Among the pebbles, I noticed several splendid specimens of the agate. The soil of the flats was a vegetable mould, eighteen inches or two feet in depth, resting on a stratum of sand and gravel, and evidently overflown by the annual floods of June. The flats varied from a few rods to a mile in width. While enjoying this walk, the two Americans started up a deer, followed it into the woods, and, loth to return unsuccessful, pursued it till long after our canoe was moored below the bar. So that Mr. Lee and myself had abundant time to amuse ourselves with all manner of homely wishes towards our persevering companions till near sunset, when the three barges of Dr. McLaughlin, under their Indian blanket sails and sapling masts, swept gallantly by us, and added the last dreg to our vexation. Mr. Lee was calm, I was furious. What, for a paltry deer, lose a view of the Columbia hence to the Fort! But I remember with satisfaction that no one was materially {197} injured by my wrath, and that my truant countrymen were sufficiently gratified with their success to enable them to bear with much resignation, three emphatic scowls, as they made their appearance at the canoe.
The dusk of night was now creeping into the valleys, and we had twenty miles to make. The tide from the Pacific was setting up, and the wind had left us; but our Indians suggested that the force of their paddles, stimulated by a small present of "shmoke" (tobacco,) would still carry us in by eleven o'clock. We therefore gave our promises to pay the required quantum of the herb, ensconced ourselves in blankets, and dozed to the wild music of the paddles, till a shower of hail aroused us. It was about ten o'clock. An angry cloud hung over us, and the rain and hail fell fast; the wind from Mounts Washington and Jefferson chilled every fibre of our systems; the wooded hills, on both sides of the river were wrapped in cold brown clouds; the owl and wolf were answering each other on the heights; enough of light lay on the stream to show dimly the islands that divided its waters, and the fires of the wigwams disclosed the naked groups of savages around them.
{198} It was a scene that the imagination loves. The canoe, thirty feet in length, (such another had cut those waters centuries before); the Indians, kneeling two and two, and rising on their paddles; their devoted missionary surveying them and the villages on the shores, and rejoicing in the anticipation, that soon the songs of the redeemed savage would break from the dark vales of Oregon; that those wastes of mind would soon teem with a harvest of happiness and truth, cast a breathing unutterable charm over the deep hues of that green wilderness, dimly seen on that stormy night, which will give me pleasure to dwell upon while I live. "On the bar!" cried Mr. Lee; and while our Indians leaped into the water, and dragged the canoe to the channel, he pointed to the dim light of the Hudson Bay Company's saw and grist mill two miles above on the northern shore.
We were three miles from Vancouver. The Indians knew the bar, and were delighted to find themselves so near the termination of their toil. They soon found the channel, and leaping aboard plied their paddles with renewed energy. And if any one faltered, the steersman rebuked him with his own hopes of "shmoke" and "scheotecut," (the Fort) which never failed {199} to bring the delinquent to duty. Twenty minutes of vigorous rowing moored us at the landing. A few hundred yards below, floated a ship and a sloop, scarcely seen through the fog. On the shore rose a levee or breastwork, along which the dusky savages were gliding with stealthy and silent tread; in the distance were heard voices in English speaking of home. We landed, ascended the levee, entered a lane between cultivated fields, walked a quarter of a mile, where, under a long line of pickets, we entered Fort Vancouver—the goal of my wanderings, the destination of my weary footsteps![245]
Mr. James Douglass, the gentleman who had been in charge of the post during the absence of Dr. McLaughlin, conducted us to a room warmed by a well-fed stove; insisted that I should change my wet garments for dry ones, and proffered every other act that the kindest hospitality could suggest to relieve me of the discomforts resulting from four months' journeying in the wilderness.[246]
FOOTNOTES:
[223] For a brief sketch of Pambrun see our volume xxi, p. 280, note 74. In her letters Mrs. Whitman speaks repeatedly of kindness received from this Hudson's Bay Company factor, whose death she deplores. See Oregon Pioneer Association Transactions, 1891, pp. 88, 103, 139, 140.—Ed.
[224] The general trend of the river is west; just above John Day's River, in Gilliam County, there is a bend to the north-west, which is the point Farnham had reached.—Ed.
[225] Farnham evidently thought that he saw Mount St. Helens (see our volume vi, p. 246, note 50), which he here calls Mount Washington, although later giving it the title of Mount Adams (see our volume xxix, note 32—Farnham). Lewis and Clark made a similar mistake—see Original Journals, iii, p. 135. What our traveller saw was the present Mount Adams, for which see note 225, below.—Ed.
[226] All early travellers speak of the attempts of the Indians, in their designation of the neighborhood, to express the sound of the falling waters. Lewis and Clark speak of it as "tumm;" according to Ross (our volume vii, p. 133), it was "Lowhum." The Shutes (Des Chutes) is another name for the Great Falls of the Columbia.—Ed.