The _Chatham_
rode safely inside the heavy cross swell, though her small boat smashed
to chips among the breakers; but on Sunday, October {280} 21, such
mountainous seas were running that Vancouver dared not risk his big
ship, the _Discovery_, across the bar. Broughton was intrusted to
examine the _Columbia_ before setting out to England for fresh orders.
The _Chatham_ had anchored just inside Cape Disappointment on the
north, then passed south to Cape Adams, using Gray's chart as guide.
Seven miles up the north coast, a deep bay was named after Gray. Nine
or ten Indian dugouts with one hundred and fifty warriors now escorted
Broughton's rowboat upstream. The lofty peak ahead covered with snow
was named Mt. Hood. For seven days Broughton followed the river till
his provision ran out, and the old Indian chief with him explained by
the signs of pointing in the direction of the sunrise and letting water
trickle through his fingers that water-falls ahead would stop passage.
Somehow, Broughton seemed to think because Gray, a private trader, had
not been clad in the gold-braid regimentals of authority, his act of
discovery was void; for Broughton landed, and with the old chief
assisting at the ceremony by drinking healths, took possession of all
the region for England, "having" as the record of the trip explains,
"every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation
or state had ever entered this river before; in this opinion he was
confirmed by Mr.
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