Jan. 23. igoQ.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lowed to shoot or hunt game on any pretext 
whatsoever, and no natives are allowed to live 
in them. 
Third, that the shooting of game by Euro¬ 
peans outside the prohibited areas be restricted 
and subject to well-thought-out game law.s. 
Fourth, that all trade in the hides or horns 
of wild animals be prohibited by law. 
By such a scheme, I think, the game may be 
preserved in those parts of Africa where it still 
exists, as long as those countries are not over¬ 
taken by civilization. But sooner or later the 
game will disappear from all those parts of 
Africa which are capable of supporting a Euro- 
1 N the fur trade of the early part of the last 
century, no locality was better known and 
none made so much of a stir among Eng¬ 
lish-speaking people as the region in Oregon 
about the mouth of the Columbia River. It 
was here for the first time that the British and 
American fur traders came into active com¬ 
petition, and from this competition arose the 
question as to what nation should control the 
wide area on the Pacific coast. 
Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, 
was for years the scene of hot competition be¬ 
tween the Bostonese and the King George men, 
whose varying fortunes, though at first interest¬ 
ing only to fur traders nearer at home, came at 
last to mean a great deal to Great Britain and 
to the United States. The matter is told of 
pean population, for all the pastoral and agricul¬ 
tural land will be parceled out into farms, and 
the game will be quickly killed off or driven 
into still uninhabited regions in spite of any 
laws for its protection. This process of e.xter- 
mination will. I trust, be very slow, but I can¬ 
not but think that the same influences which 
have already denuded Europe, most of North 
America, and much of Asia, of the greater part 
of their once abounding wild animal life, will 
slowly but surely have a similar effect, though 
subject to check here and there for a longer 
or shorter time, over the whole of the African 
continent. 
at length by many of the fur traders, each of 
whom paints some side of the picture, coloring 
his story from his prejudices; and there were 
two or three years when there seemed a pros¬ 
pect that war between Great Britain and the 
United States might ensue before the question 
had been settled. 
Among the Astorians who wrote books on 
the subject were two men, fellow travelers on 
the ship Tonquin, from New York to the mouth 
of the Columbia, both clerks in the Pacific Fur 
Company’s employ; and both of them surrend¬ 
ered to the Northwestern Fur Company when 
the British ship Raccoon entered the bay and 
captured Astoria, which then became Fort 
George. Alexander Ross was a man of con¬ 
siderable education, and wrote three capital 
T 29 
books on the fur trade. Upon retiring from 
the fur trade, he resided for years at the Red 
River settlement, and it was there that his book 
was written. His style is clear and pleasing, and 
he is undoubtedly trustworthy, and relates things 
as he saw them. 
The second of these men was Gabriel Fran- 
chere. He remained at Astoria for three years, 
and wrote a full account of what he saw, in a 
clear, simple, direct style, which has been de¬ 
scribed as Defoe-like. As might be inferred 
from his name, Franchere was a French-Cana- 
dian, and wrote in French. His book was pub¬ 
lished in Alontreal in 1819; a translation was 
published in Scotland in 1824, and in 1846, when 
the question of the boundary between Great 
‘Britain and the United States was being dis¬ 
cussed in the Senate, Thomas Hart Benton held 
in his hand the copy of this book, quoting from 
it, using Franchere’s statement of the condition 
of the Columbia as a strong argument in favor 
of the claims to that territorj' held by the United 
States. 
Franchere was a passenger on the ill-fated 
Tonquin. He came from Canada past way in 
a l.irchbark canoe, and the arrival of this vessel 
at New York created great interest. “W'e had 
landed at the New York end of the city, and 
tlie next day bein.g Sunday we re-embarked and 
were obliged to make a course around the city 
in order to arrive at our lodgings at Long 
Island. We sang as we rode, which, joined to 
the unusual sight of the birchljark canoe, im¬ 
pelled by nine stout Canadians as dark as In¬ 
dians. and as gaily adorned, attracted a crowd 
upon the wharves to gaze at us as we glided 
along. We found on Long Island (in the vil¬ 
lage of Brooklyn) those young gentlemen en¬ 
gaged in the service of the new company who 
had left Canada in advance of our party.” 
The voyage of the Tonquin was long, and. 
An Old Story of Astoria^. 
By G. B. G. 
MR. SELOUS SCATTERING, A HERD OF ZEBRAS WHILE IN PURSUIT OF GEMSBUCKS. 
(Courte-^y the Macmillan Company.) 
