small rush mats, to retain the steam. In an incredibly short space of
time the article is taken out and placed on a wooden platter, perfectly
done and very palatable. The broth is taken out also, with a ladle of
wood or horn.

It will be asked, no doubt, what instruments these savages use in the
construction of their canoes and their houses. To cause their patience
and industry to be admired as much as they deserve, it will be
sufficient for me to mention that we did not find among them a single
hatchet: their only tools consisted of an inch or half-inch chisel,
usually made of an old file, and of a mallet, which was nothing but an
oblong stone. With these wretched implements, and wedges made of hemlock
knots, steeped in oil and hardened by the fire, they would undertake to
cut down the largest cedars of the forest, to dig them out and fashion
them into canoes, to split them, and get out the boards wherewith to
build their houses. Such achievements with such means, are a marvel of
ingenuity and patience.




CHAPTER XX.

Manners and Customs of the Natives continued.--Their Wars.--Their
Marriages.--Medicine Men.--Funeral Ceremonies.--Religious
Notions.--Language.


The politics of the natives of the Columbia are a simple affair: each
village has its chief, but that chief does not seem to exercise a great
authority over his fellow-citizens. Nevertheless, at his death, they pay
him great honors: they use a kind of mourning, which consists in
painting the face with black, in lieu of gay colors; they chant his
funeral song or oration for a whole month. The chiefs are considered in
proportion to their riches: such a chief has a great many wives, slaves,
and strings of beads--he is accounted a great chief. These barbarians
approach in that respect to certain civilized nations, among whom the
worth of a man is estimated by the quantity of gold he possesses.

As all the villages form so many independent sovereignties, differences
sometimes arise, whether between the chiefs or the tribes. Ordinarily,
these terminate by compensations equivalent to the injury. But when the
latter is of a grave character, like a murder (which is rare), or the
abduction of a woman (which is very common), the parties, having made
sure of a number of young braves to aid them, prepare for war. Before
commencing hostilities, however, they give notice of the day when they
will proceed to attack the hostile village; not following in that
respect the custom of almost all other American Indians, who are wont to
burst upon their enemy unawares, and to massacre or carry off men,
women, and children; these people, on the contrary, embark in their
canoes, which on these occasions are paddled by the women, repair to the
hostile village, enter into parley, and do all they can to terminate the
affair amicably: sometimes a third party becomes mediator between the
first two, and of course observes an exact neutrality. If those who seek
justice do not obtain it to their satisfaction, they retire to some
distance, and the combat begins, and is continued for some time with
fury on both sides; but as soon as one or two men are killed, the party
which has lost these, owns itself beaten and the battle ceases. If it is
the people of the village attacked who are worsted, the others do not
retire without receiving presents. When the conflict is postponed till
the next day (for they never fight but in open daylight, as if to render
nature witness of their exploits), they keep up frightful cries all
night long, and, when they are sufficiently near to understand each
other, defy one another by menaces, railleries, and sarcasms, like the
heroes of Homer and Virgil. The women and children are always removed
from the village before the action.

Their combats are almost all maritime: for they fight ordinarily in
their pirogues, which they take care to careen, so as to present the
broadside to the enemy, and half lying down, avoid the greater part of
the arrows let fly at them.

But the chief reason of the bloodlessness of their combats is the
inefficiency of their offensive weapons, and the excellence of their
defensive armor. Their offensive arms are merely a bow and arrow, and a
kind of double-edged sabre, about two and a half feet long, and six
inches wide in the blade: they rarely come to sufficiently close
quarters to make use of the last. For defensive armor they wear a
cassock or tunic of elk-skin double, descending to the ankles, with
holes for the arms. It is impenetrable by their arrows, which can not
pierce two thicknesses of leather; and as their heads are also covered
with a sort of helmet, the neck is almost the only part in which they
can be wounded. They have another kind of corslet, made like the corsets
of our ladies, of splinters of hard wood interlaced with nettle twine.
The warrior who wears this cuirass does not use the tunic of elk-skin;
he is consequently less protected, but a great deal more free; the said
tunic being very heavy and very stiff.

It is almost useless to observe that, in their military expeditions,
they have their bodies and faces daubed with different paints, often of
the most extravagant designs. I remember to have seen a war-chief, with
one exact half of his face painted white and the other half black.

