Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/253

Rh about five miles at its mouth, not including Baker's Bay. which has a deep bend; the current is very rapid, and produces great agitation when the wind blows from the westward, dashing the water over the sand-bar quite across the river, so that no channel can be perceived, and it becomes impossible for a vessel to go out or in with safety.

My paper for preserving plants being all in the hold of the ship. I could do but little in collecting, though we continued our excursions every day, when the weather permitted, and were frequently meeting with objects which caused us much gratification. Nothing gave me, I think, greater pleasure, than to find Hookeria lucens in abundance in the damp, shady forests, growing with a plant whose name also reminded me of another valued friend, the Menziesia ferruginea. All my paper and trunks were sent ashore on the 16th, and on the 19th I embarked in a small boat with Mr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor, who received me with demonstrations of the mosi kindly feeling, and showed me every civility which it was in his power to bestow.

The following night, at 10, we arrived at Fort Vancouver, ninety miles from the sea, the spot where the officers of Captain Vancouver completed their survey of the river in 1792. The scenery round this place is sublimely grand —lofty, well-wooded hills, mountains covered with perpetual snow, extensive natural meadows, and plains of deep, fertile, alluvial deposit, covered with a rich sward of grass, and a profusion of flowering plants. The most remarkable mountains are Mounts Hood and Jefferson, of Vancouver, which are at all seasons covered with snow as low down as the summit of the hills by which they are surrounded. From this period to the 10th of May, my labour in the neighborhood of this place was well rewarded by Ribes sanguineum (Bot. Reg. t 1349. Bot. Mag. t. 3335), (a lovely shrub), which grows abundantly on the rocky shores of the Columbia and its tributary streams, producing a great profusion of flowers and but little fruit, except in the shady woods, where the blossoms are comparatively few; I also found