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/132

 arrangements having been perfected, we took our departure from Astoria for the interior. Our party consisted of three proprietors, nine clerks, fifty-five Canadians, twenty Sandwich islanders, and Messrs. Crooks, McClellan, and R. Stuart, who, with eight men, were to proceed with dispatches to St. Louis. Messrs. Hunt, M'Dougall, Clapp, Halsey, and Franchere, remained at the fort. The Beaver had previously sailed for Canton, whence it was intended she should return to New York.

We travelled in bateaux and light-built wooden canoes: the former had eight, and the latter six men. Our lading consisted of guns and ammunition, spears, hatchets, knives, beaver traps, copper and brass kettles, white and green blankets, blue, green, and red cloths, calicoes, beads, rings, thimbles, hawk-bells, &c.; and our provisions of beef, pork, flour, rice, biscuits, tea, sugar, with a moderate quantity of rum, wine, &c.: the soft and hard goods were secured in bales and boxes, and the liquids in kegs, holding on an average nine gallons: the guns were stowed in long cases. From thirty to forty of these packages