ner and supper with Messieurs the Protestant ministers." On the loth I arrived at Fort Walla Walla, where I was cordially and civilly received by Mr. [Archibald] McKinlay, in charge of the post. I employed several days here in making all my preparations for the rest of the journey; for I had twenty horses to buy, and as many saddles and bridles to get made. On the 28th I took farewell of the amiable McKinlay family, thanking them most sincerely for their kindness to us, and for the assistance which they had so liberally lavished upon us. I went a few days ahead of Reverend Father M., in order to send him the cattle and extra horses that I had bought. An Iroquois and a Canadian, from Colville, served as my guides. Though the season was well advanced, the weather seemed still inclined to favor us. The first night we encamped on the Walla Walla river. The next day we crossed the Lewis or Nez Perce river, one of the largest tributaries of the Columbia. The higher branches of this river, which I have crossed in mv two journeys to the mountains, come down from the angle formed by the Rocky and Snowy Mountains, between the forty-second and forty-fourth degrees and near the sources of the Colorado, Platte, Yellowstone, and Missouri rivers. From the base of the Snowy range it runs westerly to the Blue Mountains, where it traverses one of its chains near the forty-third degree of latitude and is joined by Salmon river. Its course thence is northwest as far as the junction with the Columbia, receiving in its course the Malade, the Wapticacos or North Branch, the Kooskooske from the east, the Malheur, Powder, and Brule from the west, and a great number of smaller tributaries on both sides.
At the crossing of the Nez Perce we found a small camp of the Indians called Palooses, belonging to the tribe
11 A Methodist mission at the Dalles had been started in 1838 by Reverends Daniel Lee and H. K. W. Perkins, as a branch of the establishment on the Willamette. Lee left in August, 1843, and was followed in the late summer of 1844 by Perkins, who was succeeded by Reverend A. F. Waller.