CHAPTER I.

A Reminiscence-A Spectacle-Oregon-Landward and Seaward-The Great South Sea-Magic Palace-Taking in Studding-sails-CavernsStorm in Full Blast-Professor of Psalmody-Fur Hunter-A British Tar-An Author-A Seaboat-A Corkscrew-A Flagon-A Conversation about Life in the Northwest-Its Dogs-Logs-Food-SurfaceLords of the North-Frozen Mountains-Moss-Flowers-Potatoes, Oats and Barley—Indian Wives and Sheep-The Arctic Shore-Suicide of a Brave Man-A Solo-Eel Pond-Ghost in the Shrouds-Tumult in Upper and Lower Ocean-Minor Key-War-cry-Special PleadingThe Sea-Wine and Song-To Bed.

In a work entitled "Travels in the Great Western Prairies," &c., to which the following pages are a sequel, I left my readers off the mouth of Columbia river, in sight of the green coast of Oregon. Lower Oregon! A verdant belt of wild loveliness!-A great park of flowering shrubs, of forest pines, and clear streams! The old unchanged home of the Indian; where he has hunted the moose and deer; drawn the trout from the lake, and danced, sung, loved, and warred away a thousand generations. I cannot desire for myself any remembrances of the Past which shall bring me more genuine wealth of pleasurable emotions than those which came to me from that fourth sunset of December, 1840, when I was leaning over the bulwarks of the ship Vancouver, looking back on Oregon, and seaward over the great Pacific! A spectacle of true grandeur! The cones of eternal snow which dot the green heights of the President's range of mountains, rose on the dark outline of the distant land, and

hung glittering on the sky, like islands of precious stones; so brightly did they shine in the setting sun, and so completely did the soft clouds around their bases seem to separate them from the world below!

The shores of Lower Oregon! They rise so boldly from the sea! Themselves mountains sparsely clad with lofty pines, spruce and cedar trees, nodding over the deep!

And then the ground under water! No flats, no mudbanks there. The cliffs are piled up from the bottom of the ocean! The old Pacific, with his dark depths, lies within one hundred yards of them! And the surges that run in from the fury of the tempests, roll with unbroken force to the towering rocks, and breaking with all their momentum at once, making the land tremble, and send far seaward a mighty chorus to the shouting storm!

The Pacific! the Great South Sea! It was heaving at our bows! steadily, wave on wave came and went and follow. ing each other in ceaseless march pressed onward; like the world's hosts in marshalled files, they hastened past us, as if intent to reach the solid shores, where some resistance would broach their hidden strength and pour their fury out!

Behold, the sea! Its troubled wastes are bending and toppling with a wild, plashing, friendly sound; a deep, blue, uncertain vastness; itself cold and passive; but under the lash of the tempest, full of terrific life! Our ship stood staunch upon the palpitating mass, and seemed to love it.

Mizen and mizen-top, main and main-top, fore and foretopsails, and the lower weather studding-sails were out. The breeze from the land which had carried us over the bar still held, every thread of canvass drew, every cord was tight, and as we looked up through the rigging to the sky, the sails, cordage and masts swayed under the clouds like the roofing of some magic palace of olden tales. All hands were on deck; both watches sat about the windlass; while the second officer and mate looked at the horizon over the weather-bow, and pointed out a line of clouds crowding ominously up the

southwestern sky. The captain stood upon the companionway, looking at the barometer. In a little time officers and passengers gathered in a knot on the larboard-quarter.

"Iken there's a storm comin' up frae the soo'est," said the Scotch mate.

"The clouds loom fast, sır, in that quarter," said Mr. Newell, the American second-mate. "I reckon it will be upon us soon."

Captain Duncan needed no information in regard to the weather on these shores. He was everywhere an accomplished seaman. On the quarter-deck-with his quadrant—on the spars-and at the halyards; but especially in that prophetic knowledge of the weather, which gives the sons of Neptune their control over the elements, he had no superiors.

"Take in the studding-sails and make all fast on deck," is the order, issued with quietness and obeyed with alacrity. Water casks, long-boat, and caboose are lashed, ropes coiled up and hung on the pins in the bulwarks, and the hatches put down in storm rig. The wind before which we were running abated, and the horizon along the line of departing light began to lift a rough undulating edge.

