These are all small settlements, surrounded by palisades, with bastions at their corners, enclosing the houses and stores of the Company, sufficient to protect them against the Indians, but in no way to be considered as forts. A few Indians reside near them, who are dependant for their food and employment on them.
These forts being situated for the most part near the great fisheries, are frequented by the Indians, who bring their furs to trade for blankets, &c., at the same time they come to lay in their yearly supply of salmon.
Vancouver is the principal depot from which all supplies are furnished, and to which returns are made.
At Vancouver, the village is separated from the fort, and nearer the river. In addition to its being the depot of the Hudson's Bay Company, there is now attached to it the largest farm of the Puget Sound Company, the stockholders of which are generally the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. They have now {308} farms in successful operation at Vancouver, Cowelitz, Nisqually, Colville, Fort Langley, and the Tualatine plains, about ten miles from Vancouver, all of which are well stocked, and supply the Russian post at Sitka, under contract, with a variety of articles raised on them. They have introduced large herds and flocks into the territory from California, and during our stay there several thousand head were imported.[111] They are thus doing incal-*
- [Footnote: chief Lawyer a grammar and dictionary of the Nez Percé language. The hostility
of the tribe did not, however, materially abate; the missionaries were denied the right of agriculture and the station was finally abandoned. Lewis and Clark camped near the site of this mission in 1806, on their return journey.—Ed.]*
