restore our happiness: it was even so refreshing that we were obliged to resume our flannels, and when we thought of the region of calms from which we had just escaped, it is impossible to describe our contentment at the change. As we advanced northward, the familiar stars came more and more in sight, and we bade farewell to the Magellanic Clouds and the beautiful southern constellations, which disappeared one after another below the horizon. Between the tropics, here as on the Atlantic, we saw from time to time clouds of flying fish.
From the I 7th of July on we had only a continual alternation between uneasiness and joy, as the wind was contrary or favorable. Our disquietude was the better founded, that our provisions were beginning to run low: we were reduced to rice boiled in water and salt meat, which gave out such an odor as might spoil any one's appetite. About the 25th it was announced that we were going to lose our soup, because water was getting scarcer and more precious every day, and the wind seemed obstinately resolved to blow against us. At last, on the 28th, after many prayers and vows, the coast of Oregon was sighted: our joy was unanimous and great. And still the greatest obstacle, that which I feared the most between Antwerp and Fort Vancouver, was not yet overcome: we had now to cross the most dangerous bar known in America, which lies completely -gcross the mouth of the Columbia river.'
The captain had been unable to obtain a chart or even any information concerning this dangerous pass, and was, we knew, entirely unacquainted with the rocks and breakers which, at this season, render it almost impracticable. We soon perceived Cape Disappointment, which seems
1 The bar at the mouth of the Columbia was, in its natural condition, one of the most dangerous known to navigation. In recent times this condition has been largely removed by a system of parallel jetties built by the Government to concentrate the flow over the bar and scour out a deep channel.