The Wallamitte quarter has always been considered by the whites as the garden of the Columbia, particularly in an agricultural point of view, and certain animals of the chace; but in the article of beaver, the great staple commodity of the Indian trader, several other places, such as the Cowlitz, Blue Mountains, and She Whaps, equal, if not surpass it. In the spring of 1812, Mr. M‘Kenzie had penetrated some hundred miles up the Wallamitte River, but more with the view of exploring the southern quarter, seeing the Indians, and studying the topography of the country, than for the purpose of procuring beaver. This year another party, fitted out by M‘Dougall on a beaver-trading excursion, spent some months {235} in that quarter, among the Col-lap-poh-yea-ass. These parties penetrated nearly to the source of the Wallamitte, a distance of five hundred miles. It enters the Columbia by two channels, not far distant from each other; the most westerly is the main branch, and is distant from Cape Disappointment from eighty to ninety miles, following the course of the river. The Wallamitte lies in the direction of south and north, and runs parallel with the sea-coast; that is, its source lies south and its course north. In ascending the river the surrounding country is most delightful, and the first barrier to be met with is about forty miles up from its mouth. Here the navigation is interrupted by a ledge of rocks running across the river from side to side, in the form of an irregular horse-shoe, over which the whole body of water falls at one leap down a precipice of about forty feet, called the Falls. To this place, and no farther, the salmon ascend, and during the summer months they are caught in great quantities. At this place, therefore, all the Indians throughout the surrounding country assemble, gamble, and gormandize for months together. From the mouth of the Wallamitte up to the falls it is navigable for boats only, and from the falls to its source for canoes, and it is sufficiently deep for the ordinary purposes of the Indian trader. The banks of the river throughout are low, and skirted in the distance by a chain of moderately high lands on each side, interspersed here and there with clumps of {236} wide-spreading oaks, groves of pine, and a variety of other kinds of wood. Between these high lands, lie what is called the Valley of the Wallamitte, the frequented haunts of innumerable herds of elk and deer.