60 Mr Scolder's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. 



by one of those beautiful and plaintive Canadian songs, of 

 -which the various dangers of a voyager's life affords so many 

 interesting subjects. While in this situation, we were sur- 

 prised at the arrival of a canoe from Fort Vancouver. It be- 

 longed to a Canadian who was carrying his child to Fort 

 George, where he heard there was a surgeon, to obtain some 

 medicines. As the poor child was in the last stage of an in- 

 flammation in the bowels, medical aid was of little advantage, 

 and after giving him what assistance our circumstances would 

 admit of, he continued his journey to the fort, where the child 

 died a few hours after his arrival. 



2d May. — On rejoining my botanical associate, we spent se- 

 veral days in making excursions around the new fort. This 

 establishment is constructed on the same plan as that of Fort 

 George, already described, but the situation is much more de- 

 lightful. The fort is built in the centre of a large and very 

 level prairie, already covered with fields of potatoes and peas, 

 and the produce of the farm would have been more varied, if 

 the seeds which were sent from Canada had arrived in time. 

 The margins of this prairie abounded in the beautiful Pha- 

 langium esculentum, whose roots are so much used by the In- 

 dians as a substitute for bread, while the tubers of a species 

 of Sagittaria, which grows on the marshy banks of the river, 

 affords an agreeable substitute for potatoes. In the neigh- 

 bouring woods we found some of the choicest plants the N. 

 W. coast can boast of. 



The Linnasa borealis, a plant always agreeable to the bo- 

 tanist, grew here in great profusion, and I afterwards found 

 it equally common in the woods of Observatory Inlet, the 

 northern limit of our voyage. The subjoined list of the plants 

 that were known to us may give the botanist some idea of one 

 day's excursion, not above four miles from the fort.* In such 

 a situation my time passed rapidly away with a constant, 

 though pleasing uniformity. We usually spent the forenoon 

 in botanising, and during the remainder of the day our time 



• Calypso borealis Collinsia verna 



Corallorhiza innata Phlox linearis 



Berberis aquifolia Myosotis, Nov. Sp. 



— - nervosa Sanicula, Nov. Sp* 