Their marriages are conducted with a good deal of ceremony. When a young
man seeks a girl in marriage, his parents make the proposals to those of
the intended bride, and when it has been agreed upon what presents the
future bridegroom is to offer to the parents of the bride, all parties
assemble at the house of the latter, whither the neighbors are invited
to witness the contract. The presents, which consist of slaves, strings
of beads, copper bracelets, _haiqua_ shells, &c., are distributed by the
young man, who, on his part receives as many, and sometimes more,
according to the means or the munificence of the parents of his
betrothed. The latter is then led forward by the old matrons and
presented to the young man, who takes her as his wife, and all retire to
their quarters.

The men are not very scrupulous in their choice, and take small pains to
inform themselves what conduct a young girl has observed before her
nuptials; and it must be owned that few marriages would take place, if
the youth would only espouse maidens without reproach on the score of
chastity; for the unmarried girls are by no means scrupulous in that
particular, and their parents give them, on that head, full liberty. But
once the marriage is contracted, the spouses observe toward each other
an inviolable fidelity; adultery is almost unknown among them, and the
woman who should be guilty of it would be punished with death. At the
same time, the husband may repudiate his wife, and the latter may then
unite herself in marriage to another man. Polygamy is permitted, indeed
is customary; there are some who have as many as four or five wives; and
although it often happens that the husband loves one better than the
rest, they never show any jealousy, but live, together in the most
perfect concord.[X]

[Footnote X: This appears improbable, and is, no doubt, overstated; but
so far as it is true, only shows the degradation of these women, and the
absence of moral love on both sides. The indifference to virgin chastity
described by Mr. F., is a characteristic of barbarous nations in
general, and is explained by the principle stated in the next note
below; the savage state being essentially one in which the supernatural
bond of human fellowship is snapped: it is (as it has been called) the
state of _nature_, in which continence is practically impossible; and
what men can not have, that they soon cease to prize. The same utter
indifference to the past conduct of the girls they marry is mentioned by
MAYHEW as existing among the costermongers and street population of
London, whom he well likens to the barbarous tribes lying on the
outskirts of more ancient nations.--ED.]

There are charlatans everywhere, but they are more numerous among
savages than anywhere else, because among these ignorant and
superstitious people the trade is at once more profitable and less
dangerous. As soon as a native of the Columbia is indisposed, no matter
what the malady, they send for the medicine man, who treats the patient
in the absurd manner usually adopted by these impostors, and with such
violence of manipulation, that often a sick man, whom a timely bleeding
or purgative would have saved, is carried off by a sudden death.

They deposite their dead in canoes, on rocks sufficiently elevated not
to be overflowed by the spring freshets. By the side of the dead are
laid his bow, his arrows, and some of his fishing implements; if it is
a woman, her beads and bracelets: the wives, the relatives and the
slaves of the defunct cut their hair in sign of grief, and for several
days, at the rising and setting of the sun, go to some distance from the
village to chant a funeral song.

These people have not, properly speaking, a public worship.[Y] I could
never perceive, during my residence among them, that they worshipped any
idol. They had, nevertheless, some small sculptured figures; but they
appeared to hold them in light esteem, offering to barter them for
trifles.

[Footnote Y: It is Coleridge who observes that _every tribe is
barbarous_ which has no recognised public worship or cult, and no
regular priesthood as opposed to self-constituted conjurors. It is, in
fact, by public worship alone that human society is organized and
vivified; and it is impossible to maintain such worship without a
sacerdotal order, however it be constituted. _No culture without a
cult_, is the result of the study of the races of mankind. Hence those
who would destroy religion are the enemies of civilization.--ED.]

Having travelled with one of the sons of the chief of the Chinooks
(Comcomly), an intelligent and communicative young man, I put to him
several questions touching their religious belief, and the following
is, in substance, what he told me respecting it: Men, according to their
ideas, were created by a divinity whom they name _Etalapass_; but they
were imperfect, having a mouth that was not opened, eyes that were fast
closed, hands and feet that were not moveable; in a word, they were
rather statues of flesh, than living men. A second divinity, whom they
call _Ecannum_, less powerful, but more benign than the former, having
seen men in their state of imperfection, took a sharp stone and laid
open their mouths and eyes; he gave agility, also, to their feet, and
motion to their hands. This compassionate divinity was not content with
conferring these first benefits; he taught men to make canoes, paddles,
nets, and, in a word, all the tools and instruments they use. He did
still more: he threw great rocks into the river, to obstruct the ascent
of the salmon, in order that they might take as many as they wanted.

