On the Fur Trade, and Fur-hearing Animals. 321 



and the only partners at Astoria, had come to a determination to dis- 

 solve the company and abandon the country, and an express was 

 sent off early in the spring to the wintering partners in the upper 

 country, Messrs. Stuart and Clark, informing them of this determin- 

 ation, and urging them to take measures, viz. to trade horses, pro- 

 cure provisions, he. to carry it into effect. These gentlemen, how- 

 ever, had been in too good a beaver country, and had succeeded in 

 procuring too many furs, to come in too hastily, to the proposed 

 measures. They reached Astoria from their wintering grounds with 

 their detachments, on the 13lh of June, 1813, bringing with them one 

 hundred and ten packs of beaver aud other furs. Their fears of the 

 non-arrival of the annual ship were realized, and what was of more 

 consequence, there were no accounts of Mr. Hunt. They found en- 

 camped at Astoria, Mr. McTavish of the North West Company, with 

 ten or twelve men, who had arrived there in the beginning of April, 

 from Lake Winnipeg, and who had brought into the country the 

 news of the war between the two governments. As the wintering 

 partners had taken no measures to abandon the country, the lateness 

 of the season compelled the postponement of this measure for anoth- 

 er year, and the different wintering brigades were sent to their re- 

 spective districts, not with the view of procuring furs, but to look out 

 for the means of hving. The writer of this left Astoria on the 1st of 

 July, with two hunters and fifteen men, for the river Wollamut, (the 

 Multnomah of Lewis and Clark,) which disembogues into the Co- 

 lumbia, about sixty miles above Astoria. The country bordering on 

 this river is diversified with beautiful prairies and hills, where oak, 

 maple, ash, and cedar abound ; in the bends are cotton wood bot- 

 toms, where the elk resort in numerous herds, as the deer do on the 

 hills and prairies. The natives (Calipuyaws) are peaceable ; and fur- 

 bearing animals, particularly the beaver, plentiful. A dozen of hun- 

 ters, in this country, could have procured a sufficiency of provisions 

 in four months, to have lasted the whole party a year. The small 

 brigade mentioned above commenced hunting on the 5th of July, and 

 by the 4th of August, besides supplying themselves most abundantly^ 

 they dispatched for Astoria a canoe load of thirty three bales of dried 

 deer's meat. On their arrival at the fort on the 8th of August, things 

 were going on much more smoothly than they had hitherto done, 

 owing to the recent marriage of Mr. McDougall, with Comcomoly's 

 (the old Chinook chief) daughter ; — an unexpected step, when com- 

 pared with his recent declaration, of his intention to abandon the 

 Vol. XXV.— No. 2. 41 



