when nearer, extends like an immense concreted cascade, its undulating surface resembling a body of water suddenly checked or indurated in its rapid course.
The first lake of the Columbia is two miles and a half distant from the River des Arcs-a-plats, and receives a portion of its waters during the great spring freshet. They are separated by a bottom land.[109] The advantages Nature seems to have bestowed on the source of the Columbia, will render its geographical position very important at some future day. The magic hand of civilized man would transform it into a terrestrial paradise.
The Canadian! Into what part of the desert has he not penetrated? The monarch who rules at the source of the Columbia is an honest emigrant {134} from St. Martin, in the district of Montreal, who has resided for twenty-six years in this desert. The skins of the rein and moose deer are the materials of which his portable palace is composed; and to use his own expressions, he EMBARKS on horseback with his wife and seven children, and LANDS wherever he pleases. Here, no one disputes his right, and Polk and Peel, who are now contending for the possession of his dominions, are as unknown to our carbineer, as the two greatest powers of the moon. His sceptre is a beaver trap—his law a carbine—the one on his back, the other on his arm, he reviews his numerous furry subjects the beaver, otter, muskrat, marten, fox, bear, wolf, sheep, and white goat of the mountains, the black-tailed roe-buck, as well as its red-tailed relative, the stag, the rein and moose deer; some of which respect