The natives of the Columbia further believe, that the men who have been
good citizens, good fathers, good husbands, and good fishermen, who
have not committed murder, &c., will be perfectly happy after their
death, and will go to a country where they will find fish, fruit, &c.,
in abundance; and that, on the contrary, those who have lived wickedly,
will inhabit a country of fasting and want, where they will eat nothing
but bitter roots, and have nothing to drink but salt water.

If these notions in regard to the origin and future destiny of man are
not exactly conformed to sound reason or to divine revelation, it will
be allowed that they do not offer the absurdities with which the
mythologies of many ancient nations abound.[Z] The article which makes
skill in fishing a virtue worthy of being compensated in the other
world, does not disfigure the salutary and consoling dogma of the
immortality of the soul, and that of future rewards and punishments, so
much as one is at first tempted to think; for if we reflect a little, we
shall discover that the skilful fisherman, in laboring for himself,
labors also for society; he is a useful citizen, who contributes, as
much as lies in his power, to avert from his fellow-men the scourge of
famine; he is a religious man, who honors the divinity by making use of
his benefits. Surely a great deal of the theology of a future life
prevalent among civilized men, does not excel this in profundity.

[Footnote Z: It seems clear that this Indian mythology is a form of the
primitive tradition obscured by symbol. The creation of man by the
Supreme Divinity, but in an imperfect state ("his eyes not yet opened"),
his deliverance from that condition by an inferior but more beneficent
deity (the Satan of the Bible), and the progress of the emancipated and
enlightened being, in the arts of industry, are clearly set forth. Thus
the devil has his cosmogony as well as the Almighty, and his tradition
in opposition to the divine.--ED.]

It is not to be expected that men perfectly ignorant, like these
Indians, should be free from superstitions: one of the most ridiculous
they have, regards the method of preparing and eating fish. In the month
of July, 1811, the natives brought us at first a very scanty supply of
the fresh salmon, from the fear that we would cut the fish crosswise
instead of lengthwise; being persuaded that if we did so, the river
would be obstructed, and the fishing ruined. Having reproached the chief
on that account, they brought us a greater quantity, but all cooked, and
which, not to displease them, it was necessary to eat before sunset.
Re-assured at last by our solemn promises not to cut the fish crosswise,
they supplied us abundantly during the remainder of the season.

In spite of the vices that may be laid to the charge of the natives of
the Columbia, I regard them as nearer to a state of civilization than
any of the tribes who dwell east of the Rocky mountains. They did not
appear to me so attached to their customs that they could not easily
adopt those of civilized nations: they would dress themselves willingly
in the European mode, if they had the means. To encourage this taste, we
lent pantaloons to the chiefs who visited us, when they wished to enter
our houses, never allowing them to do it in a state of nudity. They
possess, in an eminent degree, the qualities opposed to indolence,
improvidence, and stupidity: the chiefs, above all, are distinguished
for their good sense and intelligence. Generally speaking, they have a
ready intellect and a tenacious memory. Thus old Comcomly recognised the
mate of the _Albatross_ as having visited the country sixteen years
before, and recalled to the latter the name of the captain under whom he
had sailed at that period.

The _Chinook_ language is spoken by all the nations from the mouth of
the Columbia to the falls. It is hard and difficult to pronounce, for
strangers; being full of gutturals, like the Gaelic. The combinations
_thl_, or _tl_, and _lt_, are as frequent in the Chinook as in the
Mexican.[AA]

[Footnote AA: There can not be a doubt that the existing tribes on the
N.W. coast, have reached that country from the _South_, and not from the
North. They are the _debris_ of the civilization of Central America,
expelled by a defecating process that is going on in all human
societies, and so have sunk into barbarism.--ED.]




CHAPTER XXI.

Departure from Astoria or Fort George.--Accident.--Passage of the
Dalles or Narrows.--Great Columbian Desert.--Aspect of the
Country.--Wallawalla and Shaptin Rivers.--Rattlesnakes.--Some
Details regarding the Natives of the Upper Columbia.


We quitted Fort George (or Astoria, if you please) on Monday morning,
the 4th of April, 1814, in ten canoes, five of which were of bark and
five of cedar wood, carrying each seven men as crew, and two passengers,
in all ninety persons, and all well armed. Messrs. J.G. M'Tavish, D.
Stuart, J. Clarke, B. Pillet, W. Wallace, D. M'Gillis, D. M'Kenzie, &c.,
were of the party. Nothing remarkable occurred to us as far as the first
falls, which we reached on the 10th. The portage was effected
immediately, and we encamped on an island for the night. Our numbers
had caused the greater part of the natives to take to flight, and those
who remained in the villages showed the most pacific dispositions. They
sold us four horses and thirty dogs, which were immediately slaughtered
for food.

