Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/377

 JOURNAL AND LKTTKRS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. 367 caution to lift out my paper, plants, seeds, and blanket, and was carrying these along the shore, when a surge struck the canoe in the middle of the rapid, and swept every article out of it except the dried meat, which had fortunately got wedged into the narrow place at the bot- tom. The loss of the tea and sugar and the pot was a great one in my present situation, but still I deemed my- self happy in having saved the papers and seeds, though my collection of insects and my pistol were also gone. As I have described the appearance of this part of the Col- umbia on my ascent, I shall say but little of my return. The passage of the Stony Islands, which is considered a dangerous place, was facilitated by hiring an Indian who lived close by, and was better acquainted with this narrow channel (only twenty to thirty feet wide and excessively rapid) than my guide, and who thought himself well paid with a few crumbs of tobacco, and a smoke out of my own pipe. Two days after, having quitted the canoe, near the Priest's Rapid, and walked several miles along the shore, while my two Indians should accomplish this dillicult piece of navigation, I waited some time for their arrival, and feeling alarmed for their safety, returned a good way to look for them, when I found them seated comfortably on the shore, under a small cove, and treat- ing their friends to a share of the tobacco I had given them. At Walla-wallah I was too weak and reduced to partake of the fare which Mr. Black, the person in charge, kindly set before me, but only begging him to procure me a guide to convey me to the Great Falls, lay down on a heap of firewood, to be free from mosquitoes, and slept till morning. I paid my former guide with ten charges of ammunition, and gave him some tobacco (that univer- sal currency) to buy his provisions on the way home ; then taking a larger canoe, and two guides, set off on the morning of Saturday, the 20th, for Fort Vancouver. I