JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. 365
thirst being much more frequent at this time than hunger with me. During this journey I passed by the stony chasm, which was once the bed of the Columbia Itiver, a truly wonderful spot, in some places eight or nine miles broad, and exhibiting such rocks in the channel as must have occasioned prodigiously grand cascades, with banks of perpendicular height, rising to one thousand five hun- dred and one thousand eight hundred feet in other places perfectly level, and diversified with what must have been fine islands. The rock everywhere appeared volcanic, and I picked up several pieces of vitrified lava. Two hun- dred miles, I am informed, does this deserted and dry bed "extend, communicating with the present channel of the Columbia at the Stony Islands, making a circular sweep of a degree and a half south, which is cut off by the straighter line of the river's present course. The plants peculiar to the rocky shores of the Columbia are to be seen here and in no intervening place. Here and there was a thick sward of grass which proved most acceptable to our weary beasts, for the springs were all so bitter and impreg- nated with sulphur (another symptom of volcanic agency), that it was seldom they would drink, and the haste with which they hurried to a small pool of better water was near proving fatal to one, for he stuck there so firmly that my ^tiide and I (enfeebled by fatigue) were too weak to extricate him, and I had loaded my pistol to put an end to his misery and struggles, when my guide, in a fit of ill temper, struck the creature severely on the nose that he reared, and the point of my penknife, with which, as a last hope, I goaded his side, induced him to make such a desperate bound as delivered him from the difliculty. W'uliii mlay, 2,1d. Last night was dreadfully hot, and the whole heavens in a bla/e with sheet lightning. Parched like a cinder with heat and thirst, I lay down and passed a few miserable hours in vainly trying to ob-
