aptain _Thorn's_
sailor-like contempt for his literary passengers so comically described
by Mr. _Irving_. Half of the humor as well as of the real interest of
Mr. Franchere's charming narrative, is lost by one who has never read
"Astoria."]

On the 26th, a part of our people embarked in the three canoes which
remained, and the others followed the banks of the river on foot. We saw
in several places some veins of bituminous coal, on the banks between
the surface of the water and that of the plain, say thirty feet below
the latter; the veins had a dip of about 25 deg.. We tried some and found it
to burn well. We halted in the evening near a small stream, where we
constructed some rafts, to carry all our people.

On the 27th, I went forward in the little canoe of skins, with the two
hunters. We soon killed an elk, which we skinned and suspended the hide,
besmeared with blood, from the branch of a tree at the extremity of a
point, in order that the people behind, as they came up, might perceive
and take in the fruit of our chase. After fortifying ourselves with a
little food, we continued to glide down, and encamped for the night near
a thick wood where our hunters, from the tracks they observed, had hopes
of encountering and capturing some bears. This hope was not realized.

On the 28th, a little after quitting camp, we killed a swan. While I was
busy cooking it, the hunters having plunged into the wood, I heard a
rifle-shot, which seemed to me to proceed from a direction opposite to
that which they had taken. They returned very soon running, and were
extremely surprised to learn that it was not I who had fired it.
Nevertheless, the canoes and rafts having overtaken us, we continued to
descend the river. Very soon we met a bark canoe, containing two men and
a woman, who were ascending the river and bringing letters and some
goods for the _Rocky Mountains House_. We learned from these letters
addressed to Mr. Decoigne, several circumstances of the war, and among
others the defeat of Captain Barclay on Lake Erie. We arrived that
evening at _Hunter's Lodge_, where we found four new birch-bark canoes.
We got ready two of them, and resumed our journey down, on the 31st. Mr.
Pillet set out before us with the hunters, at a very early hour. They
killed an elk, which they left on a point, and which we took in. The
country through which we passed that day is the most charming possible;
the river is wide, handsome, and bordered wit