Curiously enough, one of these papers did finally reach the United States.  During the summer of 1806, the brig “Lydia,” Captain Hill, entered the Columbia for the purpose of trading with the natives.  From one of these Captain Hill secured the paper, which he took to Canton, China, in January, 1807.  Thence it was sent to a gentleman in Philadelphia, having travelled nearly all the way round the world.

Fort Clatsop, as they called the rude collection of huts in which they had burrowed all winter, with its rude furniture and shelters, was formally given to Comowool, the Clatsop chief who had been so kind to the party.  Doubtless the crafty savage had had his eye on this establishment, knowing that it was to be abandoned in the spring.

The voyagers left Fort Clatsop about one o’clock in the day, and, after making sixteen miles up the river, camped for the night.  Next day, they reached an Indian village where they purchased “some wappatoo and a dog for the invalids.”  They still had several men on the sick list in consequence of the hard fare of the winter.  The weather was cold and wet, and wood for fuel was difficult to obtain.  In a few days they found themselves among their old friends, the Skilloots, who had lately been at war with the Chinooks.  There was no direct intercourse between the two nations as yet, but the Chinooks traded with the Clatsops and Wahkiacums, and these in turn traded with the Skilloots, and in this way the two hostile tribes exchanged the articles which they had for those which they desired.  The journal has this to say about the game of an island on which the explorers tarried for a day or two, in order to dry their goods and mend their canoes:—­

“This island, which has received from the Indians the appropriate name of Elalah (Elallah), or Deer Island, is surrounded on the water-side by an abundant growth of cottonwood, ash, and willow, while the interior consists chiefly of prairies interspersed with ponds.  These afford refuge to great numbers of geese, ducks, large swan, sandhill cranes, a few canvas-backed ducks, and particularly the duckinmallard, the most abundant of all.  There are also great numbers of snakes resembling our garter-snakes in appearance, and like them not poisonous.  Our hunters brought in three deer, a goose, some ducks, an eagle, and a tiger-cat.  Such is the extreme voracity of the vultures, that they had devoured in the space of a few hours four of the deer killed this morning; and one of our men declared that they had besides dragged a large buck about thirty yards, skinned it, and broken the backbone.”

The vulture here referred to is better known as the California condor, a great bird of prey which is now so nearly extinct that few specimens are ever seen, and the eggs command a great price from those who make collections of such objects.  A condor killed by one of the hunters of the Lewis and Clark expedition measured nine feet and six inches from tip to tip of its wings, three feet and ten inches from the point of the bill to the end of the tail, and six inches and a half from the back of the head to the tip of the beak.  Very few of the condors of the Andes are much larger than this, though one measuring eleven feet from tip to tip has been reported.