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356

T. C. ELLIOTT

the savages may tell the truth, for it is not natural that, in sc vast an extent, there should not be a great river ; and it seems that the river, of which the savages speak, discharges into the Southern sea. We know the rivers indicated on the Sieur d Tlsle's map and according to the course that the savages give to the river of the West, it flows to the entrance recently discovered by Martin Daguilar, where we know of no other river above or to the north.

I have the honor to be with very profound respect, Monseig j neur, Your very humble and very obedient Servant,

Beauharnois. Quebec, October 15th, 1730.

The map makers, prior to and during Captain Carver's time, had not progressed farther than mere speculation as to streams in the region westward, from the Red River of the North to the Rocky mountains. The name Riviere or Fleuve d'Ouest appears marked against any stream that was traced through or in that region, even upon some we now at once recognize as parts of the Missouri River. Their guesses were based upon Indian tales and the brief and difficult notes of Verendrye's (1742-44) and the reports of priests who mingled with the Indians on the Assiniboine and tributaries of the Mississippi rivers. There was no regular habit of land travel across the plains between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers then, and the courses of the Saskatchewan to the north were known much earlier than those of the Missouri. There were half a dozen maps available before 1766, showing tracings of a River of the West, and others showing the Bourbon River, and it is within reason to suppose that Captain Carver saw some of those maps even before starting for the West, particularly so if going upon any such enterprise as he outlined in the introduc- tion to his book of Travels. The two maps appearing in that book were not prepared until 1776-77 in London, and on only one of them does the name Oregon appear, written "Heads of