Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/195

 SLACUM'S REPORT ON OREGON, 1836-7 187 and cotton handkerchiefs; tea,, sugar, coffee, and cocoa; to- bacco, soap, beads, guns, powder, lead, rum, playing cards, boots, shoes, ready-made clothing, &c., &c. ; besides every description of sea stores, canvass [Sic], cordage, paints, oils, chains and chain cable, anchors, &c., to refit the company's ships that remain on the coast. These are the ship Nereide, the brig Llama, the schooner Cadborough, and sloop Broughton; the steamboat Beaver, of 150 tons, two engines of thirty horse power each, built in London last year. These vessels are all well armed and manned; the crews are engaged in England, to serve five years, at 2 per month for seamen. The London ship, with the annual supply, usually arrives in the Columbia in early spring, discharges, and takes a cargo of lumber to the Sandwich islands; returns in August to receive the furs that are brought to the depot (Fort Vancouver) once a year, from the interior, via the Columbia river, from the Snake country, and from the American rendezvous west of the Rocky moun- tains, and from as far south as St. Francisco, in California. Whilst one of the, company's vessels brings in the collections of furs and peltries made at the different depots along the coast at the north, (see map,) the steamboat is now being employed in navigating those magnificent straights from Juan de Fuca to Stickeen. Immense quantities of furs, sea otter, beaver, martin and sable can be collected along the shores of these bays and inlets. The chief traders at Nasquallah, in 47 30', Fort Langley, in 49 50', Fort McLaughlin, in 52 10', Fort Simpson, in 54 40' north purchase all the furs and peltries from the Indians in their vicinity and as far as New Caledonia in the interior, and supply them with guns, powder, lead, tobacco, beads, &c. ; all of which supplies are taken from the principal depot at Fort Vancouver. An express, as it is called, goes out in March, annually, from Vancouver, and ascends the Columbia 900 miles in batteaux. One of the chief factors or chief traders, takes charge of the property, and conveys to York factory, on Hudson's bay, the annual returns of the business conducted by the Hudson Bay Company west of the Rocky mountains, in the Columbia dis-