About a mile below the junction with the Lewes, and on the south side, stands all that remains of the only permanent trading-post ever built by white men in the district. This post was established by Robert Campbell, for the Hudson’s Bay Company, in the summer of 1848. It was built upon the point of land between the two rivers, but this location proving untenable, on account of flooding by ice-jams in the spring, it was, in the season of 1852, moved across the river to where the ruins now stand. It appears that the houses composing the post were not finished when the Indians from the coast on Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets, came down the river to put a stop to the competitive trade which Mr. Campbell had inaugurated and which they found to seriously interfere with their profits. Their method of trade appears to have been then pretty much as it is now--very one-sided. What they found convenient to take by force, they took; and what they found convenient to pay for, they paid for--at their own price.
Rumours had reached the post that the coast Indians contemplated a raid, and, in consequence, the friendly Indians in the vicinity remained about nearly all summer. Unfortunately, they went away for a short time, and, during their absence, the coast Indians arrived and pillaged the place, and set fire to it, leaving nothing but the remains of two chimneys, which are still standing. This raid and capture took place on Sunday, the 1st of August, 1852. Mr. Campbell was ordered to leave the country within twenty-four hours, and accordingly he dropped down the river. On his way he met some of the local Indians, and returned with them, but the robbers had made their escape. Mr. Campbell went on down the river until he met the outfit for his post on its way up from Fort Yukon. He turned it back. He then ascended the Pelly, crossed to the Liard, and reached Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie, late in October.
Nothing more was ever done in the vicinity of Fort Selkirk by the Hudson’s Bay Company after these events, and in 1869 the company was ordered by Capt. Chas. W. Raymond, who represented the United States Government, to evacuate the post at Fort Yukon, which he had ascertained to be west of the 141st meridian. The post was occupied by the company, however, for some time after the receipt of the order, until Rampart House, which was intended to be on British territory, and to take the trade previously done at Fort Yukon, was built. Under present conditions the company cannot very well compete with the Alaska Fur Company, whose agents do the only trade in the district, and they appear to have abandoned--for the present at least--all attempts to do any trade nearer to it than Rampart House, to which point, notwithstanding the distance and difficulties in the way, many of the Indians on the Pelly-Yukon make a trip every two or three years to procure goods in exchange for their furs.
On the 19th I resumed my journey northwards. Opposite Fort Selkirk, the Pelly-Yukon River is about one-third of a mile broad; and it maintains this width down to White River, a distance of ninety-six miles. Islands are numerous, so much so that there are few parts of the river where one or more are not in sight; many of them are of considerable size, and nearly all are well timbered.
Between Stewart and White Rivers the river spreads out to a mile and upwards in width, and is a maze of islands and bars. Stewart River, which was reached on the following day, enters from the east in the middle of a wide valley, with low hills on both sides, rising on the north side in clearly marked steps or terraces to distant hills of considerable height. The river, a short distance up, is two hundred yards in width, the current slack, the water shallow and clear, but dark-coloured; while at the mouth, I was fortunate enough to meet a miner, named McDonald, who had spent the whole of the summer of 1887 on the river and its branches, prospecting and exploring. He gave me a good deal of information, which I have incorporated in my map of the district. This man had ascended two of the main branches of the river. At the head of one of them he found a large lake, which he named Mayhew Lake. On the other branch he found falls, which he estimated to be from one to two hundred feet in height. McDonald went on past the falls to the head of this branch, and found terraced gravel hills to the west and north; he crossed them to the north and found a river flowing northwards. On this he embarked on a raft, and floated down it for a day or two, thinking it would turn to the west and join the Stewart, but finding it still continuing north, and acquiring too much volume to be any of the branches he had seen while passing up the Stewart, he returned to his point of departure, and after prospecting among the hills around the head of the river he started westwards, crossing a high range of mountains composed principally of shales with many thin seams of what is called quartz, ranging from one to six inches in thickness. On the west side of this range he found the head-waters of Beaver River, which he descended on a raft, taking five days to do so.
It is probable the river flowing northwards, on which he made a journey and returned, is a branch of Peel River. The timber on the gravel terraces of the water-shed, he described as small and open. He was alone in this unknown wilderness all summer, not seeing even any of the natives. There are few men, I think, so constituted as to be capable of isolating themselves in such a manner.
On the 1st of September, we passed the site of the temporary trading-post shown on the maps as Fort Reliance. Several days of continuous rain now interrupted our work so that Forty Mile River (Cone Hill River of Schwatka) was not reached till the 7th of September.
THE JORDAN
ANDREW ROBERT FAUSSET
The Jordan is two hundred miles long from its source at Antilebanon to the head of the Dead Sea. It is not navigable, nor has it ever had a large town on its banks. The cities Bethsham and Jericho on the west, and Gerasa, Pella, and Gadara to the east of Jordan produced intercourse between the two sides of the river. Yet it is remarkable as the river of the great plain (_ha Arabah_, now el Ghor) of the Holy Land, flowing through the whole from north to south. Lot, from the hills on the north-west of Sodom, seeing the plain well watered by it, as Egypt is by the Nile, chose that district as his home, in spite of the notorious wickedness of the people.
[Illustration: THE JORDAN]
Its sources are three. The northernmost near Hasbeya between Hermon and Lebanon; the stream is called Hasbany. The second is best known, near Banias, _i. e._, Cæsarea Philippi, a large pool beneath a high cliff, fed by gushing streamlets, rising at the mouth of a deep cave; thence the Jordan flows, a considerable stream. The third is at Dan, or Tel el Kady (Daphne); from the north-west corner of a green eminence a spring bursts forth into a clear wide pool, which sends a broad stream into the valley. The three streams unite at Tel Dafneh, and flow sluggishly through marshland into Lake Meron. Captain Newbold adds a fourth, _wady el Kid_ on the south-east of the slope, flowing from the springs Esh Shar. Indeed Antilebanon abounds in gushing streams which all make their way into the swamp between Banias and Huleh and become part of the Jordan. The traditional site of Jacob’s crossing Jordan at his first leaving Beersheba for Padan Aram is a mile and a half from Merom, and six from the Sea of Galilee: in those six its descent with roaring cataracts over the basaltic rocks is 1,050 feet. This, the part known to Naaman in his invasions, is the least attractive part of its course; and was unfavourably contrasted with Abana and Pharpar of his native land. From the Sea of Galilee, it winds 200 miles in the sixty miles of actual distance to the Dead Sea. Its tortuous course is the secret of the great depression (the Dead Sea being 663 feet below the lake of Galilee) in this distance.
Three banks may be noted in the Ghor or Jordan valley, the upper or first slope (the abrupt edge of a wide table land reaching to the Hauran Mountains on the east and the high hills on the west side), the lower or middle terrace embracing the strip of land with vegetation, and the true banks of the river bed, with a jungle of agnus castus, tamarisks, and willows and reed and cane at the edge, the stream being ordinarily thirty yards wide. At the flood, the river cannot be forded, being ten or twelve feet deep east of Jericho; but in summer it can, the water being low. To cross it in the flood by swimming was an extraordinary feat performed by the Gadites who joined David; this was impossible for Israel under Joshua with wives and children. The Lord of the whole earth made the descending waters stand in a heap very far from their place of crossing, viz: by the town of Adam, that is beside Zarthan or Zaretan, the moment that the feet of the priests bearing the ark dipped into the water. The priests then stood in the midst of the dry river bed till all Israel crossed over. Joshua erected a monument of twelve large stones in the river bed where the priests had stood, near the east bank of the river. This would remain at least for a time as a memorial to the existing generation besides the monument erected at Gilgal.