We resumed our route on the 11th, at an early hour. The wind was
favorable, but blew with violence. Toward evening, the canoe in which
Mr. M'Tavish was, in doubling a point of rock, was run under by its
press of sail, and sunk. Happily the river was not deep at this place;
no one was drowned; and we succeeded in saving all the goods. This
accident compelled us to camp at an early hour.

On the 12th, we arrived at a rapid called the _Dalles_: this is a
channel cut by nature through the rocks, which are here almost
perpendicular: the channel is from 150 to 300 feet wide, and about two
miles long. The whole body of the river rushes through it, with great
violence, and renders navigation impracticable. The portage occupied us
till dusk. Although we had not seen a single Indian in the course of the
day, we kept sentinels on duty all night: for it was here that Messrs.
Stuart and Reed were attacked by the natives.

On the 13th, we made two more portages, and met Indians, of whom we
purchased horses and wood. We camped early on a sandy plain, where we
passed a bad night; the wind, which blew violently, raised clouds of
sand, which incommoded us greatly, and spoiled every mouthful of food we
took.

On the 14th and 15th, we passed what are called the Great Plains of the
Columbia. From the top of the first rapid to this point, the aspect of
the country becomes more and more _triste_ and disagreeable; one meets
at first nothing but bare hills, which scarcely offer a few isolated
pines, at a great distance from each other; after that, the earth,
stripped of verdure, does not afford you the sight of a single shrub;
the little grass which grows in that arid soil, appears burnt by the
rigor of the climate. The natives who frequent the banks of the river,
for the salmon fishery, have no other wood but that which they take
floating down. We passed several rapids, and a small stream called
Utalah, which flows from the southeast.

On the 16th, we found the river narrowed; the banks rose on either side
in elevations, without, however, offering a single tree. We reached the
river _Wallawalla_, which empties into the Columbia on the southeast. It
is narrow at its confluence, and is not navigable for any great
distance. A range of mountains was visible to the S.E., about fifty or
sixty miles off. Behind these mountains the country becomes again flat
and sandy, and is inhabited by a tribe called the _Snakes_. We found on
the left bank of the _Wallawalla_, an encampment of Indians, consisting
of about twenty lodges. They sold us six dogs and eight horses, the
greater part extremely lean. We killed two of the horses immediately: I
mounted one of the six that remained; Mr. Ross took another; and we
drove the other four before us. Toward the decline of day we passed the
river _Lewis_, called, in the language of the country, the _Sha-ap-tin_.
It comes from the S.E., and is the same that Lewis and Clarke descended
in 1805. The _Sha-ap-tin_ appeared to me to have little depth, and to be
about 300 yards wide, at its confluence.

The country through which we were now passing, was a mingling of hills,
steep rocks, and valleys covered with wormwood; the stems of which shrub
are nearly six inches thick, and might serve for fuel. We killed six
rattlesnakes on the 15th, and on the 16th saw a great many more among
the rocks. These dangerous reptiles appeared to be very numerous in this
part of the country. The plains are also inhabited by a little
quadruped, only about eight or nine inches in length, and approaching
the dog in form. These animals have the hair, or _poil_, of a reddish
brown, and strong fore-paws, armed with long claws which serve them to
dig out their holes under the earth. They have a great deal of
curiosity: as soon as they hear a noise they come out of their holes and
bark. They are not vicious, but, though easily tamed, can not be
domesticated.

The natives of the upper Columbia, beginning at the falls, differ
essentially in language, manners, and habits, from those of whom I have
spoken in the preceding chapters. They do not dwell in villages, like
the latter, but are nomads, like the Tartars and the Arabs of the
desert: their women are more industrious, and the young girls more
reserved and chaste than those of the populations lower down. They do
not go naked, but both sexes wear habits made of dressed deer-skin,
which they take care to rub with chalk, to keep them clean and white.
They are almost always seen on horseback, and are in general good
riders; they pursue the deer and penetrate even to Missouri, to kill
buffalo, the flesh of which they dry, and bring it back on their horses,
to make their principal food during the winter. These expeditions are
not free from danger; for they have a great deal to apprehend from the
_Black-feet_, who are their enemies. As this last tribe is powerful and
ferocious, the _Snakes_, the _Pierced-noses_ or _Sha-ap-tins_, the
_Flatheads_, &c., make common cause against them, when the former go to
hunt east of the mountains. They set out with their families, and the
cavalcade often numbers two thousand horses. When they have the good
fortune not to encounter the enemy, they return with the spoils of an
abundant chase; they load a part of their horses with the hides and
beef, and return home to pass the winter in peace. Sometimes, on the
contrary, they are so harassed by the Blackfeet, who surprise them in
the night and carry off their horses, that they are forced to return
light-handed, and then they have nothing to eat but roots, all the
winter.

