‘Where is the tent of the commanding officer?’ I asked of the first soldier I came across.

He pointed to one on the hillside. ‘Ags for Major Dooker,’ was the Dutch-accented answer.

Bidding Samson stay where he was, I made my way as directed. A middle-aged officer in undress uniform was sitting on an empty packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of its wood.

‘Pray sir,’ said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, ‘have I the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?’

‘Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?’

Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by starvation to skin and bone, blackened, almost, by months of exposure to scorching suns; clad in the shreds of what had once been a shirt, torn by every kind of convict labour, stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags of a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering with sores, and which for weeks had not touched water—if they could avoid it. Such an object, in short, as the genius of a Phil May could alone have depicted as the most repulsive object he could imagine.

‘Who the devil are you?’

‘An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure.’

He smiled. ‘You look more like a wild beast.’

‘I am quite tame, sir, I assure you—could even eat out of your hand if I had a chance.’

‘Is your name Coke?’

‘Yes,’ was my amazed reply.

‘Then come with me—I will show you something that may surprise you.’

I followed him to a neighbouring tent. He drew aside the flap of it, and there on his blanket lay Fred Calthorpe, snoring in perfect bliss.

Our greetings were less restrained than our parting had been. We were truly glad to meet again. He had arrived just two days before me, although he had been at Salt Lake City. But he had been able there to refit, had obtained ample supplies and fresh animals. Curiously enough, his Nelson—the French-Canadian—had also been drowned in crossing the Snake River. His place, however, had been filled by another man, and Jacob had turned out a treasure. The good fellow greeted me warmly. And it was no slight compensation for bygone troubles to be assured by him that our separation had led to the final triumphal success.

Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had done for five months, under the stars. The officers liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I had met with. One’s stomach had quite lost its discretion. And forgetting that

Famished people must be slowly nursed,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,

one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I was seriously ill.

An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had an unpleasant ending. Every evening, after dinner in the mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident, Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major’s temper had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a handful of trumps, and—all four honours. As the last of these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the officers brought me a graceful apology.

As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb’s ‘Stranger,’ we ‘damned’ the overland route ‘at a venture’; and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to California.

On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred, Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night. The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river—as one may easily do in America—one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end of it.

The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like being run away with by a ‘motor’ down a steep hill. The bow of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if about to take a ‘header.’ The water, in glassy ridges and dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One clenches one’s teeth, holds one’s breath, one’s hour is surely come. But no—a shout from the Indians, a magic stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the stern, and the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind; and, for the moment, we are gliding on—undrowned.

At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go further), we had to debark. A settler here was putting up a zinc house for a store. Two others, with an officer of the Mounted Rifles—the regiment we had left at the Dalles—were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they called champagne. There were no chairs or table in the ‘house,’ nor as yet any floor; and only the beginning of a roof. We sat on the ground, so that I was able surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the earth.

According to my journal: ‘In a short time the party began to be a noisy one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed, compliments to our respective nationalities paid in the most flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race were destined to conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation under the sun—that is to say, they had been. America, of course, would take the lead in time to come. We disputed this. The Americans were certain of it, in fact this was already an accomplished fact. The big officer—a genuine “heavy”—wanted to know where the man was that would give him the lie! Wasn’t the Mounted Rifles the crack regiment of the United States army? And wasn’t the United States army the finest army in the universe? Who that knew anything of history would compare the Peninsular Campaign to the war in Mexico? Talk of Waterloo—Britishers were mighty fond of swaggering about Waterloo! Let ’em look at Chepultapec. As for Wellington, he couldn’t shine nohow with General Scott, nor old Zack neither!’

Then, we wished for a war, just to let them see what our crack cavalry regiments could do. Mounted Rifles forsooth! Mounted costermongers! whose trade it was to sell ‘nutmegs made of wood, and clocks that wouldn’t figure.’ Then some pretty forcible profanity was vented, fists were shaken, and the zinc walls were struck, till they resounded like the threatened thunder of artillery.

