NARRATIVE OF 1853. 155 
and on the morning of the Tth Captain McClellan, reached Waila- Walla, where they made their 
arrangements to continue down the river. 
Before, however, I start down the Columbia river I will give the incidents of Lieutenant 
Macfeeley’s return trip to the Dalles. 
Crossing by the route of the southern Nez Percés trail, Lieutenant Macfeeley, for eight days, 
continued climbing mountain after mountain, the difficulties increasing as he proceeded; the 
mountains seemed to have no dividing ridge, but are an immense mass, broken into conical 
peaks and lateral spurs, and all thrown together and piled one upon another in wildest confusion. 
On the summit of two of the mountains he found snow to the depth of three or four inches, and 
it was still snowing there, while in descending into the valley it changed into sleet and rain. 
This was between the Tth and 15th of September. 
One of the soldiers with him lost the track in the snow, and was left behind, after two days’ 
search, but finally found his way to the plains, and was taken care of by the Nez Percés Indians. 
Seventeen of his horses gave out on the way, which had been, however, exhausted previously 
by carrying provisions from Fort Dalles to Bitter Root valley. 
November 8.—Having given Mr. Lander his written instructions, and in conversation 
endeavored to impress him with the entire feasibility of the enterprise intrusted to him, I 
started down the river in a canoe, and reached the Dalles on the 12th.—(See sketch.) We 
took with us two days’ provisions, and were four days in reaching the Dalles, having been 
detained nearly two days in camp by a high wind which blew up the river; but we eked out our 
scanty stores by the salmon generously furnished us by the Indian bands near us. At the prin- 
cipal rapids I got out and observed the movements of the canoe through them, and, from the best 
examination which I was able to make, I became at once convinced that the river was probably 
navigable for steamers; at all events, worthy of being experimentally tested. I remained at the 
Dalles on the 13th to make arrangements for the moving forward of the parties and for herding 
the animals, looking to a resumption of the survey, where I was the guest of Major Rains, and 
had a most pleasant time, meeting old acquaintances and making new ones with the gentlemen 
of the post. On the 14th I reached the Cascades, where I passed the night. Here I met 
several gentlemen—men who had crossed the plains, and who had made farms in several States 
and in Oregon or Washington—who had carefully examined the Yakima country for new loca- 
tions, and who impressed me with the importance of it as an agricultural and grazing country. 
November 15th we went down the river in a canoe, and on the 16th reached Vancouver, (a 
sketch of which is here given,) where I remained the 17th, 18th, and 19th, as the guest of 
Colonel Bonneville, and where I also became acquainted with the officers of the Hudson Bay 
Company.—(T wo sketches are here given, one of the Cascades of the Columbia river and the 
other of Cape Horn.) 
Leaving Vancouver on the 20th, I reached Olympia on the 25th, where for the first time I 
saw the waters of Puget Sound. No special incident worthy of remark occurred on the journey, 
except that I was four days going up the Cowlitz, in drenching rains, and two nights had the 
pleasure of camping out. I will now advise voyageurs in the interior, when they get suddenly 
into the rains west of the Cascades, to take off their buckskin underclothing. I neglected to 
do this, and among the many agreeabilities of this trip up the Cowlitz was to have the under- 
clothing of buckskin wet entirely through. I was enabled to examine the country pretty care- 
fully all the way to Olympia, and had with me a very intelligent man who could point out 
localities and inform me about the country not in view of the road; and I saw that not only тар 
