back on the first which is about half a mile from the river, and the pleasentest place you ever see. The Hudson Bay Com. claim[1] 30 miles square, and have petitions Congress to give it to them. The man that votes for any such petition, or bill, I hope will be kicked home, and kick after he gets home by every one of his constituants, and then if the President signs any such bill, I hope Congres, or that pers[on] that does know anything, will convict him for fanaticism, and send him home.
When I discribe places hereafter I will state the directions. I do not know of anything now that I have written about but what you can get a correct idea about, unless it is the directions of the rivers &c, and I think if you will get a good map you will sea it all plain before you. The Willamette runs near direct North from here to the Columbia, and the Columbia nearly the same directions until it reaches the Cowlectz, and then turns more west. There has been a survey[2] made this last winter of the coast of Oregon and Washington Teretories, and it is now printed, and if I can rais money enough, any time to get one, I will do so and send it to you, it embraces all of the country west of the Cascade Mountains and will give you a good idea of the country, with a little explanation.
About this country's looking better than it really is, is not exactly what I had supposed, for the country about here certainly has no beauty about it, for there is not grass enough here to keep a grasshopper alive over two weeks, but last Monday I was in a place where we could cut two tons of wild oats on the acre, and where they were up to my shoulders, but where the timber grows thick, you need not look for grass, but the country looks very pleasant to me, so much so that I have no wish to go back, for one of your good strong N.W. winds is worse than all the wind we have had here put together. . .
But of all the poor mean miserable good for nothing country,
that ever lay out of doors is the country that lies betwene the
- ↑ A controversy in which the Catholic church, the Hudson's Bay Company and the United States were involved as claimants of 640 acres of land; see Report of Isaac N. Ebey to Governor Stevens in 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Document 37, 1855.)
- ↑ Probably the United States coast survey under George Davidson.
