WALLA-WALLA INDIANS. 85 



whilst the stage-driver is harnessing his mus- 

 tangs, I take a peep at the old fort, or rather 

 what remains of it, which is a square enclosed by 

 adobe (mud) walls loopholed, and once guarded 

 by massive gates ; but these are gone, as are the 

 houses of the fur-traders that the crumbling old 

 walls protected in the early days of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. 



The Walla-walla Indians, at the time the 

 Hudson's Bay Company established this most 

 desolate trading-post, were a wild and powerful 

 tribe, very hostile and averse to the Company's 

 trading. After several severe fights, in which 

 many lives were lost on both sides, the traders 

 abandoned the fort during the Sis-ky-ou Avar, in 

 the year 1833. Whisky, disease, and forays 

 with white men and neighbouring Indian tribes 

 has so reduced the once-dreaded Walla-wallas, 

 that a few broken-spirited lazy horse-thieves are 

 their only representatives to be met with. The 

 Walla- walla river joins the Columbia close to 

 the steamer-landing. 



I endure the usual amount of stao;e discomfort, 



o ' 



in passing over thirty miles of the most miserable 

 forlorn-looking country I ever beheld. We 

 reach New Walla- walla city about dusk ; the 

 city is one straight street about a quarter of a 



