Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/93

Rh ascends to this place, though not without some difficulty, particularly if the craft draws more than thirteen feet of water.

In the vicinity of Fort Vancouver there is much fine farming land. The company has fine farms, and many thousand head of cattle. Fifty or sixty miles above are the Cascades; it is where the river crosses the Cascade Mountains, a range running north and south. East of these mountains is a country extending many hundred miles in each direction, and most particularly adapted to grazing. Stock of all kinds can live here winter and summer without the least care. This is as far as I have seen the country, though it is said there is much fine country in the south of the territory, but no settlements in that section.

Our stock keeps fat through the winter without care; we had no snow last winter nor this. Buds are now swelling, and some flowers in bloom. You wished to know where we get saws to saw our big timber. I brought two, of the longest kind, with me, and we have since had two from the Hudson Bay Co., and three from the States. We have timber of all sizes, so we take our choice; we have some 16 feet in diameter and 300 feet in length; no mistake. I have measured such. We have shipped three cargoes of lumber to the Sandwich Islands, for which we received $20 per thousand feet, clear of freight. Lumber is, and will be, a great source of wealth to this country. The Columbia, and its tributaries, are alive with salmon during the summer months; the Indians take them in great numbers with spears, nets, and seines; there are many packed and sent to foreign markets annually.

I am now improving me a farm on Clatsop Plains. I have a splendid claim of six hundred and forty acres of land, about fifty acres timber, the rest prairie—laying immediately on the Pacific. We are all very anxious to hear the result of the treaty (if one is made) between the U. S. and John Bull. We are very much afraid Uncle will fool away the north of the Columbia; if he does we shall be Silux. We are very anxious the U. S. should extend her jurisdiction over our valuable country, and we are nearly out of patience with the delay. We are not all thieves and runaways, as represented by the Hon Mr. Mc——, nor our country a booty. Boy, if it is, it's inferior to none in point of beauty, pleasant climate, natural resources, and advantages of wealth; and if the settlers were ever thieves they have wholly reformed, for it is generally believed that no other colony has ever equaled this in point of bravery, enterprise, hospitality, honesty, and morality. There are men who arrived here in October last who have at this time one hundred acres fenced and sown to wheat. Now, all we want is a little of Uncle Sam's care, that capitalists may be safe in investing their money.

Merchandise is generally high here, owing to the scarcity and great demand. Salt $1 per bush.; sugar 12½ cts. per lb.; coffee 25 cts. per lb.; molasses 50 cts. per gal.: tea 50 cts. to $1.50; nails 18 cts.: window