Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/81

Rh near the mountains, is but the continuation of the Wallamet Valley into Washington Territory, according to the rule before noticed for the tributaries of the Columbia. Though this level country is now covered with timber, it must, from its alluvial nature, when cleared, prove very excellent farming land. That portion of it nearest the river is subject to the annual overflow; but there is no difficulty in determining the limits of submersion, for, wherever fir-trees are found, there the high-water never comes.

At a distance of about six miles above the Wallamet we come to the town of Vancouver, on the Washington side. Tills place is beautifully situated on a sloping plain, with a strip of velvety-looking meadow land on its river-front. It is the old head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, where resided, for more than twenty-five years, the Governor and Chief Factors of that company, nominally holding "joint possession," with the United States, of the whole Oregon Territory, but, really, for the greater portion of that time, holding it alone.

Here lived in bachelorhood, or with wives of Indian descent, a little colony of educated, and refined men, who, by the conditions of their servitude to the London Company, were forced to lead a life of almost monastic seclusion. True, it happened sometimes that naturalists, adventurous travelers, and others drifted to this comfortable haven in the wilderness, and, by their talk, made a little variety for the recluses; and very hospitable they found them—ready to provide every civilized luxury their fort contained, without money and without price, so long as it suited thein to remain.

There are few traces now of the old, stockaded fort.