and five hundred in breadth, and containing 375,000 square miles.
There appears no reason to doubt of the Spaniards having been the first to visit this country.[1] The documents we possess, and the tradition of the natives, concur to render this opinion incontestible. According to them a vessel made its appearance south of the Columbia river before 1792, and there is still living among them a woman whose father was one of the crew attached to the vessel, and whose mother belonged to the tribe of the Kilamukes.[2] When we add to this that crucifixes have been {15} found in their hands transmitted to them from their ancestors, that the island of Vancouver still exhibits the ruins of colonial habitations, that the strait which separates it from the mainland bears the name of Juan Fuca, and that the country itself is contiguous to California, where the Spanish missionaries had penetrated nearly two hundred years before, we cannot but look upon the Spaniards as the discoverers of Oregon.
After the voyage of Captain Cook in 1790, by which it was ascertained that the sea along the N. W. coast of America abounded in otters, this region was visited by vessels from almost every part of the world. The people of the United States were not behind others in enterprise; in 1792, Captain Gray sailed up an unknown river of that country, to the distance of eighteen miles, and the stream has since retained the name of Columbia, from the ship which he commanded. In leaving the river, Captain Gray passed the vessel of Captain Vancouver, who also
- ↑ For the early Spanish explorations of the Northwest Coast see Farnham's Travels in our volume xxviii, pp. 30-32, including notes 3-9.—Ed.
- ↑ Compare with this Franchère's Narrative in our volume vi, pp. 248, 249; see also H. S. Lyman, History of Oregon (New York, 1903), i, pp. 167-174, where the traditions of descendants from early castaways are collected. The Tillamook (Kilamuke) Indians are noted in our volume vi, p. 258, note 67.—Ed.
