Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/125

 extreme left, Cape Disappointment, with the bar and its terrific chain of breakers, were distinctly visible.

The buildings consisted of apartments for the proprietors and clerks, with a capacious dining-hall for both, extensive warehouses for the trading goods and furs, a provision store, a trading shop, smith's forge, carpenter's workshop, &c. The whole surrounded by stockades forming a square, and reaching about fifteen feet over the ground. A gallery ran round the stockades, in which loop-holes were pierced sufficiently large for musketry. Two strong bastions built of logs commanded the four sides of the square: each bastion had two stories, in which a number of chosen men slept every night. A six-pounder was placed in the lower story, and they were both well provided with small arms.

Immediately in front of the fort was a gentle declivity sloping down to the river's side, which had been turned into an excellent kitchen garden; and a few hundred yards to the left, a tolerable wharf had been run out, by which bateaux and boats were enabled at low water to land their cargoes without sustaining any damage. An impenetrable forest of gigantic pine rose in the rear; and the ground was covered with a