I spent the night of the 12th with the excellent old captain, and in the afternoon of the 13th, in company with my friend Mr. Lee, descended the Willamette as far as the Falls. Here we passed the night, more to the apparent satisfaction of vermin than of ourselves. These creature comforts abound in Oregon. But it was not these alone that made our lodging at the {219} Falls a rosy circumstance for memory’s wastes. The mellifluent odour of salmon offal regaling our nasal sensibilities, and the squalling of a copper-coloured baby, uttered in all the sweetest intonations of such an instrument, falling with the liveliest notes upon the ear, made me dream of war to the knife, till the sun called us to our day’s travel.
Five miles below the Falls, Mr. Lee and myself left the canoe, and struck across about fourteen miles to an Indian village on the bank of the Columbia opposite Vancouver. It was a collection of mud and straw huts, surrounded and filled with filth which might be smelt two hundred yards. We hired one of these cits to take us across the river, and at sunset of the 15th, were comfortably seated by the stove in “Bachelor’s Hall” of Fort Vancouver.
The rainy season had now thoroughly set in. Travelling any considerable distance in open boats, or among the tangled underbrush on foot, or on horseback, was quite impracticable. I therefore determined to avail myself of whatever other means of information were in my reach; and as the gentlemen in charge of the various trading-posts {220} in the territory, had arrived at Vancouver to meet the express from London, I could not have had for this object a more favourable opportunity. The information obtained from these gentlemen, and from other residents in the country, I have relied on as correct, and combined it with my own observations in the following general account of Oregon.
Oregon Territory is bounded on the north by the parallel of 54 deg. 40 min. north latitude;[20] on the east by the Rocky Mountains; on the south by the parallel of 42 deg. north latitude; and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.
Mountains of Oregon. Different sections of the great chain of highlands which stretch from the straits of Magellan to the Arctic sea, have received different names—as the Andes, the Cordilleras, the Anahuac, the Rocky and the Chippewayan Mountains. The last mentioned appellation has been applied to that portion of it which lies between 58° of north latitude and the Arctic sea. The Hudson Bay Company, in completing the survey of the Arctic coast, have ascertained that these mountains preserve a strongly defined outline entirely to the sea, and hang in towering cliffs over it, {221} and by other surveys have discovered that they gradually increase in height from the sea southward.
The section to which the term Rocky Mountains has been applied, extends from latitude 58° to the Great Gap, or southern pass, in latitude 42° north. Their altitude is greater than that of any other range on the northern part of the continent. Mr. Thompson, the astronomer of the Hudson Bay Company, reports that he found peaks between latitudes 53 and 56 north, more than twenty-six thousand feet above the level of the sea.[21] That portion lying east of Oregon, and dividing it from the Great Prairie Wilderness, will be particularly noticed. Its southern point is in the Wind River cluster, latitude 42° north, and about seven hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean. Its northern point is in latitude 54° 40′, about seventy miles north of Mount Browne,[22] and about four hundred miles from the same sea. Its general direction between these points is from N. N. W. to S. S. E.
This range is generally covered with perpetual snows; and for this and other causes is generally impassable for man or beast. There are, however, several gaps through {222} which the Indians and others cross to the Great Prairie Wilderness. The northernmost is between the peaks Browne and Hooker. This is used by the fur traders in their journeys from the Columbia to Canada.[23] Another lies between the head waters of the Flathead and the Marias rivers. Another runs from Lewis and Clarke’s river to the southern head waters of the Missouri. Another lies up Henry’s fork for the Saptin, in a northeasterly course to the Big-horn branch of the Yellowstone. And still another, and most important of all, is situated between Wind river cluster and Long’s mountains.[24]
There are several spurs or lateral branches protruding from the main chain, which are worthy of notice. The northernmost of these parts off north of Fraser’s river, and embraces the sources of that stream. It is a broad collection of heights, thinly covered with pines. Some of the tops are covered with snow nine months of the year. A spur from these passes far down between Fraser’s and Columbia rivers. This is a line of rather low elevations, thickly clothed with pines, cedar, &c. The highest portions of them lie near the Columbia. Another spur {223} puts out on the south of Mount Hooker, and lies in the bend of the Columbia, above the two lakes.
These are lofty and bare of vegetation. Another lies between the Flatbow and Flathead rivers; another between the Flathead and Spokan rivers; another between the Kooskooskie and Wapicakoos rivers.[25] These spurs, which lie between the head waters of the Columbia and the last mentioned river have usually been considered in connexion with a range running off S. W. from the lower part of the Saptin, and called the Blue Mountains. But there are two sufficient reasons why this is an error. The first is, that these spurs are separate and distinct from each other, and are all manifestly merely spurs of the Rocky Mountains, and closely connected with them.