Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/372

 362 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. some years, and, as I have a collection of seeds ready to go, amounting to one hundred and twenty species, gleaned this year, I am very desirous of sending everything that I can muster by her. By some means or other I must endeavour to reach the ocean, carrying my collection to be despatched homeward. I therefore packed up a share of my paper and seeds, with what little linen I could spare, intending to leave the box at this place, whence it will be forwarded across the Rocky Mountains to Fort Edmonton, where I hope to find it early in June. Mr. Dease kindly took the trouble of speaking to the Little Wolf, a chief of the Oakanagan tribe of Indians, to con- duct me to Oakanagan, as the Columbia is now so full of rapids, cascades, and whirlpools, that I could not proceed by a canoe, unless I had six or eight men to manage it; nor is there, indeed, any boat here large enough for the purpose. 17th. Packed a bundle of dry plants in my trunk, among my little stock of clothing, consisting of a single shirt, one pair of stockings, a nightcap, and a pair of old mitts, together with an Indian bag of curious workman- ship, made of Indian Hemp, a species of Apocynum, He- lonias tenax, and Eagle's quills, used for carrying roots and other such articles. A party of twenty-one men and two females arrived, belonging to the Cootanie tribe, whose lands lie near the source of the Columbia, for the purpose of fishing. Between these and the tribes on the Colum- bia lakes, about sixty miles above this place, who are now similarly engaged at the Falls, an old quarrel exists, which causes much uneasiness to Mr. Dease and all our people. The parties met to-day stark naked, at our camp, painted, some red, some black, others white and yellow, all with their bows strung, while those who had guns and ammu- nition, brought their weapons charged and cocked. War caps, made of the Calumet Eagle's feathers, were the only