und loaded with ball, and primed, with
a little piece of cotton laid over the priming to keep the powder dry.
This shows how soon they would acquire the use of guns, and how careful
traders should be in intercourse with strange Indians, not to teach them
their use.

CHAPTER XVII.

Description of Tongue Point.--A Trip to the _Willamet_.--Arrival of
W. Hunt in the Brig Pedlar.--Narrative of the Loss of the Ship
Lark.--Preparations for crossing the Continent.

The new proprietors of our establishment, being dissatisfied with the
site we had chosen, came to the determination to change it; after
surveying both sides of the river, they found no better place than the
head-land which we had named Tongue point. This point, or to speak more
accurately, perhaps, this cape, extends about a quarter of a mile into
the river, being connected with the main-land by a low, narrow neck,
over which the Indians, in stormy weather, haul their canoes in passing
up and down the river; and terminating in an almost perpendicular rock,
of about 250 or 300 feet elevation. This bold summit was covered with a
dense forest of pine trees; the ascent from the lower neck was gradual
and easy; it abounded in springs of the finest water; on either side it
had a cove to shelter the boats necessary for a trading establishment.
This peninsula had truly the appearance of a huge tongue. Astoria had
been built nearer the ocean, but the advantages offered by Tongue point
more than compensated for its greater distance. Its soil, in the rainy
season, could be drained with little or no trouble; it was a better
position to guard against attacks on the part of the natives, and less
exposed to that of civilized enemies by sea or land in time of war.

All the hands who had returned from the interior, added to those who
were already at the Fort, consumed, in an incredibly short space of time
the small stock of provisions which had been conveyed by the Pacific Fur
Company to the Company of the Northwest. It became a matter of
necessity, therefore, to seek some spot where a part, at least, could be
sent to subsist. With these views I left the fort on the 7th February
with a number of men, belonging to the old concern, and who had refused
to enter the service of the new one, to proceed to the establishment on
the _Willamet_ river, under the charge of Mr. Alexander Henry, who had
with him a number of first-rate hunters. Leaving the Columbia to asce