in height. A few shrubs (as the small willow, the sumac, and furze), appear in distant and solitary {230} groups. There are no trees; generally nothing green; a mere brown drifting desert; as far as the Oakanagan River, two hundred and eight miles, a plain, the monotonous desolation of which is relieved only by the noble river running through it, and an occasional cliff of volcanic rocks bursting through its arid surface.
The river Oakanagan is a large, fine stream, originating in a large lake of the same name situate in the mountains, about one hundred miles north of its mouth. The soil in the neighbourhood of this stream is generally worthless. Near its union, however, with the Columbia, there are a number of small plains tolerably well clothed with the wild grasses; and near its lake are found hills covered with small timber. On the point of land between this stream and the Columbia, the Pacific Fur Company in 1811 established a trading post. This in 1814 passed by purchase into the hands of the North-West Fur Company of Canada, and in 1819 by the union of that body with the Hudson Bay Company, passed into the possession of the united company under the name of Hudson Bay Company. It is still occupied by them under its old name of Fort Oakanagan.[38]
{231} From this post, latitude forty-eight degrees six minutes, and longitude one hundred and seventeen degrees west, along the Columbia to the Spokan, the country is as devoid of wood as that below. The banks of the river are bold and rocky, the stream is contracted with narrow