These Indians are passionately fond of horseraces: by the bets they make
on these occasions they sometimes lose all that they possess. The women
ride, as well as the men. For a bridle they use a cord of horse-hair,
which they attach round the animal's mouth; with that he is easily
checked, and by laying the hand on his neck, is made to wheel to this
side or that. The saddle is a cushion of stuffed deer-skin, very
suitable for the purpose to which it is destined, rarely hurting the
horse, and not fatiguing the rider so much as our European saddles. The
stirrups are pieces of hard wood, ingeniously wrought, and of the same
shape as those which are used in civilized countries. They are covered
with a piece of deer-skin, which is sewed on wet, and in drying stiffens
and becomes hard and firm. The saddles for women differ in form, being
furnished with the antlers of a deer, so as to resemble the high
pommelled saddle of the Mexican ladies.

They procure their horses from the herds of these animals which are
found in a wild state in the country extending between the northern
latitudes and the gulf of Mexico, and which sometimes count a thousand
or fifteen hundred in a troop. These horses come from New Mexico, and
are of Spanish race. We even saw some which had been marked with a hot
iron by Spaniards. Some of our men, who had been at the south, told me
that they had seen among the Indians, bridles, the bits of which were of
silver. The form of the saddles used by the females, proves that they
have taken their pattern from the Spanish ones destined for the same
use. One of the partners of the N.W. Company (Mr. M'Tavish) assured us
that he had seen among the _Spokans_, an old woman who told him that she
had seen men ploughing the earth; she told him that she had also seen
churches, which she made him understand by imitating the sound of a bell
and the action of pulling a bell-rope; and further to confirm her
account, made the sign of the cross. That gentleman concluded that she
had been made prisoner and sold to the Spaniards on the _Del Norte_; but
I think it more probable it was nearer, in North California, at the
mission of _San Carlos_ or _San Francisco_.

As the manner of taking wild horses should not be generally known to my
readers, I will relate it here in few words. The Indian who wishes to
capture some horses, mounts one of his fleetest coursers, being armed
with a long cord of horsehair, one end of which is attached to his
saddle, and the other is a running noose. Arrived at the herd, he dashes
into the midst of it, and flinging his cord, or _lasso_, passes it
dexterously over the head of the animal he selects; then wheeling his
courser, draws the cord after him; the wild horse, finding itself
strangling, makes little resistance; the Indian then approaches, ties
his fore and hind legs together, and leaves him till he has taken in
this manner as many as he can. He then drives them home before him, and
breaks them in at leisure.




CHAPTER XXII.

Meeting with the Widow of a Hunter.--Her Narrative.--Reflections of
the Author.--Priest's Rapid.--River Okenakan.--Kettle Falls.--Pine
Moss.--Scarcity of Food.--Rivers, Lakes, &c.--Accident.--A
Rencontre.--First View of the Rocky Mountains.


On the 17th, the fatigue I had experienced the day before, on horseback,
obliged me to re-embark in my canoe. About eight o'clock, we passed a
little river flowing from the N.W. We perceived, soon after, three
canoes, the persons in which were struggling with their paddles to
overtake us. As we were still pursuing our way, we heard a child's voice
cry out in French--"_arretez donc, arretez donc_"--(stop! stop!). We put
ashore, and the canoes having joined us, we perceived in one of them the
wife and children of a man named _Pierre Dorion_, a hunter, who had been
sent on with a party of eight, under the command of Mr. J. Reed, among
the _Snakes_, to join there the hunters left by Messrs. Hunt and Crooks,
near Fort Henry, and to secure horses and provisions for our journey.
This woman informed us, to our no small dismay, of the tragical fate of
all those who composed that party. She told us that in the month of
January, the hunters being dispersed here and there, setting their traps
for the beaver, Jacob Regner, Gilles Leclerc, and Pierre Dorion, her
husband, had been attacked by the natives. Leclerc, having been mortally
wounded, reached her tent or hut, where he expired in a few minutes,
after having announced to her that her husband had been killed. She
immediately took two horses that were near the lodge, mounted her two
boys upon them, and fled in all haste to the wintering house of Mr.
Reed, which was about five days' march from the spot where her husband
fell. Her horror and disappointment were extreme, when she found the
house--a log cabin--deserted, and on drawing nearer, was soon convinced,
by the traces of blood, that Mr. Reed also had been murdered. No time
was to be lost in lamentations, and she had immediately fled toward the
mountains south of the _Wallawalla_, where, being impeded by the depth
of the snow, she was forced to winter, having killed both the horses to
subsist herself and her children. But at last, finding herself out of
provisions, and the snow beginning to melt, she had crossed the
mountains with her boys, hoping to find some more humane Indians, who
would let her live among them till the boats from the fort below should
be ascending the river in the spring, and so reached the banks of the
Columbia, by the Wallawalla. Here, indeed, the natives had received her
with much hospitality, and it was the Indians of Wallawalla who brought
her to us. We made them some presents to repay their care and pains, and
they returned well satisfied.

