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/263



the Indians at Oakinagan Lake, and robbed of a number of his horses. The natives in that quarter seem to entertain no great friendship for us, as this is not their first attempt to trespass on our good-nature. My two Canadians were out hunting at the period of the robbery; and the whole of my household troops merely consisted of Bonaparte! Washington!! and Cesar!!! Great names, you will say; but I must confess, that much as I think of the two great moderns, and highly as I respect the memory of the immortal Julius, among these thieving scoundrels 'a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.' The snow is between two and three feet deep, and my trio of Owhyee generals find a sensible difference between such hyperborean weather and the pleasing sun-shine of their own tropical paradise. Poor fellows! They are not adapted for these latitudes, and I heartily wish they were at home in their own sweet islands, and sporting in the 'blue summer ocean,' that surrounds them.

"I have not as yet made a pack of beaver. The lazy Indians won't work; and as for the emperor, president, and dictator, they know as much about trapping as the monks of La Trappe.