Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/64

Rh Walla Walla River, was a fort of that name. This establishment was also a stockade, and being in the country of warlike savages, there were two bastions, with an inner gallery, and other defences strongly constructed of drift-logs which had been brought from the mountains and heaped ashore at this place by the June freshets. Little agricultural land being found in the vicinity, and no timber, Fort Walla Walla was without the attractions of Fort Vancouver, but it ranked nevertheless as a place of importance, being the principal trading post between California and Stuart Lake, and accessible by water from Fort Vancouver. It was on the way from the great fur-hunting region about the head-waters of the Snake River and its tributaries, and the first resting-place the overland traveller met after leaving the Missouri River. There was always a genial and generous officer stationed at Fort Walla Walla, on whose head many a weary pilgrim called down blessings for favors received. Horses were plentiful, and a few cattle were kept there, but no grain was raised. The little garden spot by the river furnished vegetables, and those of an excellent quality. The climate was usually delightful, the only discomfort being the strong summer winds, which drove about with violence the dust, and sand, and gravel, so that it was deemed impossible to cultivate trees or shrubbery; hence the situation appeared without any beauty except that derived from a cloudless sky, and the near neighborhood of the picturesque cliffs of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers.

One hundred and thirty-eight miles north from Fort Walla Walla lay Fort Okanagan, at the mouth of the Okanagan River, like the others a stockade, in charge of a gentlemanly officer. Other trading posts were located at favorable points on the Kootenais River, on the Spokane, on Lake Pend d'Oreille, and on the Flathead River, besides several north of the fiftieth parallel. But the post of the greatest impor-