THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 139
rocks, and there were Indians to the right of them, Indians to the left of them, and Indians in front of them Mr. Ross tells us in his account of the journey.
Connected with the fur trade was the first mail route across the continent (Latin America excepted). Beginning with 1813 annually in March the "Express" (so called) from Fort George or Vancouver crossed this Portage en route via the Athabasca Pass to the Red River settlement, Fort William and Montreal. In October it returned bringing letters from Montreal, Boston, New York, and England. This "Express" was used by the early settlers in Oregon before the establishment of other reg- ular means of communication.
The first attempt to carry letters across this Portage was in April, 1812, when John Reed, an Irishman belonging to the Pacific Fur Company, started across the continent to New York with dispatches to Mr. Astor, announcing the arrival of all of his party at Astoria. For preservation Reed carried these letters in a tin box, and the glistening tin was too great a temptation to the Indians. He was knocked down and the tin box stolen, together with his rifle and other equipment. The following year Donald MacKenzie, one of the most audac- ious fur traders ever on the River, boldly entered one of their lodges in an attempt to recover the rifle. The account of these events and much else of interest regarding the Falls and the "Narrows" and the Indians residing here will be found in Washington Irving's book entitled "Astoria."
In 1811 there had already been trade on the upper waters of the Columbia for four years but from far away Fort William on Lake Superior as a base. But with this first shipment of goods to the Interior began the period of the fur trade in the Columbia River Basin from Fort Astoria, and later from Fort Vancouver as a base. The extent of this trade in terms of tonnage or pounds sterling it is not the province of this narra- tive to compute, but measured in the passage of time it con- tinued to cross this Portage (though in diminishing volume after 1840) until the Indian Wars of 1855-6. The trade
