White people have almost universally been very kind to me, the Indians
generally so, but the elements have often been adverse. These have given
variety to my life--not always pleasant, but sufficient to form an item
here and there; and there is nearly always a comical side to most of
these experiences, if we can but see it.
One day in February, 1878, I started from Port Gamble for home with
eight canoes, but a strong head-wind arose. The Indians worked hard for
five hours, but traveled only ten miles and nearly all gave out, and we
camped on the beach. It rained also, and the wind blew still stronger so
that the trees were constantly falling near us. I had only a pair of
blankets, an overcoat, and a mat with me, but having obtained another
mat of the Indians, I made a slight roof over me with it and went to
sleep. About two o’clock in the morning I was aroused by the Indians,
when I learned that a very high tide had come and drowned them out. My
bed was on higher ground than theirs, but in fifteen minutes that ground
was three or four inches under water. We waded around, wet and cold, put
our things in the canoes and soon started. There was still some rain and
wind, and it was only by taking turns in rowing that we could keep from
suffering. In four hours we were at Seabeck, where we were made
comfortable, but that was a cold, long, dark, wintry morning ride.
I started from Jamestown for Elkwa, a distance of twenty-five miles, on
horseback, but, after going ten miles, the horse became so lame that he
could go no farther. I could not well procure another, so I proceeded on
foot. Soon I reached Morse Creek, but could find no way of crossing. The
stream was quite swift, having been swollen by recent rains. The best
way seemed to be to ford it. So, after taking off some of my clothes, I
started in. It was only about three feet deep, but so swift that it was
difficult to stand, and cold as a mountain stream in December naturally
is. But with a stick to feel my way, I crossed, and it only remained for
me to get warm, which I soon did by climbing a high hill.
Coming from Elkwa on another trip on horseback, with a friend, we were
obliged to travel on the beach for eight miles, as there was no other
road. The tide was quite high, the wind blowing, and the waves came in
very roughly. There were many trees lying on the beach, around which we
were compelled to canter as fast as we could when the waves were out.
But one time my friend, who was just ahead, passed safely, while I was
caught by the wave which came up to my side, and a part of which went
over my head. It was very fortunate that my horse was not carried off
his feet.
Once I was obliged to stay in one of their houses in the winter, a thing
I have seldom done, unless there is no white man’s house near, even in
the summer, when I have preferred to take my blankets and sleep outside.
The Indians have said that they are afraid the panthers will eat me; but
between the fleas, rats, and smoke (for they often keep their
old-fashioned houses full of smoke all night), sleep is not refreshing,
and the next morning I feel more like a piece of bacon than a minister.
Traveling in February with about seventy-five Indians, it was necessary
that I should stay all night in an Indian house to protect them from
unprincipled white men. The Indians at the village where we stayed were
as kind as could be, assigning me to their best house, where there was
no smoke; giving me a feather-bed, white sheets, and all very good
except the fleas. Before I went to sleep I killed four, in two or three
hours I waked up and killed fourteen, at three o’clock eleven more, and
in the morning I left without looking to see how many there were
remaining.
But Indian houses are not the only unpleasant ones. Here we are at a
hotel, the best in a saw-mill town of four or five hundred people; but
the bar-room is filled with tobacco-smoke, almost as thick as the smoke
from the fires which often fills an Indian house. Here about fifty men
spend a great portion of the night, and some of them all night, in
drinking, gambling, and smoking. The house is accustomed to it, for the
rooms directly over the bar-room are saturated with smoke, and I am
assigned to one of these rooms. Before I get to sleep the smoke has so
filled my nostrils that I can not breathe through them, and at midnight
I wake up with a headache so severe that I can scarcely hold up my head
for the next twenty-four hours. It is not so bad, however, but that I
can do a little thinking on this wise: Who are the lowest--the Indians,
or these whites? The smoke is of equal thickness: that of the Indians,
however, is clean smoke from wood; that of the whites, filthy from
tobacco. The Indian has sense enough to make holes in the roof where
some of it may escape; the white man does not even do that much. The
Indian sits or lies near the ground, underneath a great portion of it;
the white man puts a portion of his guests and his ladies’ parlor
directly over it. Sleeping in the Indian smoke I come out well, although
feeling like smoked bacon, and a thorough wash cures it; but sleeping in
that of the white man I come out sick, and the brain has to be washed.
In August, 1879, with my wife and three babies, and three Indians, I was
coming home from a month’s tour among the Clallams, in a canoe. One
evening from five o’clock until nine the rain poured down, as it
sometimes does on Puget Sound. With all that we could do it was
impossible to keep dry. Oilcloth, umbrellas, and blankets would not keep
the rain out of the bottom of the canoe, or from reaching some of our
bedding. At nine o’clock we reached an old deserted house with half the
roof off, and we crawled into it. The roof was off where the fire-place
was situated, so we tried to dry ourselves, keep warm, and dry some
bedding, while holding umbrellas over us, in order that every thing
should not get wet as fast as it was dried. As soon as a few clothes
got dry, we rolled up a baby and he was soon asleep; and so on for three
hours we packed one after another away, until I was the only one left.
But the rest had all of the dry bedding. There was one pair of blankets
left, and they were soaked through. I knew that if I attempted to dry
them I might as well calculate to sit up until morning. So I warmed them
a little, got close to the warm places, pulled on two or three more wet
things, pulled up a box on one side to help keep warm, leaned up my head
slantingwise against a perpendicular wall for a pillow, and went to
sleep. Some writers say that a person must not sleep in one position all
night; if he does he will die. I did not suffer from that danger during
that night. The next morning we had to start about five o’clock because
of the tide, without any breakfast. When about eight o’clock we reached
a farm-house, and warmed up, where the people spent most of the forenoon
getting a good warm breakfast for us, free of all charges, we did wish
that they could receive the blessing forty times over mentioned in the
verse about the cup of cold water, for it was worth a hundred cups of
_cold_ water that morning. No one of us, however, took cold on that
night.
Only once have I ever felt that there was much danger in traveling in a
canoe. I was coming from Clallam Bay to Jamestown in November, 1883,
with five Indians. We left Port Angeles on the afternoon of the last day
with a good wind, but when we had been out a short time and it was
almost dark, a low, black snow-squall struck us. There was no safe place
to land, and we went along safely until we reached the Dunginess Spit,
which is six miles long. There is a good harbor on the east side of it;
but we were on the west side, and the Indians said that it was not safe
to attempt to go around it, for those snow-squalls are the worst storms
there are, and the heavy waves at the point would upset us. It was
better to run the risk of breaking our canoe while landing than to run
the risk of capsizing in those boiling waters. So we made the attempt,
but could not see how the waves were coming in the darkness, and after
our canoe touched the beach, but before we could draw it up to a place
of safety, another wave struck it, and split it for nearly its whole
length. But we were all safe. Fortunately we were only seven miles from
Jamestown; so we took our things on our backs and walked the rest of the
way, all of us very thankful that we were not at the bottom of the sea.