Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/213

Rh Kaoulis [Cowlitz.] Fort Nesqually is situated on the little river of that name, which rises at the foot of Mount Rainier, and flows into Puget Sound. The distance from Fort Van Couver to Nesqually is sixty leagues or six daysmarch. To avoid leaving the Columbia and entering the Straits of Fuca, you go down the river to the mouth of the Kaoulis, which you ascend in canoes for some time, and then on horseback to the sea coast.

The fort, built as those we have already described, and armed with several pieces of cannon, encloses the lodgings and the shops. It is built a half league from the sea, which is cut off from view by a wood and a slope of the ground. In the environs they have cleared about two hundred hectares for the Company. The Nesqually River is not more than sixty feet wide. Its banks are bordered with cedars and enormous pines; it is navigable only for small boats; in the summer, and at some leagues from the sea, it can be forded. This river runs in the midst of a large prairie called Mound Prairie, which, over a space of several leagues, is covered with little conical mounds, two to three meters high, and whose formation is due without doubt to volcanic eruptions. The width of Puget Sound is about a half league; its shores, as well as all the surroundings of the fort, present the aspect of a long series of prairies, scattered with clusters of trees, and cut by streams, and the illustrious Van Couver was right in saying before our time that he was leaving to the trained pen of a capable writer the task of describing this magnificent country.

Fort Kaoulis or Cowlitz is situated on the river of that name, in the center of a plain six miles long and about two wide; this river, on the banks of which are found coal and lignite, rises in the sides of Mount Rainier, and emerges into the Columbia, on the right bank, sev-