Astoria had been able to hold their own against the natives, and the great expedition across the continent might perhaps end in the death of all concerned.
Early in February, after great sufferings from hunger and fatigue, canoes were at last obtained from some Indians, and, embarking on the Lewis fork of the Columbia, the Canadians rapidly shot down the river of so many memories to Astoria, where they arrived in safety, haggard, half-starved, and in rags, after a journey which occupied nearly eighteen months.
That the establishment at Astoria never flourished, as its founder hoped, is a well-known fact; but the heroic efforts made by the members of the two expeditions to carry out their instructions did much to pave the way for the colonization and civilization of the beautiful states of Oregon and Washington; and the numerous journeys, undertaken by Hunt, Mackenzie, and others among the various chains of the Rocky Mountains, though their main object was trade, justly entitle them to rank as pioneers of geographical discovery. To them, too, the United States Government, though scarcely our own, owes a debt of gratitude, their early occupation of Astoria having been a main point in the American claim to the Oregon territory, which at one time seemed likely to have become the property of Great Britain.
