Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/259

Rh But to return from this digression: I again set off on the 19th for the purpose of ascending the River Multnomak, one of the southern tributaries of the Columbia. This is a very fine stream, with remarkably fertile banks; thirtysix miles above the junction with the Columbia are falls of forty-three feet perpendicular height, over which the whole breadth of the river is precipitated, forming one unbroken sheet at this season of the year, but in spring and autumn divided into three channels. There is but little current thus far, as the stream is gorged back by the waters of the Columbia. The portage over the falls is no small undertaking. I killed several of the Cervus Leucurus, or long white-tailed deer, as well as some of the black-tailed kind, C. macrotis. Two days farther took me to the village of the Calapoori Indians, a peaceful, well-disposed people, twenty-four miles above the falls, and where I formed my camp for several days. A hunting party started from hence, proceeding westerly over the ridge of mountains. Near my encampment was a saline spring, to which the deer frequently resorted, as well as the beautiful ringed species of Columba, whose elegant movements when picking up and licking the saline particles that were found round the edge afforded me great amusement. In the extensive plains, bounded on the west by the mountainous woody part of the coast, and mi the east by high mountains, and as also on the banks of the River Sandiam, one of the rapid branches of the Multnomak, grows abundance of the Escholtzia Californica (Bot. Reg. t. 1168. Bot. Mag. t. 2287), also Iris tenax (Bot. Reg. t. 1218, Bot Mag. 3343). Nicotiana multivalvis (Bot. Reg. t. 1067), two new species of Trichostemma, and many other delightful plants. I procured some curious kinds of Myoxus, Mus, Arctomys, a new species of Canis, of singular habits and a genus of animals which had been hitherto undeseribed (probably Geomys Douglasii of Richardson's Fauna Boreali-Americana). In the tobacco pouches of the natives I found the seeds of a remarkably large Pine, which they eat as nuts, and from whom I learned that it grows on the moun-