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 bases of lofty mountains covered with perpetual snows. Forty or fifty miles above this lake, is the "Flathead House," a trading post of the Hudson Bay Company.[45]

McGillivray's, or Flat Bow River, rises in the Rocky Mountains, and running a tortuous westerly course about three hundred miles, among the snowy heights, and some extensive and somewhat productive valleys, enters the Columbia four miles below the Lower Lake. Its banks are generally mountainous, and in some places covered with pine forests. On this stream also, the indefatigable British fur traders have a post, "Fort Kootania," situated {236} about one hundred and thirty miles from its mouth.[46] Between the lower and upper lakes of the Columbia, are "the Straits," a narrow, compressed passage of the river among jutting rocks. It is four or five miles in length, and has a current, swift, whirling, and difficult to stem. The upper lake is of less dimensions than the lower; but, if possible, surrounded by more broken and romantic scenery, forests overhung by lofty tiers of wintry mountains, from which rush a thousand torrents, fed by the melting snows.[47]