Wishing a pleasant & prosperous season.
I remain
Dear Sir
Your most obd. servant,
(Signed) Geo. Simpson.
Friday 22nd.
Cloudy, but sultry warm weather.
I deferred setting out for Okanogan, as I intended, in order to allow the horses which are fatigued another days' rest, and there still being plenty of time to reach that place before the boats from the Wallawalla: something more could also be done here. In the course of the day the business of removing the Fort was broached to the Chiefs and notice given them that they would be requested to lend some assistance in horses. They gave no decisive answer on the subject but seemed to take it better than was expected. It was intimated that the Fort would be left in their charge and that probably instructions might be received in the fall for some people to reside at Spokane with them still. They seem to swallow this notwithstanding its improbability.—Very few of them are now about the Fort the most of them being a short distance below it at a fishing barrier where they are taking 7 or 800 salmon per day.
Satd'y. 23
Cloudy blowing strong from the Westward.
At ½ past 9 o'clock set out from Spokane for Okanogan accompanied by a man and an Indian as a guide with seven horses, that is the 4 that belong to Okanogan, & 3 to return to Spokane with some people.—At 12 oclock we got clear of the woods & into the plains, except a short time that we stopped to allow the horses to feed. We drove on at a round pace all day and encamped at ½ past 7 oclock at a little pool of bad water, some distance from the Key encampment. The clouds of dust raised by the wind which was right ahead made riding very disagreeable as we were like to be choaked & blinded. Our guide did not keep the road but cut from place to place through the plains.—Our course might be from N. W. to W. Ridges of mountains or highlands run along at no great distance to the Northward, thinly clothed with wood, the country through which we passed though not (even) could not be called hilly but swelling into little knowls, covered with a thin coat of dry vegetables and generally of a barren & scorched appearance, except some little valleys where some few bushes & green vegetables are produced in consequence of there being water in the place or some moisture in the ground.—The road was in some places good, but in others very stony. Nothing to be seen to the S. E. but extensive plains bounded by the horison.
Sunday 24
Weather as yesterday.