adventurous traders to Santa Fe and the Columbia. This led him to advert
to a great enterprise set on foot and conducted by him, between twenty
and thirty years since, having for its object to carry the fur trade
across the Rocky Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the Pacific.

Finding that I took an interest in the subject, he expressed a regret
that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its national
character and importance had never been understood, and a wish that I
would undertake to give an account of it. The suggestion struck upon the
chord of early associations already vibrating in my mind. It occurred
to me that a work of this kind might comprise a variety of those curious
details, so interesting to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its
remote and adventurous enterprises, and of the various people, and
tribes, and castes, and characters, civilized and savage, affected by
its operations. The journals, and letters, also, of the adventurers by
sea and land employed by Mr. Astor in his comprehensive project, might
throw light upon portions of our country quite out of the track of
ordinary travel, and as yet but little known. I therefore felt disposed
to undertake the task, provided documents of sufficient extent and
minuteness could be furnished to me. All the papers relative to the
enterprise were accordingly submitted to my inspection. Among them were
journals and letters narrating expeditions by sea, and journeys to and
fro across the Rocky Mountains by routes before untravelled, together
with documents illustrative of savage and colonial life on the borders
of the Pacific. With such material in hand, I undertook the work.
The trouble of rummaging among business papers, and of collecting and
collating facts from amidst tedious and commonplace details, was spared
me by my nephew, Pierre M. Irving, who acted as my pioneer, and to whom
I am greatly indebted for smoothing my path and lightening my labors.

As the journals, on which I chiefly depended, had been kept by men of
business, intent upon the main object of the enterprise, and but little
versed in science, or curious about matters not immediately bearing upon
their interest, and as they were written often in moments of fatigue
or hurry, amid the inconveniences of wild encampments, they were
often meagre in their details, furnishing hints to provoke rather
than narratives to satisfy inquiry. I have, therefore, availed myself
occasionally of