Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/309

Rh tion of the Sandwich Islands, as I am sure much remains to be done there, and before quitting that country, I made conditional arrangements with Captain Charlton, our Consul, to aid me, should I return. This I shall earnestly endeavor to do. The Consul is a most amiable and excellent man. In Ferns alone, I think there must be five hundred species.

I will trouble you to offer my kind regards to my old friends, Mr. Murray and Dr. Scouler, and say to the latter that I have a tolerable collection of bones for him, but as I thought he would himself enjoy the job of cleansing them, I have only cut away the more fleshy parts, by which means, too, they hang better together. They consist of a Sea Otter, entire; Wolves, Foxes, Deer, a Panther's head, etc. I shall send them by the earliest opportunity. You may also tell him that human heads are now plentiful in the Columbia, a dreadful intermittent fever having depopulated the neighborhood of the river; not twelve grown-up persons remain of those whom we saw when he and I were here together in 1825.

The following was a sort of postscript to the above letter, but addressed to a young member of my family, who often had listened with delight to Mr. Douglas' well-told tales of his previous adventures in North-West America, and had caught something of the spirit of adventure from the narrator:

"Your kind letter, dated just two years ago, gives me great satisfaction, as containing good accounts of the health and prosperity of yourself, brothers, sisters, and parents. Mr. Klotzsch's method of preserving Fungi, as you detail it to me, appears very excellent ; that of scooping out the inside would, however, suit me better than the plan of boiling in tallow or grease till they are saturated; for, to tell you the truth, my dear young friend, such persons as myself, in a place like North-West America, commonly fry the Fungi in a little fat, if butter can not be had, and then eat mushrooms, tallow, and all together! But I will follow your and Mr. Klotzsch's plan when I have it in my power.

"Your description of the late excursions to Ben Lomond and Killin delights me highly. I only wish I could have been one of the party, whether to fish, shoot, or botanize. By this time I trust you are almost another Izaak Walton, whose book you should study diligently, if ever you would become a worthy brother of the angle. In California I had fine sport, both at fishing and hunting; the former principally sea-fish, as those of the river are few and small. This mighty stream (the Columbia) is incomparably the noblest in the world for Salmon, Trout, or Sturgeon, whether for quality or abundance. But in the Sandwich Islands, my dear boy, the natives domesticate their fish!