When the British Company abandoned it, the United States Government took possession of it for a post; and, now, the traveler beholds scattered over the plain a town of a thousand inhabitants, and, bordering on it, the well-kept garrison grounds of the United States troops, with the neat officers' quarters encircling it.
Vancouver had, at one time, water enough alongside her fine wharves to accommodate large vessels easily; but, now, a sand-bar is said to be forming in front of the town, which is rapidly ruining her prospects of becoming an important river-port. There is, probably, no place along this low, alluvial land suited to the purposes of a large commerce. The changes likely to occur from the action of the annual flood on the sandy shores can hardly be calculated. Yet Vancouver must always remain the chief town of its county, and possess a good trade from the agricultural country back of it, which is already pretty well settled up, owning assessable property to the amount of a million of dollars.
Above Vancouver, for a distance of twenty miles, there are many beautiful situations all along on the Washington side, though the country is timbered heavily. The southern shore is lower: the Sandy—a stream coming down from Mount Hood—having its entrance into the Columbia above and opposite Vancouver, through alluvial, sandy bottoms. Beyond this the whole surface of the country becomes elevated, and we are among the foot-hills of the Cascade Mountains.
