and plain at this season of the year. On approaching, a dozen guns were at once levelled against the innocent and timid creatures. I was pleased to observe, by the wonderful rapidity with which they used their legs, that no one had injured their noble and beautiful frames.
Towards the middle of the day we arrived at the Boat Encampment, on the bank of the Columbia, at the mouth of the Portage river.[268] Those who have passed the Rocky Mountains at fifty three degrees of north latitude, during {211} the great melting of the snows, know whether or not we merit the title of good travellers. It required all my strength to accomplish it, and I confess that I would not dare undertake it again.
After so many labors and dangers, we deserved a repast. Happily, we found at the encampment all the ingredients that were necessary for a feast—a bag of flour, a large ham, part of a reindeer, cheese, sugar, and tea in abundance, which the gentlemen of the English Company had charitably left behind. While some were employed refitting the barge, others prepared the dinner; and in about an hour we found ourselves snugly seated and stretched out around the kettles and roasts, laughing and joking about the summersets on the mountains, and the accidents on the Portage. I need not tell you, that they described me as the most clumsy and awkward traveller in the band.
Three beautiful rivers unite at this place: the Columbia, coming from the south-east—the Portage river, from the north-east, and the Canoe river from the north-west. We were surrounded by a great number of magnificent mountains, covered with perpetual snow, and rising from twelve to sixteen thousand feet {212} above the level of the ocean. The Hooker and the Brown are the highest, the latter measuring sixteen thousand feet.[269]
Very Rev. and dear Father Provincial, your humble brother in Jesus Christ,
P. J. De Smet, S. J.
No. XVII
A. M. D. G.
St. Paul’s Station, near Colville, May 29th, 1846.
Very Rev. and Dear Father Provincial—The Columbia at the Boat Encampment is 3,600 feet above the level of the sea. Having finished our meal, we launched the barge and rapidly descended the river, which was now swollen many feet above its usual level. Did not more serious avocations call him away, an admirer of Nature would willingly linger in a region like this. The volcanic and basaltic islands—the range of picturesque mountains, whose bases came to bathe in the river, whilst their summits seemed to be struggling, in the giant efforts of the avalanche, to throw off the winding-sheet of winter, in order to give place to the new and beautiful verdure of the month of May, with its smiling and varied flowers—the thousand fountains which we could at one view behold, {214} leaping out with soothing music from the shelves of perpendicular rocks bordering the river—all lent their aid to increase the beauty of the scenery of Nature, which, in this region of the Columbia, seems to have put forth all her energy to display her grandeur and magnificence.