Sketch of the Life of Mr. David Douglas, 21 Z 



beyond tlie Umptqua, but in this he was disappointed. To have 

 made the attempt with any degree of safety would have required 

 the company of a gi'eater party than he had the means of com- 

 manding. Thus he was constrained unwillingly to return. 



So little intercourse was there in those days with San Francisco 

 that he was detained all winter and spring there without finding 

 an opportunity of shipping himself oflP, but his time was comfort- 

 ably spent at the prajsidias, where the hospitality of the i^'^dres 

 was extended to him in so kind a manner that he ever warmly re- 

 membered it. The collections he made during all this long period 

 were worthy of his high reputation. Above 400 species of the mass 

 of plants which he sent to England were yet undescribed. Of 

 these some were superbly flowering kinds, forming new genera, 

 giving to botanists an enlarged idea of the productive vegetating 

 powers of the soil and climate of Upper California. In August of 

 1832 a passage was at last obtained to the Sandwich Islands, 

 where he was attacked by rheumatic fever, the consequence of too 

 much exposure to the vicissitudes of the weather. Upon recovery 

 he left for the Columbia, which he entered towards the end of 

 October. 



In March of 1833, he made a short tour by the Cowlidsk river 

 to Puget Sound, where he took a rapid survey of the bays and 

 headlands, determining their latitude and longitude, and obtain- 

 ing the altitudes, bearings and distances of the snowy peaks that 

 rear themselves up from the pine clad mountains, which swell out 

 in increasingly formidable proportions as they retire from the sea. 

 A number of mosses and algge were collected in this quarter, 

 classes which hitherto he had had but small opportunity of noti- 

 cing. Immediately on his return from the Sound he favoured me 

 with a letter of some length, which it may not be uninteresting 

 here to insert, as it gives a description of California in some points 

 as it then stood : 



" Fort Vancouver, March 17th, 1833. 



" Last August at the Sandwich Islands I had the pleasure to 

 receive a letter from you, and in October on my arrival here a 

 second, accompanied by a beautiful sample of cyanitc, and fine 

 specimens of my Pceonia from the Blue Mountains of Wallawalla. 

 I am exceedingly obliged by this, and request to lay before you my 

 best thanks for this mark of your goodness. Such allow me to say 

 was bestowed where it is felt, and will be remembered. An hour 

 Can. Nai-. 3 Vol. V. No. 4 



