Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/42

36 Mountains, and which forms the subject of our present narrative. In this quarter the Russians alone had regular trading ports, opposite to Kamtschatka, where they still carry on a considerable trade in furs and seal skins, sending them across the Pacific direct to China. Their capital is limited, and their hunting grounds almost entirely confined to the sea-coast and islands around their establishments. The American coasting vessels also frequent this quarter, collecting vast quantities of valuable furs, which they convey to the Chinese market. This casual traffic by coasters, yielded to their owners in former days, by means of the returning cargo, an average clear gain of a thousand per cent. every second year; but these vessels are not so numerous of late, nor are the profits thus made so great as formerly.

The comprehensive mind of Mr. Astor could not but see these things in their true light, and perceive that if such limited and desultory traffic produced such immense profits, what might not be expected from a well-regulated trade, supported by capital and prosecuted with system: at all events, the Russian trader would then be confined within [5] his own limits, and the coasting vessels must soon disappear altogether.

Towards the accomplishment of the great plan which he had in view, Mr. Astor now set about opening a new branch of the fur trade on the Pacific, under the appellation of the "Pacific Fur Company," the grand central depôt of which was to be at the mouth of the Columbia River, the "Oregon of the Spaniards." By this means he contemplated carrying off the furs of all the countries