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/35

 damage. The bulwarks were completely washed away; the head carried off; the mainmast and bowsprit sprung; and the foresail, which was the only one set, was blown to a thousand shivers. We shipped several heavy seas in the cabin, and for some time all our trunks were floating. The violence of the storm however moderated on the 20th, and enabled us once more to bring the vessel under control: had it continued twelve hours longer, we should inevitably have been dashed to pieces on the iron-*bound shores of Terra del Fuego; for, at the period the hurricane broke, we were not twenty-five leagues from shore; and owing to the unmanageable state of the vessel, the wind was driving us with unopposed force in that direction. The billows made sad havock among the remainder of our live stock. The sheep, poultry, and most of our hogs, were carried away; and a few only of the last, fortunately for us, escaped drowning, to die by the hands of the butcher.

On the 27th a young man named Henry Willets, who had been engaged as a hunter in the Company's service, died of the black scurvy, a disease which it is supposed he had contracted previous to his embarkation, as no other person on board had any scorbutic affection. As many