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/202

 This was a horrible situation; and the state of our canoe prevented us from proceeding to the main land; so that we had no alternative but, seated on fallen trees and covered with our blankets, to pass the night in water up to our ancles. About midnight it commenced snowing, which continued until morning. I thought of my preceding Christmas off Cape Horn, and was puzzled to decide which was the most enviable,—a tempestuous storm in the high southern latitudes, after losing a couple of men—or a half-inundated island, without fire, at the foot of the rocky mountains covered with sheets of snow. In my slumbers I imagined I was sitting, at my father's table surrounded by the smiling, domestic group, all anxious to partake of a smoking sirloin, and a richly dotted plumb-*pudding, while the juvenile members recounted, to each other with triumphant joy the amount of their Christmas boxes; but, alas!

Sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

The 26th opened on us with snow-clad mountains and forests. With much difficulty we succeeded in patching our battered canoe sufficiently tight to bring us to terra firma, where we struck up a fire of pine, spruce, and cedar, that would have