It Is Built Of
Drift-Wood, And Calculated Merely For Defence Against Any Attack
Of The Natives.
At the time of Captain Bonneville's arrival, the
whole garrison mustered but six or eight men; and the post was
under the superintendence of Mr. Pambrune, an agent of the
Hudson's Bay Company.
The great post and fort of the company, forming the emporium of
its trade on the Pacific, is Fort Vancouver; situated on the
right bank of the Columbia, about sixty miles from the sea, and
just above the mouth of the Wallamut. To this point, the company
removed its establishment from Astoria, in 1821, after its
coalition with the Northwest Company.
Captain Bonneville and his comrades experienced a polite
reception from Mr. Pambrune, the superintendent: for, however
hostile the members of the British Company may be to the
enterprises of American traders, they have always manifested
great courtesy and hospitality to the traders themselves.
Fort Wallah-Wallah is surrounded by the tribe of the same name,
as well as by the Skynses and the Nez Perces; who bring to it the
furs and peltries collected in their hunting expeditions. The
Wallah-Wallahs are a degenerate, worn-out tribe. The Nez Perces
are the most numerous and tractable of the three tribes just
mentioned. Mr. Pambrune informed Captain Bonneville that he had
been at some pains to introduce the Christian religion, in the
Roman Catholic form, among them, where it had evidently taken
root; but had become altered and modified, to suit their peculiar
habits of thought, and motives of action; retaining, however, the
principal points of faith, and its entire precepts of morality.
The same gentleman had given them a code of laws, to which they
conformed with scrupulous fidelity.
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