TRAVELS IN OREGON, NO. 1. 
443 
governor performed his trip to the lakes in the north¬ 
west territory. This guide had been for several years 
in Oregon. He had married an Indian wife, and was 
living on a farm of about fifty acres, at the Cowlitz, 
independent and contented. Captain Wilkes had seldom 
seen so pretty a woman as his wife ; before her marriage 
she was the belle of the country, and celebrated for 
her horsemanship. 
The Columbia river where the Cowlitz joins it, is a 
broad flowing stream, and may be readily navigated by 
canoes. At this point is a high conical hill, which has 
been used as a burial-place by the Indians. The re¬ 
mains of manv of their coffins scattered over the surface 
caused the trappers to give it the name Mount Coffin. 
The explorations of Captain Freemont have proved 
that the Columbia stands alone as the only great river 
on the Pacific slope of our continent, which leads from 
the ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and opens a line of 
communication from the sea to the valley of the Missis¬ 
sippi. 
Its northern branch rises in the Rocky Mountains in 
50° N. Lat. and 116° W. Long, and thence runs by a 
northern route to near McGillivray’s Pass in the Rocky 
Mountains. Here it is three thousand six hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. Receiving the waters of 
Canoe river, it turns south, proceeding to Fort Colville, 
receiving by the way many tributaries, among which 
are the Kootanie or Flat Row, and the Flat Head, or 
Clark’s river. Between McGillivray’s Pass and Fort 
Colville, a distance of two hundred and twenty miles, its 
level has fallen five hundred and fifty feet. This part of 
its course is surrounded by high mountains, among which 
it often expands into a line of lakes. A little south of 
Colville, it turns to the west, receiving Spokan river 
from the east. Sixty miles from this bend, its course is 
again changed to the south, and its waters augmented 
