At all events, until 1847, the French-Canadian boatmen of the Columbia and Willamette rivers when approaching Oregon City from either above or below never failed to keep time to their oars with their refrain:
- "Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast;
- The rapids are near and the daylight's past".
The song of Gaelic Canadian though sung by born Canadians on the St. Lawrence and taken down by Gaelic passenger the same year that Dr. McLoughlin located Oregon City, — and translated into English by John Wilson to keep Britons loyal and to brace soldiers to acquire India, Ireland and Australia and her unnumbered protectorates.
Here let us rest a while and call to mind another boat song, sung by the Hudson's Bay boatmen under very different circumstances. In the same year that Dr. McLoughlin marked the claim at Oregon City as the home of his old age, another officer of the Company, having fulfilled his contract, was a passenger down the St. Lawrence in just such a "batteau" as the Company used on the Columbia. The crew were the same in number but were Gaelic Scots in descent. The passenger knew Gaelic and wrote the words of the song down and carried them to Scotland with him, where they were translated into English by John Wilson (Christopher North) as follows:
(The captain of the crew of seven recites)
"Listen to me, as when we heard our fathers
Sing, long ago, the songs of other shores;
Listen to me, and then in chorus gather
All your strong voices as ye pull the oars.
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand —
But we are exiles from our father land.
"From the lone shielin[1] on the misty island,
Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas;
But still, our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
- ↑ The word sheilin means the cheapest kind of a human dwelling we cabin in Ireland and cot in England.
