At the beginning of 1843[1] the French settlers on the Willamette possessed 3000 beef cattle, 1800 horses, 3000 swine and 500 sheep; they harvested during the year 10,000 hectoliters of wheat, and 3000 of leguminous and other grains; such as oats, peas and beans. The yield of these grains gives an average return of twelve for one, and the soil produces at least eight hectoliters a hectare. The colonists sell their harvest to the Hudson's Bay Company, which gives them European merchandise, iron and farm implements in exchange. Some of them have set up grist mills and sawmills on the numerous streams which water the valley. Others, and particularly Stanislas Jacquet, go to California nearly every year to buy cattle and horses. In the proper season they trap the small number of beavers which still remain, and prepare the furs and skins, but their principal occupation is agriculture.
Although the great majority of settlers have married Indian wives, the French language is the only one in use in the colony. Rapids, cascades, all the dangerous places bear French names: la Porte de l'enfer, la Course de Satan, le Passage du Diable, les Comes du Demon, and other witticisms drawn from the vocabulary of the Canadian hunters. During our visit to the Willamette with Governor Simpson, we could not help noticing the painful impression the Canadians experienced in seeing themselves governed by a person of a race and religion different from their own, and who did not even speak the same language. Several farmers, indeed, when Sir George said to them in English, "How do you do"—replied, "We do not speak English; we are all French here."
The Canadians, furthermore, are in the habit of considering as really superior only that which comes from France; they allow this prejudice to show in the least things; thus it is that they call the finest breed of dom-
- ↑ De Mofras was here in 1841, but as his book was not published until 1844, he had opportunity to get additional information.
