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 war, in 
the year 1835. 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 stage discomfort, 
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 
