Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/367

 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OK DAVID DOUGLAS. 357 brother, were peculiarly gratifying. Those persons who have never been, like me, in such a remote corner of the globe, may perhaps think I should be ashamed of my own weakness on the present occasion ; but long as I had been kept in ignorance of everything respecting my dearest friends, my anxiety was not allayed by one perusal of my letters, and no less than four times during the night did I rise from my mat and read and re-read them, till, ere morning dawned, I had them, I am sure, all by heart. The first thing I did, after this sleepless night, was to write a few lines of acknowledgment to Mr. Sabine, and by sunrise I was again seated in the boat, on my return up the river, and with new spirits resumed my employ- ment of botanizing during the frequent portages that we made, previous to arriving at Walla- wallah on Saturday. Thence, on Monday, the 17th, I accompanied Messrs. Wark and McDonald, who were going by water, with a party of twenty-eight men, to the forks of Lewis and Clarke's River, about one hundred and fifty miles from the Columbia, and as the marches these gentlemen pro- posed to make would be short, I hoped to obtain most of the plants which grow on the banks of this stream. Tuesday, /<S'M, to Monday, 24th. Lewis and Clarke's River is a stream of considerable magnitude, in many places from two hundred and fifty to three hundred yards broad, very deep and rapid ; its general course is easterly [westerly?]. At twenty-five miles from its junction with the Columbia, the country near its banks changes from undulating and barren to lofty, rugged mountains, and not a blade of grass can be seen, except in the valleys and near springs, where a little vegetation survives the intense heat. We rose always at daybreak, and camped at 3 or 4 i. M., during which [?] interval, the thermometer commonly standing in the shade at 108 degrees of Fahrenheit, it was danger- ous to attempt traveling, unsheltered as we were by any