236 DOUGLAS' JOURNAL 



wet without supper or fire. On such occasions I am very liable to become 

 fretful. Before sleeping we had agreed to go to a small lake seven miles 

 further on, next day, where we hoped to find wildfowl and give the horses 

 some rest. \ At daybreak I started on foot for the lake, leaving the men to 

 bring up the horses ; but being, as I have already observed, off our way the 

 preceding evening, I had only walked about three miles when I perceived 

 myself again off the road. 1 The day being cloudy and rainy, and having no 

 compass, I thought it prudent to return to the camp, which I did and 

 found they had started, but by which course I could not say. I looked 

 about and readily found our camp of October 7th and then proceeded by 

 the old route. About midday I was met by Kennedy, who had gone to the 

 lake by a new way and not finding me there became alarmed about my 

 safety, and had come in search of me, leaving Fannaux to take care of the 

 new camp. On reaching the plain three miles from the camp at 4 P.M., 

 I proposed to go in search of wildfowl if he would go and assist Fannaux 

 with the encampment ; we did not part without my getting strict caution 

 about going astray a second time. By six o'clock I had three geese and 

 one duck, and on my way home, when I observed a large flock a little to 

 the left of my path, I laid down my hunt, gun-slip, and hat to approach 

 them, and after securing one returned in search of my articles, but was 

 unsuccessful in finding them, although I devoted two hours to it. 

 Reluctantly I gave it up and proceeded to the camp, and as the night was 

 exceedingly dark I would have had some difficulty in finding it had they 

 not made signals with their guns to guide me. Close to the camp fired 

 among a cloud of ducks that were flying over my head and killed one ! / 1 

 was hailed to the camp with ' Be seated at the fire, Sir,' and then laughed 

 at for losing myself in the morning, my game and other property in the 

 evening. There is a curious feeling among voyageurs. One who com- 

 plains of hunger or indeed of hardship of any description, things that in 

 any other country would be termed extreme misery, is hooted and brow- 

 beaten by the whole party as a pork-eater or a young voyageur, as they 

 term it ; and although in many instances I have observed they will endure 

 much privation through laziness, and not unfrequently as a bravado, to 

 have it said of them they did so-and-so, I found in this instance my men 

 very willing to cook the fowls and still less averse to eating them. Heavy 

 rain. 



Sunday, 12th. Very heavy rain, with a high westerly wind, during the 

 whole night. In the grey of the morning I returned back in quest of the 

 articles I had mislaid last night and . readily found all safe, and an 

 additional goose a short distance from the other three, one which I had 

 killed without knowing it. To-day could afford myself and people break- 

 fast (!) and then started, the weather having become more moderate. At 

 two o'clock passed Longtabuff River, which falls into the Multnomah ; 

 and instead of following the old track, which we conceived more circuitous, 

 we took a more northerly direction along the west bank of the river, 

 intending to cross the Multnomah 150 miles above where we left our old 

 camp on that river. Nine geese were killed, seven by me and two by 

 Kennedy, which with what were killed the day before made us tolerably 



