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98 brought plenty of food from the fort for the voyage, the horse did not taste like the poor one killed by us in the Blue Mountains.

October 24—We passed the falls, where we made a short portage, and again at the dalles, or narrows, through which the river rushes. At its low stage a boat can pass through it. I was told this was six miles below the falls. The bluffs stand out prominently, frequently of pentagonal form. Lewis and Clark called them "High Black Rocks," which indeed they are. We finally came to the cascades, where the river rushes through a break in the mountains. They are so called from the thousands of beautiful cascades falling from these mountains.

October 26—It rained harder than I had seen it in five months. The mountains became thickly timbered to the snow line. The next day we came to the tide water, one hundred and eighty miles from its mouth.

October 28—We encamped at the sawmill of the Hudson Bay Company, which was superintended by Mr. Cannon, one of J. J. Astor's men, who came out with Mr. Hunt in 1811.

October 29—We arrived at Fort Vancouver, it having taken us nine days to come down the river, some two hundred miles. Fort Vancouver is an extensive stockade, enclosed on a prairie back from the river. It includes the storehouses and the houses for governor and partners, as the clerks were called. For the servants and Frenchmen there were little houses outside of the fort. This was the main station of the Hudson Bay Company west of the mountains, and to this place shipping came.

Lewis and Clark spoke of what a great harbor the Columbia might be: "That large sloops could come up as high as the tide waters, and vessels of three hundred tons burden could reach the entrance of the Multnomah River. "Fort Vancouver is situated on the right-hand side going down the river (now in Washington state). We were a hard looking set, owing to our hard life, but we were most hospitably received in spite of the awkward and suspicious circumstances in which we appeared. There had been some farming done about the fort for some seven years previous.

November 3—Five of us started down the river in an Indian canoe. We could not go before, as it had rained. The country continued low on both sides of the river. Mount Hood on the south, Saint Helens on the north, in the rear of which appeared an hexagonal cone, white and beautiful (not then named; afterwards known as Mount Rainier).

November 4—We passed many of the company's sloops, and Indians singing as they paddled their canoes. We saw also many white geese and ducks. We encamped on the shore opposite an island, used by the Indians as a burial ground. Their way of burial was odd. They