The persons who lost their lives in this unfortunate wintering party,
were Mr. John Reed, (clerk), Jacob Regner, John Hubbough, Pierre Dorion
(hunters), Gilles Leclerc, Francois Landry, J.B. Turcotte, Andre la
Chapelle and Pierre De Launay, (_voyageurs_).[AB] We had no doubt that
this massacre was an act of vengeance, on the part of the natives, in
retaliation for the death of one of their people, whom Mr. John Clark
had hanged for theft the spring before. This fact, the massacre on the
Tonquin, the unhappy end of Captain Cook, and many other similar
examples, prove how carefully the Europeans, who have relations with a
barbarous people, should abstain from acting in regard to them on the
footing of too marked an inequality, and especially from punishing their
offences according to usages and codes, in which there is too often an
enormous disproportion between the crime and the punishment. If these
pretended exemplary punishments seem to have a good effect at first
sight, they almost always produce terrible consequences in the sequel.

[Footnote AB: Turcotte died of _King's Evil_. De Launay was a
half-breed, of violent temper, who had taken an Indian woman to live
with him; he left Mr. Reed in the autumn, and was never heard of again.]

On the 18th, we passed _Priest's Rapid_, so named by Mr. Stuart and his
people, who saw at this spot, in 1811, as they were ascending the
river, a number of savages, one of whom was performing on the rest
certain aspersions and other ceremonies, which had the air of being
coarse imitations of the Catholic worship. For our part, we met here
some Indians of whom we bought two horses. The banks of the river at
this place are tolerably high, but the country back of them is flat and
uninteresting.

On the 20th, we arrived at a place where the bed of the river is
extremely contracted, and where we were obliged to make a portage.
Messrs. J. Stuart and Clarke left us here, to proceed on horseback to
the Spokan trading house, to procure there the provisions which would be
necessary for us, in order to push on to the mountains.

On the 21st, we lightened of their cargoes, three canoes, in which those
who were to cross the continent embarked, to get on with greater speed.
We passed several rapids, and began to see mountains covered with snow.

On the 22d, we began to see some pines on the ridge of the neighboring
hills; and at evening we encamped under _trees_, a thing which had not
happened to us since the 12th.

On the 23d, toward 9, A.M., we reached the trading post established by
D. Stuart, at the mouth of the river _Okenakan_. The spot appeared to us
charming, in comparison with the country through which we had journeyed
for twelve days past: the two rivers here meeting, and the immense
prairies covered with a fine verdure, strike agreeably the eye of the
observer; but there is not a tree or a shrub to diversify the scene, and
render it a little less naked and less monotonous. We found here Messrs.
J. M'Gillivray and Ross, and Mr. O. de Montigny, who had taken service
with the N.W. Company, and who charged me with a letter for his brother.

Toward midday we re-embarked, to continue our journey. After having
passed several dangerous rapids without accident, always through a
country broken by shelving rocks, diversified with hills and verdant
prairies, we arrived, on the 29th, at the portage of the _Chaudieres_
or Kettle falls. This is a fall where the water precipitates itself
over an immense rock of white marble, veined with red and green, that
traverses the bed of the river from N.W. to S.E. We effected the portage
immediately, and encamped on the edge of a charming prairie.

We found at this place some Indians who had been fasting, they assured
us, for several days. They appeared, in fact, reduced to the most
pitiable state, having nothing left but skin and bones, and scarcely
able to drag themselves along, so that not without difficulty could they
even reach the margin of the river, to get a little water to wet their
parched lips. It is a thing that often happens to these poor people,
when their chase has not been productive; their principal nourishment
consisting, in that case, of the pine moss, which they boil till it is
reduced to a sort of glue or black paste, of a sufficient consistence to
take the form of biscuit. I had the curiosity to taste this bread, and I
thought I had got in my mouth a bit of soap. Yet some of our people, who
had been reduced to eat this glue, assured me that when fresh made it
had a very good taste, seasoned with meat.[AC] We partly relieved these
wretched natives from our scanty store.

