Warre and Vavasour^ 1845-6. 29 subject, and in order that you may be the better able to pre- pare estimates of the expenses that might be incurred in forming the estabhshments I have suggested and in the main- tenance of troops, I beg to annex a tariff or price current list of labor and supplies of every description. From Red River Settlement, whither I have now the pleas- ure of conducting you, a party will be dispatched under the charge of Mr. Ogden, an influential officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, to conduct you from thence across land to the Saskatchewan River, and from thence across the Rocky Mountains to Fort Colville on the Columbia River. Horse traveling is the best and most expeditious mode of convey- ance by that route, and the journey may occupy 40 to 50 days, having been performed by me in the year 1841 in 47 days. Mr. Ogden's knowledge and experience will guard against privation, inconvenience or danger along that route. From Fort Colville you will be able to reach the Pacific in boats in five or six days, so that, leaving Red River about the 12 June you ought, according to the ordinary rate of traveling, to arrive at the mouth of the Columbia River in the Oregon Territory about the 12 August. From Red River you will find a fine open prairie country, which has been traversed by wheel carriages to the base of the Rocky Mountains, to a defile or pass situated in about 51° N. Lat., which, although impracticable for wheel carriages, is by no means difficult on horseback, having been lately passed by a large body of emi- grants' families from Red River Settlement. The country through which you will have to travel abounds with buffalo, deer and game, enabling the Hudson's Bay Company to col- lect depots of jerked meat, pemican, and other provisions to any extent at their trading stations of Forts Ellice, Felly, Carlton, Pitt and Edmonton, so that troops, either cavalry or infantry, might, by that route, be forwarded from Red River to the mouth of the Columbia River. While in the Oregon country I have to suggest your close
examination of Cape Disappointment, a headland on the north----
