Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/112

102 three or four feet through, answering for all the uses you put the white pine to. There is another tree, called the red fir. The timber is like the yellow pine, and grows immensely large.

The great advantage here is the climate, for there is so little winter that I found cattle, horses, and hogs on the Multnoniah fat, though none of them had been fed this winter. In fact, I have not seen a flake of snow on the ground a moment, and hail but once, which lavtwo inches deep for one day. There was much rain in December and January, and it was so cold that the Columbia froze over, but the Multnomah did not. Some trees are now in blossom, and in favorable spots the fresh green grass has grown six inches high. The Indians have horses, which they sell at $8.00 per head, but cattle are still scarce. There are none this side of California, except what has sprung from a bull and six cows brought from California seven years ago, if I have been rightly informed.

Anything can be raised here that can with you, any many things which can not be. Many kinds of fruit trees have been introduced which succeed well. But recollect, I am not in possession of these things myself, but hope to be after awhile from the generous conduct of those who are the owners. I have seen the country the description of which John Ordway gave you so interestingly when he returned from his tour with Lewis and Clark in 1806. The natives with their flattened heads are nearly the same, though a residence of some whites in their neighborhood for more than twenty years has doubtless had its effect. They have changed their skin dress to a considerable extent for cloth. Some wear nothing on their feet, and wear a kind of apron and blanket of skin. Some have adopted the dress of the whites. They are not a warlike people, in this quarter, though some individuals are killed, but in case of murder a payment of a valuable article is said to satisfy the friends of the departed.

Mr. Ball's journal continued:

When Doctor McLoughlin found I was bent on going to farming, he loaned me farming utensils and seed for sowing, and as many horses as I chose to break in for teams. I took the seed and implements by boat, getting help up the Willamette to the falls, (passing the site of Portland and beyond the now Oregon City,) about fifty miles from Fort Vancouver. We carried by the falls, boat and all, and first stopped with one of the neighbors, a half-breed, J. B. Desportes, who had two wives and seven children, and plenty of cats and dogs. I caught from the prairie a span of horses with a lasso, made a harness, and set them to work. For harness I stuffed some deerskins, sewed in proper form, for collars, fitted to them for the harness, crooked oak limbs tied top and bottom with elk skin strings. Then to these strips