[Footnote AC: The process of boiling employed by the Indians in this
case, extracts from the moss its gelatine, which serves to supply the
waste of those tissues into which that principle enters; but as the moss
contains little or none of the proximates which constitute the bulk of
the living solids and fluids, it will not, of course, by itself, support
life or strength.--ED.]

On the 30th, while we were yet encamped at Kettle falls, Messrs. J.
Stuart and Clarke arrived from the post at Spokan. The last was mounted
on the finest-proportioned gray charger, full seventeen hands high, that
I had seen in these parts: Mr. Stuart had got a fall from his, in trying
to urge him, and had hurt himself severely. These gentlemen not having
brought us the provisions we expected, because the hunters who had been
sent for that purpose among the _Flatheads_, had not been able to
procure any, it was resolved to divide our party, and that Messrs.
M'Donald, J. Stuart, and M'Kenzie should go forward to the post situated
east of the mountains, in order to send us thence horses and supplies.
These gentlemen quitted us on the 1st of May. After their departure we
killed two horses and dried the meat; which occupied us the rest of that
day and all the next. In the evening of the 2d, Mr. A. Stuart arrived at
our camp. He had recovered from his wounds (received in the conflict
with the natives, before related), and was on his way to his old
wintering place on _Slave lake_, to fetch his family to the Columbia.

We resumed our route on the morning of the 3d of May, and went to encamp
that evening at the upper-end of a rapid, where we began to descry
mountains covered with forests, and where the banks of the river
themselves were low and thinly timbered.

On the 4th, after having passed several considerable rapids, we reached
the confluence of _Flathead_ river. This stream comes from the S.E., and
falls into the Columbia in the form of a cascade: it may be one hundred
and fifty yards wide at its junction.

On the morning of the 5th, we arrived at the confluence of the
_Coutonais_ river. This stream also flows from the south, and has nearly
the same width as the _Flathead_. Shortly after passing it, we entered
a lake or enlargement of the river, which we crossed to encamp at its
upper extremity. This lake may be thirty or forty miles, and about four
wide at its broadest part: it is surrounded by lofty hills, which for
the most part have their base at the water's edge, and rise by gradual
and finely-wooded terraces, offering a sufficiently pretty view.

On the 6th, after we had run through a narrow strait or channel some
fifteen miles long, we entered another lake, of less extent than the
former but equally picturesque. When we were nearly in the middle of it,
an accident occurred which, if not very disastrous, was sufficiently
singular. One of the men, who had been on the sick-list for several
days, requested to be landed for an instant. Not being more than a mile
from the shore, we acceded to his request, and made accordingly for a
projecting head-land; but when we were about three hundred or four
hundred yards from the point, the canoe struck with force against the
trunk of a tree which was planted in the bottom of the lake, and the
extremity of which barely reached the surface of the water.[AD] It
needed no more to break a hole in so frail a vessel; the canoe was
pierced through the bottom and filled in a trice; and despite all our
efforts we could not get off the tree, which had penetrated two or three
feet within her; perhaps that was our good fortune, for the opening was
at least a yard long. One of the men, who was an expert swimmer,
stripped, and was about to go ashore with an axe lashed to his back, to
make a raft for us, when the other canoe, which had been proceeding up
the lake, and was a mile ahead, perceived our signals of distress, and
came to our succor. They carried us to land, where it was necessary to
encamp forthwith, as well to dry ourselves as to mend the canoe.

[Footnote AD: A _snag_ of course, of the nature of which the young
Canadian seems to have been ignorant.]

On the 7th, Mr. A. Stuart, whom we had left behind at Kettle falls, came
up with us, and we pursued our route in company. Toward evening we met
natives, camped on the bank of the river: they gave us a letter from
which we learned that Mr. M'Donald and his party had passed there on the
4th. The women at this camp were busy spinning the coarse wool of the
mountain sheep: they had blankets or mantles, woven or platted of the
same material, with a heavy fringe all round: I would gladly have
purchased one of these, but as we were to carry all our baggage on our
backs across the mountains, was forced to relinquish the idea. Having
bought of these savages some pieces of dried venison, we pursued our
journey. The country began to be ascending; the stream was very rapid;
and we made that day little progress.

