138 T. C. ELLIOTT
had been begun the preceding April. Of all the men ever on the River probably no one ever had more experience with canoe travel than David Thompson and his description of these Dalles is therefore interesting: "I have already mentioned the Dalles of the Saleesh and Spokane Rivers; these Dalles (of the Co- lumbia) were of the same formation, steep high walls of Basalt Rock, with sudden sharp breaks in them, which were at right angles to the direction of the wall of the River, these breaks formed rude bays, under each point was a violent eddy, and each bay a powerful, dangerous whirlpool ; these walls of rock contract the River from eight hundred to one thousand yards in width to sixty yards or less ; imagination can hardly form an idea of the working of this immense body of water under such a compression, raging and hissing as if alive."
Lewis and Clark and David Thompson were the discoverers and explorers of this Portage and have left valuable scientific record of their visits here.
The shipment of freight across The Dalles-Celilo Portage was N begun on the 2nd day of August, 1811, and consisted of fifteen or twenty packages of trading goods, ninety pounds to the package, belonging to the Pacific Fur Company of New York, of which John Jacob Astor was the controlling partner. These goods were being taken up the River for use at the first trading post ever established in the Inland Empire by American capital, namely Fort Okanogan. The party was in charge of David Stuart, a trader of wide experience, and included three clerks, Alex. Ross, Francis Pillet and Donald McLennan, four Canadian voyageurs and one Sandwich Islander, traveling in two heavy Chinook canoes. There were also in their company, for protection, but in another canoe, two Indian women mas- querading in men's apparel, who had been visiting at the mouth of the River and were returning to their own tribe. That this small party escaped without serious losses at the hands of the "chivalry of Wishram" speaks well for the tact and bravery of Mr. Stuart, for nearly three days were consumed carrying goods and canoes over six miles of these sands and
