Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/312

306 Ranunculus: a new Phlox, and a few Mosses. The disparity of climate between this point and the coast is very striking, though the difference of latitude be only 3°, and of longitude 6°. There, in the middle of March, many plants were in bloom; while here last night we had a new fall of snow of some depth, and the ground is still speckled with old snow.

I proceed to give you a short sketch of my intended movements this year.

As soon as the season permits, which I trust will be in a few days. I shall leave this spot for the northward, travelling sometimes in canoes, or on horseback, but far more generally on foot. The country is mountainous and very rugged, the rivers numerous, and there are not a few lakes of considerable extent. Perhaps I shall cross Mackenzie's track, at Fraser's River (called the Columbia by that great traveller) in about long. 122° West, and proceed northward among the mountains, as far as I can do so with safety, and with the prospect of effecting a return. The country is certainly frightful; nothing but prodigious mountains to be seen: not a deer comes, say the Indians, save once in a hundred years the poor natives subsist on a few roots. My outfit is five pounds of tea, and the same quantity of coffee, twenty-five pounds of sugar, fifteen pounds of rice, and fifty pounds of biscuit: a gallon of wine, ten pounds of powder and as much of balls, a little shot, a small silk fishing-net, and some angling tackle, a tent, two blankets, two cotton and two flannel shirts, a handkerchief, vest, coat, and a pair of deer-skin trousers (not those kindly presented to me by Dr. Gillies, which, by repeated exposure to rain, shrunk so much that I was reluctantly obliged to give them away), two pairs of shoes, one of stockings, twelve pairs of moccasins, and a straw hat. These constitute the whole of my personal effects; also a ream and a half of paper, and instruments of various kinds; my faithful servants, several Indians, ten or twelve horses, and my old terrier, a most faithful and now, to judge from his long grey board, venerable friend, who has guarded me throughout all my journies, and whom, should I live to return, I mean certainly to pension off on four pennyworth of cat'smeat per day.

I am most anxious that you should know what I see and do on this important journey, and as it may so turn out that I shall never have the pleasure of meeting you more, I intend, God willing, to commence writing a little to you on the very first evening of my journey, which is fixed for the 18th, and continue thus to condense, from time to time, the substance of my notes, putting down whatever may appear most important and interesting to me.

Fever still clings to the native tribes with great obstinacy, and not a few of the people of the Hudson's Bay Company have suffered very severely from it. Only three individuals out of one hundred and forty