On the 8th we began to see snow on the shoals or sand-banks of the
river: the atmosphere grew very cold. The banks on either side presented
only high hills covered to the top with impenetrable forests. While the
canoes were working up a considerable rapid, I climbed the hills with
Mr. M'Gillis, and we walked on, following the course of the river, some
five or six miles. The snow was very deep in the ravines or narrow
gorges which are found between the bases of the hills. The most common
trees are the Norway pine and the cedar: the last is here, as on the
borders of the sea, of a prodigious size.

On the 9th and 10th, as we advanced but slowly, the country presented
the same aspect as on the 8th. Toward evening of the 10th, we perceived
a-head of us a chain of high mountains entirely covered with snow. The
bed of the river was hardly more than sixty yards wide, and was filled
with dry banks composed of coarse gravel and small pebble.




CHAPTER XXIII.

Course of the Columbia River.--Canoe River.--Foot-march toward the
Rocky Mountains.--Passage of the Mountains.


On the 11th, that is to say, one month, day for day, after our departure
from the falls, we quitted the Columbia, to enter a little stream to
which Mr. Thompson had given, in 1811, the name of _Canoe_ river, from
the fact that it was on this fork that he constructed the canoes which
carried him to the Pacific.

The Columbia, which in the portion above the falls (not taking into
consideration some local sinuosities) comes from the N.N.E., takes a
bend here so that the stream appears to flow from the S.E.[AE] Some
boatmen, and particularly Mr. Regis Bruguier, who had ascended that
river to its source, informed me that it came out of two small lakes,
not far from the chain of the Rocky Mountains, which, at that place,
diverges considerably to the east. According to Arrowsmith's map, the
course of the _Tacoutche Tesse_, from its mouth in the Pacific Ocean, to
its source in the Rocky mountains, is about twelve hundred English
miles, or four hundred French leagues of twenty-five to a degree; that
is to say, from two hundred and forty to two hundred and eighty miles
from west to east, from its mouth to the first falls: seven hundred and
fifty miles nearly from S.S.W. to N.N.E., from the first rapids to the
bend at the confluence of _Canoe_ river; and one hundred and fifty or
one hundred and eighty miles from that confluence to its source. We were
not provided with the necessary instruments to determine the latitude,
and still less the longitude, of our different stations; but it took us
four or five days to go up from the factory at Astoria to the falls, and
we could not have made less than sixty miles a day: and, as I have just
remarked, we occupied an entire month in getting from the falls to Canoe
river: deducting four or five days, on which we did not travel, there
remain twenty-five days march; and it is not possible that we made less
than thirty miles a day, one day with another.

[Footnote AE: Mr. Franchere uniformly mentions the direction from which
a stream appears to flow, not that toward which it runs; a natural
method on the part of one who was ascending the current.]

We ascended Canoe river to the point where it ceases to be navigable,
and encamped in the same place where Mr. Thompson wintered in 1810-'11.
We proceeded immediately to secure our canoes, and to divide the baggage
among the men, giving each fifty pounds to carry, including his
provisions. A sack of _pemican_, or pounded meat, which we found in a
_cache_, where it had been left for us, was a great acquisition, as our
supplies were nearly exhausted.

On the 12th we began our foot march to the mountains, being twenty-four
in number, rank and file. Mr. A. Stuart remained at the portage to
bestow in a place of safety the effects which we could not carry, such
as boxes, kegs, camp-kettles, &c. We traversed first some swamps, next a
dense bit of forest, and then we found ourselves marching up the
gravelly banks of the little _Canoe_ river. Fatigue obliged us to camp
early.

On the 13th we pursued our journey, and entered into the valleys between
the mountains, where there lay not less than four or five feet of snow.
We were obliged to ford the river ten or a dozen times in the course of
the day, sometimes with the water up to our necks. These frequent
fordings were rendered necessary by abrupt and steep rocks or bluffs,
which it was impossible to get over without plunging into the wood for a
great distance. The stream being very swift, and rushing over a bed of
stones, one of the men fell and lost a sack containing our last piece of
salt pork, which we were preserving as a most precious treasure. The
circumstances in which we found ourselves made us regard this as a most
unfortunate accident. We encamped that night at the foot of a steep
mountain, and sent on Mr. Pillet and the guide, M'Kay, to hasten a
supply of provisions to meet us.

On the morning of the 14th we began to climb the mountain which we had
before us. We were obliged to stop every moment, to take breath, so
stiff was the ascent. Happily it had frozen hard the night before, and