But Fred’s merry laughter diverted the tragic end. It was agreed that there had been too much tall talk. Britishers and Americans were not such fools as to quarrel. Let everybody drink everybody else’s health. A gentleman in the corner (he needed the support of both walls) thought it wasn’t good to ‘liquor up’ too much on an empty stomach; he put it to the house that we should have supper. The motion was carried nem. con., and a Dutch cheese was produced with much Éclat. Samson coupled the ideas of Dutch cheeses and Yankee hospitality. This revived the flagging spirit of emulation. On one side, it was thought that British manners were susceptible of amendment. Confusion was then respectively drunk to Yankee hospitality, English manners, and—this was an addition of Fred’s—to Dutch cheeses. After which, to change the subject, a song was called for, and a gentleman who shall be nameless, for there was a little mischief in the choice, sang ‘Rule Britannia.’ Not being encored, the singer drank to the flag that had braved the battle and the breeze for nearly ninety years. ‘Here’s to Uncle Sam, and his stars and stripes.’ The mounted officer rose to his legs (with difficulty) and declared ‘that he could not, and would not, hear his country insulted any longer. He begged to challenge the “crowd.” He regretted the necessity, but his feelings had been wounded, and he could not—no, he positively could not stand it.’ A slight push from Samson proved the fact—the speaker fell, to rise no more. The rest of the company soon followed his example, and shortly afterwards there was no sound but that of the adjacent rapids.

Early next morning the settler’s boat came up, and took us a mile down the river, where we found a larger one to convey us to Fort Vancouver. The crew were a Maltese sailor and a man who had been in the United States army. Each had his private opinions as to her management. Naturally, the Maltese should have been captain, but the soldier was both supercargo and part owner, and though it was blowing hard and the sails were fully large, the foreigner, who was but a poor little creature, had to obey orders.

As the river widened and grew rougher, we were wetted from stem to stern at every plunge; and when it became evident that the soldier could not handle the sails if the Maltese was kept at the helm, the heavy rifleman who was on board, declaring that he knew the river, took upon himself to steer us. In a few minutes the boat was nearly swamped. The Maltese prayed and blasphemed in language which no one understood. The oaths of the soldier were intelligible enough. The ‘heavy,’ now alarmed, nervously asked what had better be done. My advice was to grease the bowsprit, let go the mast, and splice the main brace. ‘In another minute or two,’ I added, ‘you’ll steer us all to the bottom.’

Fred, who thought it no time for joking, called the rifleman a ‘damned fool,’ and authoritatively bade him give up the tiller; saying that I had been in Her Majesty’s Navy, and perhaps knew a little more about boats than he did. To this the other replied that ‘he didn’t want anyone to learn him; he reckon’d he’d been raised to boating as well as the next man, and he’d be derned if he was going to trust his life to anybody!’ Samson, thinking no doubt of his own, took his pipe out of his mouth, and towering over the steersman, flung him like a child on one side. In an instant I was in his place.

It was a minute or two before the boat had way enough to answer the helm. By that time we were within a dozen yards of a reef. Having noticed, however, that the little craft was quick in her stays, I kept her full till the last, put the helm down, and round she spun in a moment. Before I could thank my stars, the pintle, or hook on which the rudder hangs, broke off. The tiller was knocked out of my hand, and the boat’s head flew into the wind. ‘Out with the sweeps,’ I shouted. But the sweeps were under the gear. All was confusion and panic. The two men cursed in the names of their respective saints. The ‘heavy’ whined, ‘I told you how it w’d be.’ Samson struggled valiantly to get at an oar, while Fred, setting the example, begged all hands to be calm, and be ready to fend the stern off the rocks with a boathook. As we drifted into the surf I was wondering how many bumps she would stand before she went to pieces. Happily the water shallowed, and the men, by jumping overboard, managed to drag the boat through the breakers under the lee of the point. We afterwards drew her up on to the beach, kindled a fire, got out some provisions, and stayed till the storm was over.