Thursday February 13th. 1806.
The Clatsop left us this morning at 11. A.M. not any
thing transpired during the day worthy of notice. yesterday
we completed the operation of drying the meat, and think we
have a sufficient stock to last us this month. the Indians
inform us that we shall have great abundance of a small fish in
March which from their discription must be the herring.
these people have also informed us that one More who sometimes
touches at this place and trades with the natives of this
coast, had on board of his vessel three Cows, and that when he
left them he continued his course along the N.W. coast. I
think this strong circumstancial proof that there is a stettlement
of white persons at Nootka sound or some point to the N.W.
of us on the coast.
[35]
There is a species of bryer which is common in this neighbourhood
of a green colour which grows most abundant in the
rich dry lands near the watercourses, but is also found in small
quantities in the piny lands at a distance from the watercourses
in the former situation the stem is frequently the size of a man's
finger and rises perpendicularly to the hight of 4 or 5 feet
when it decends in an arch and becomes procumbent or rests
on some neighbouring plants or shrubs; it is simple unbranched
and celindric; in the latter situation it is much smaller and
usually procumbent. the stem is armed with sharp and hooked
bryers. the leaf is peteolate ternate and resembles in shape
and appearance that of the perple raspberry common to the
Atlantic states. the fruit is a berry resembling the black berry
in every rispect and is eaten when ripe and much esteemed by
the natives but is not dryed for winter consumption. in the
country about the entrance of the quicksand river I first discovered
this bryer. it groows so abundantly in the fertile
valley of Columbia and the Islands in that part of the river
that the country near the river is almost impenitrable in many
places. the briary bush with a wide leaf is also one of it's
ascociates. the green bryer retains it's foliage and verdure
untill late in December.[36]
There are also two species of firn
which are common to this country beside that formerly discribed
of which the natives eat the roots. these from their disparity
in point of size I shall designate the large and small
firn. both species continue green all winter. The large firn,
rises to the [height] of 3 or four feet the stem is a common
footstalk or rib which proceeds immediatly from the radix
w[h]ich is somewhat flat on two sides about the size of a man's
arm and covered with innumerable black coarce capillary radicles
which issue from every pa[r]t of it's surface; one of those
roots or a collected bed of them will send fourth from twenty
to forty of those common footstalks all of which decline or
bend outwards from the common center. these ribs are cylindric
and marked longitudinally their whole length with a
groove or channel on their upper side. on either side of this
grove a little below it's edge, the leafets are inserted, being
shortly petiolate for about 2/3
ds. of the length of the middle rib
commencing at the bottom and from thence to the extremity
sessile. the rib is terminated by a single undivided lanceolate
gagged [jagged] leafet. the leafets are lanceolate, from 2 to 4
Inches in length gagged and have a small accute angular projection
on the upper edge near the base where it is spuar [square]
on the side which has the projection and obliquely cut at the
base on the other side of the rib of the leafet. or which will
give a better idea in this form.
[ILLUSTRATION]
the upper surface is Smooth
and of a deep green the under
disk of a pale green and covered
with a brown bubersence [pubescence] of a woolly appearance
particularly near the cent[r]al fiber or rib. these leafets
are alternately pinnate, they are in number from 110 to 140;
shortest at the two extremities of the common footstalk and
longest in the center, graduly lengthening and deminishing as
they succeed each other.
[37]
The small firn also rises with a common footstalk from the
radix and are from four to eight in number. about 8 inches
long; the central rib marked with a slight longitudinal groove
throughout it's whole length. the leafets are oppositely pinnate
about 1/3rd. of the length of the common footstalk from
the bottom and thence alternately pinnate; the footstalk terminating
in a simple undivided nearly entire lanceolate leafet.
the leafets are oblong, obtuse, convex absolutely entire, marked
on the upper disk with a slight longitudinal groove in place of
the central rib, smooth and of a deep green. near the upper
extremity these leafets are decursively pinnate as are also those
of the
large firn.
[38]
The grasses of this neighbourhood are generally coa[r]se
harsh and sedge-like, and grow in large tufts. there is none
except in the open grounds. near the coast on the tops of
some of the untimbered hills there is a finer and softer species
which resembles much the green swoard. the salt marshes
also produce a coarse grass, Bull rushes and the Cattail flagg.
of the two last the natives make great use in preparing their
mats bags &c.
