ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 
miles, is seen a ridge of high snowy moun- 
tains, which, running in a South-westerly 
direction for three hundred miles, terminate 
near the ocean. There I might hope to 
find all or most of the plants of the Rocky 
Mountains, and Mr. Black has kindly com- 
menced arrangements for my making a 
journey thither early in June, which will 
s 
30th. We proceeded 
early this morning on our way, I walking 
generally on the bank of the river, as I 
found the cold very prejudicial to my stiff 
knee, which was the better for a little ex- 
ercise. The country, too, was quite a 
plain, as far as the junction of Lewis and 
Clarke's River, which is a fine stream, from 
one hundred and twenty to one hundred 
and fifty yards wide in many places, and 
very rapid, abounding, as well as many o 
its tributaries, with salmon. Its whole 
course, from its source in the Rocky Moun- 
tains till it joins the Columbia, is not less 
than fifteen hundred miles. The soil in 
this neighbourhood is a light brown earth, 
which the wind frequently blows up in 
mounds or hills fifty feet high, whereon 
Brow several species of Lupinus and Gino 
thera, with some singular bulbus:rabied 
plants, and occasional shrubs of the beau- 
tiful Purshia tridentata, which is the 
largest vegetable production seen here. 
Same aspect of country continues as 
far as the Priest's Rapid, which we reached 
on the Ist of April, where it becomes 
mountainous, with scarcely a vestige of 
Tiver are of limestone and very rugged, 
and this is considered one of the most 
‘dangerous parts of the whole river. During 
E time occupied in making the portage 
nine miles, I wrote to my friend, Dr. 
! of Glas 
TO DR. SCOULER.! 
Priest's Rapid, on the Columbia River, 
Lat. 48° N., Long. 117° W., April 3rd, 1826. 
are once more in A 
t your long bibis has terminated to your 
* Your friends would, no doubt, chest y 
107 
April 2nd to 6th. Continuing our jour- 
ney without interruption, we reached the 
ntertain melancholy thoughts about you, owing to 
your absence having proved so much longer than was 
expected ; and I know by experience, how much you 
must have felt. i 
Pierce you left me, there has been no person to join 
my walks, and for several weeks I felt very un- 
erii Aie sv especially grieved at not having 
seen you before your departure, owing to a hurt that 
one of my legs received when packing my boxes, and 
since. 
much exertion, I left Fo: 
October, for the purpose of seeing you in my way to 
Whitby’s Harbour, near the Cheeheelie River, On 
the evening of the 23rd I put ashore at Oak Point to 
on that day, I lost no time in "amid my kettle, ne 
having re-embarked at 11 P in hopes 
— the bay before daylight. xtti s 
d was adverse, and my Indians being much fa- 
i. I did not arrive till ten o'clock, when I heard, 
to my great disappointment, me you had left the river 
only one hour before. I found Tha-a-mu-ii, or ** the 
Beard," Com Comly's brother, to whom you had 
spoken of me. He is an old man: at his request I 
shaved him, that he might look more like one of King 
G 
a 
St. Helen’s, to the Cow-a-lidsk River, which I de- 
scended to its junction with the Columbia. This was 
the most unfortunate trip I ever had ; the season = 
ing so late, and my knee becomin 
troublesome, I was under the necessity of laying br, 
as an invalid, for three days, on Cape Foulweather, i 
a hut made of pine-branches and grass. Being un- 
able to go abroad and shoot, I fared, of course, but 
us, and 
scantily ; some "t of Proce 
one of C ich I killed, were spoiled b by the 
excessive rain. "The only plant I 
ias tenax and 
d me t e of painii 
r, in the short intervals of fair weather, I 
he woods, in search for Mosses, but my 
m m this tribe of plants is insufficient to en- 
ally in the use of the gu 
could handle to some pugnet . lamin 
of a species of Pinus, the finest of the genus, and 
hope soon to have abundance of Mol deine qi 
