and kegs were placed in each vessel, and the whole was covered by an oil-cloth or tarpaulin, to preserve them from wet. Each canoe and barge had from six to eight men rowing or paddling, independent of the passengers.
The Columbia is a noble river, uninterrupted by rapids for one hundred and seventy miles; one hundred of which are navigable for vessels of three hundred tons. It is seldom less than a mile wide; but in some places its breadth varies from two to five miles. The shores are generally bold and thickly wooded. Pine in all its varieties predominates, and is mixed with white oak, ash, beech, poplar, alder, crab, and cotton wood, with an undergrowth of briers, &c., through which our hunters made many ineffectual attempts to pass. The navigation is often obstructed by sand-banks, which are scattered over different parts of the river below the rapids, and are dry at low water. In the neighbourhood of these sand-banks the shores are generally low, and present some fine flat bottoms of rich meadow ground, bordered by a profusion of blackberry and other wild fruit shrubs: in the deep and narrow parts of the channel, the shores are bolder. The river, up to the rapids, is covered with several islands, from one to three
