of perpendicular rocks, presenting innumerable crags, fissures and cliffs, through which the Columbia leaps with irresistible impetuosity, {215} forming, as it dashes along, frightful whirlpools, where every passing object is swallowed and disappears. By means of two long ropes we dropped down our boat through the Dalle, and encamped for the night at its outlet.
On the 11th we continued our route at early dawn—the mountain scenery was hidden from our view wrapped up in dense mist and fog, which were seen ascending in dense pillars, adding to the forming clouds above, till the whole sky was overcast. Occasionally, as if to break upon the unusual monotony, would a fallow or reindeer be observed on the margin of the stream, or peeping with uplifted ears from a thicket, as the strange sound of oars, or the Canadian song, came stealing louder and louder upon them in their quiet abode:—off they bounded, affrighted at the sight of men, so hateful, it appears, to the wild and timid creatures of the forest. In the evening we encamped at the entrance of the Upper Lake.
This beautiful sheet of crystalline water, whilst the rising sun was tinting the tops of a thousand hills around, came most refreshing to the eye. It is about thirty miles long, by four or five wide. Its borders are embellished by overhanging precipices and majestic peaks, {216} which, rearing their white heads above the clouds, look down like venerable monarchs of the desert upon the great forests of pines and cedar surrounding the lake. The two highest peaks are called St. Peter and St. Paul.
Twenty Indian families, belonging to the station of St. Peter, were found encamped on the borders of the lake.
- [Footnote: Columbia. Probably they took their name from the sad fate of a party who turned
back from Boat Encampment in 1817. See Ross Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River (New York, 1832), p. 245.—Ed.]
