Learning at Oregon City that there were French Canadians on the prairie fifteen miles up the Willamette, he proceeded to Champoeg. Arriving there he found that the settlers in that region numbered nearly three hundred all told. Stopping off at the old landing, he found near this point, about a mile and a half up the river, living upon the river bank, Etienne Lucier, and remained with him during the winter. French Prairie is the borderland between the originally heavily timbered country of the lower Willamette and the more open lands of Marion County and the big prairies of the upper valley. Matthieu found the country of the French settlers even more beautifully diversified than at the present, the practice of the Indians, then but recently discontinued, of burning the prairies over, having brought the whole country for miles together to the condition of a park. Stately groves of fir and oak, or belts of deciduous timber along the water courses, broke the monotony of the grassy levels, while from almost any point of view the panorama of distant mountain scenery was uninterrupted. The Butte, as it was called, which escarped upon the Willamette just below the landing, and from which Butteville takes its name, formed a sightly highland and became a well-known landmark to the voyager of the early day. The name Champoeg, says Mr. Matthieu, is simply a corruption of the French term, _Champment Sable_—the camp of the sands. With this Willamette country, however, Matthieu was not at first thoroughly pleased. The deep moss that gathered on the trees and buildings, and the general mildness and moisture of the winter weather, suggested disease, such as fever and ague. He anticipated a hot, sickly summer—which, however, he afterwards found was not the characteristic of Oregon.