436 TRAVELS IN OREGON, NO.l. 
Island, through the Willamette Valley to Champooing. 
Some of them suffered from fever and ague, which they 
rather attributed to the bad position of their camps than 
to any other cause. The settlers in the valley were mostly 
old trappers, who were ready at any time to sell their 
improvements and return to the business of trapping. 
In the southern part of Willamette Valley the country 
stretches out into wild prairie ground, rising in the dis¬ 
tance into low undulating hills, which are bare of trees, 
with the exception of a few scattered oaks. From the 
Willamette they marched by a tedious and difficult route 
over the Elk Mountains to Fort Umpqua, a station en¬ 
closed by a line of high pickets with bastions at diagonal 
corners. The area is about two hundred feet square, 
inhabited by five men, two women, and nine dogs. A 
large number of the Umpqua Indians were collected in 
the vicinity of the fort, and manifested an intention to 
attack it. The river Umpqua flows from this station a 
north-westerly course for thirty miles to the sea. It is 
navigable for vessels drawing six feet of water, but has 
only nine feet of water on its bar, and no harbor for sea 
going vessels. 
The district around the Umpqua Fort yields a consid¬ 
erable supply of furs, principally beaver of small size. 
The superintendent of the fort exchanged some fine 
horses for the exhausted steeds of his visitors, and gave 
them some bear and deer skins to be made into shirts 
and trowsers. The agents of the company seemed to 
feel no concern at their exposed situation, a fact upon 
which Mr. Wilkes remarks, that few of them seem to 
know the reason of their meeting so few mishaps in pass¬ 
ing through an apparently hostile country; and many 
deem it owing to their own skill and prowess. The 
truth is, that as soon as the Indians have traded with the 
»• : j, - ,. i . . ; . . . 
whites and become dependent upon them for supplies, 
thenceforth they can be easily controlled. If disposed 