"Take in the mainsail!" "Go aloft and take a reef in the maintop!" "In with the fore-main, and let the trysail run!" followed each other in haste, as the sailors moved to the cheering music of their songs in the work of preparing the ship to wrestle with a south wester. Everything being made snug, we waited its coming.

The rough water which appeared a mere speck when the wind came upon the circle of vision, had widened till its extreme points lay over the bows. On it came, widening and elevating itself more and more! The billows had previously been smooth, or at least ruffled sufficient only to give their gently heaving sides a furzy aspect, while the tops occasionally rose in transparent combs, which immediatciy crumbled by their own weight into foam down their leeward acclivities. But now a stronger spirit had laid his arm on these ocean

coursers. The wind came on, steadily increasing its might from moment to moment! At first it tore the tops of the waves into ragged lines, then rent the whole surface into fragments of every conceivable form, which rose, appeared and vanished, with the rapidity of thought, dancing like sprites among the lurid moving caverns of the sea! A struggling vastness! constantly broken by the flail of the tempest, and as often reunited, to be cleft still farther by a redoubled blast.

sons.

The darkness thickened as the storm increased; and when the lanthorn was lighted in the binnacle, and the nightwatch set, the captain and passengers went below to their wine and anecdotes. Our company consisted of four per-. One was a singing-master from Connecticut, Texas, New Orleans, and St. Louis. He was such an animal as one would wish to find if he were making up a human menagerie; so positive was he of step, so lofty in the neck, and dignified in the absurd blunders wherewith he perpetually corrected the opinions and assertions of others.

Another was a Mr. Simpson, a young Scotchman of respectable family, a clerk in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. This was a fine fellow, twenty-five years of age, full of energy and good feeling, well-informed on general topics, and like most other British subjects abroad, troubled with an irrepressible anxiety at the growing power of the States, and an overwhelming loyalty toward the mother-country and its Sovereign skirts. The other personages were the commander, Duncan, and the author.

The Captain was an old British tar, with a heart full of generosity for his friends, and a fist full of bones for his enemies. A glass of cheer with a messmate, and a rope's end for a disobedient sailor, were with him impromptu productions, for which he had capacity and judgment; a hearty, five foot nine inch, burly, stout-chested Englishman, whom it was always pleasant to see and hear.

This little company gathered around the cabin table, and all as one listened a moment to the beatings of the tempest.

A surge-another-and a third still heavier, beat upon the noble ship and sent a thrill through every timber. On they rolled, and dashed, and groaned. But her iron heart only seemed to gather strength from the conflict, and inspire us with a feeling of perfect safety.

"A fine sea-boat is the Vancouver, gentlemen," said Captain Duncan," she rides the storm like a petrel :" and with this comfortable assurance we seated ourselves at the table.

I had nearly forgotten Tom, the cabin-boy; a mere mouse of a lad; who knew the rock of a ship and the turn of a corkscrew as well as any one; and as he was spry, had a short name, a quick ear, and bore the keys to the sideboard and some things elsewhere, all well-bred stomachs would not fail to blast my quill, If I omitted to write his name and draw his portrait.

Well, Tom was one of those sons of old England, who are born to the inheritance of poverty, and a brave heart for the seas. Like many thousand children of the Fatherland, when the soil refused him bread, he was apprenticed for the term of seven years to seamanship. And there he was, an English sailor-boy, submitting to the most rigorous discipline, serving the first part of his time in learning to keep his cabin in order, and wait at the table, that when, as he was taught to expect, he should have a ship of his own, he might know how to be served like a gentleman. This part of his apprenticeship he performed admirably. And when he shall leave the cork-screw and the locker for the quarter-deck, I doubt not he will scream at a storm, and utter his commands with sufficient imperiousness to entitle him to have a Tom of his own. "Tom," said Captain Duncan, "bring out a flagon of Jamaica, and set on the glasses, lad. This storm, gentlemen, calls for cheers. When Neptune labors at this pace, he loves his dram. Fill gentlemen, to absent wives." This compliment to the sacred ascendency of the domestic affections was timely given. The storm howled hideously for our lives, our families were far distant over seas and moun