Parting with Friends--Wallawalla Valley--Fort Wallawalla--Mr.
Pambrun--The Columbia--Country down its banks--What was
seen of Rock Earth--Wood, Fire and Water--Danger, &c. from
the Heights--Falling Mountain--Morning Hymn to God--Giant's
Causeway--A View of the Frozen Sublime--Tum Tum Orter' and
other appurtenances--Dalles--Methodist Episcopal Mission--Mr.
and Mrs. Perkins--Mr. Lee--Mission Premises--Egyptian
Pyramids--Indians--How Fifty Indians can fight One Boston--The
Result of a War--Descent of the Columbia in a Canoe--A
Night on the River--The Poetry of the Wilderness--The
Cascades--Postage--Dr. McLaughlin--Indian Tombs--Death--A
Race--The River and its Banks--Night again--Mounts Washington
and Jefferson--Arrival--Fort Vancouver--British Hospitality.
30th. Left the kind people of the mission at ten o'clock for Fort
Wallawalla. Travelled fifteen miles; face of the country dry, barren,
swelling plains; not an acre capable of cultivation; some bunch grass,
and a generous supply of wild wormwood. Encamped on the northern branch
of the Wallawalla River.
{151} October 1. At ten o'clock to-day, I was kindly received by Mr.
Pambrun at Fort Wallawalla.[223] This gentleman is a half-pay officer
in the British army. His rank in the Hudson Bay Company, is that of
"clerk in charge" of this post. He is of French extraction, a native of
Canada. I breakfasted with him and his family. His wife, a half breed
of the country, has a numerous and beautiful family. The breakfast
being over, Mr. Pambrun invited me to view the premises. The fort is
a plank stockade, with a number of buildings within, appropriated to
the several uses of a store, blacksmith-shop, dwellings, &c. It has
a bastion in the north-east corner, mounted with cannon. The country
around has sometimes been represented as fruitful and beautiful. I
am obliged to deny so foul an imputation upon the fair fame of dame
Nature. It is an ugly desert; designed to be such, made such, and is
such.
About seven miles up the Wallawalla River, are two or three acres
of ground fenced with brush, capable of bearing an inferior species
of Yankee pumpkin; and another spot somewhere, of the fourth of an
acre, capable of producing anything that grows in the richest kind of
unmoistened {152} sand. But aside from these distinguished exceptions,
the vicinity of Fort Wallawalla is a desert. There is, indeed, some
beauty and sublimity in sight, but no fertility. The wild Columbia
sweeps along under its northern wall. In the east, roll up to heaven
dark lofty ridges of mountains; in the north-west, are the ruins of
extinct and terrible volcanic action; in the west, a half mile, is the
entrance of the river into the vast chasm of its lower course, abutted
on either side by splendidly castellated rocks, a magnificent gateway
for its floods.
But this is all. Desert describes it as well as it does the wastes
of Arabia. I tarried only two hours with the hospitable Mr. Pambrun.
But as if determined that I should remember that I would have been a
welcome guest a much longer time, he put some tea and sugar and bread
into my packs, and kindly expressed regrets that our mutual admiration
of Napoleon should be thus crowded into the chit-chat of hours instead
of weeks. A fine companionable fellow; I hope he will command Fort
Wallawalla as long as Britons occupy it, and live a hundred years
afterwards.
Travelled down the south bank of the Columbia along the water-side;
the river half {153} a mile in width, with a deep strong current;
water very clear. A short distance from this brink, on both sides,
rose the embankments of the chasm it has worn for itself, in the lapse
of ages--a noble gorge, worthy of its mighty waters. The northern one
might properly be termed a mountain running continuously along the
water's edge, seven hundred or eight hundred feet in height, black,
shining, and shrubless. The southern one consisted of earthy bluffs,
alternating with cliffs from one hundred to four hundred feet above the
stream, turreted with basaltic shafts, some twenty, others one hundred
feet above the subjacent hills.
Passed a few horses travelling industriously from one wisp of dry bunch
grass to another. Every thing unnatural, dry, brown, and desolate.
Climbed the heights near sunset, and had an extensive view of the
country south of the river. It was a treeless, brown expanse of dearth,
vast rolling swells of sand and clay, too dry to bear wormwood. No
mountains seen in that direction. On the north they rose precipitously
from the river, and hid from view the country beyond. The Wallawalla
Indians brought us drift-wood and fresh salmon, for which they desired
"shmoke," tobacco.
{154} 2nd. Continued to descend the river. Early in the day, basalt
disappeared from the bluffs; and the country north and south opened to
view five or six miles from the stream. It was partially covered with
dry bunch grass; groups of Indian horses occasionally appeared. But I
was impressed with the belief that the journeyings from one quid of
grass to another, and from these to water, were sufficient to enfeeble
the constitution of the best horse in Christendom. The wild wormwood,
of "blessed memory," greeted my eyes and nose, wherever its scrags
could find sand to nourish them.
During the day I was gratified with the sight of five or six trees, and
these a large species of willow, themselves small and bowed with age;
stones and rocks more or less fused. A strong westerly wind buffeted
me; and much of the time filled the air with drifting sand. We encamped
at the water side about three o'clock. I had thus a fine opportunity
of ascending the heights to view the southern plain. The slopes were
well covered with grass, and seemed easy of ascent; but on trial proved
extremely laborious. I however climbed slowly and patiently the long
sweeps for two hours, and gained nothing. Nay, I could see the noble
{155} river, like a long line of liquid fire blazing with the light of
the western sun; and the rush wigwams of the Wallawallas, dotting the
sands of the opposite shore; and the barren bluffs and rocks beyond
them piled away into space. But to the south my vision was hemmed in by
the constantly rising swells. No extensive view could be obtained from
any of the heights.
The sun was fast sinking, and the hills rose as I advanced. I was so
weary that I could go little further. But taking a careful view of the
peaks which would guide me back to my camp, I determined to travel
on till it should become too dark to see what might open before me.
I climbed slowly and tediously the seemingly endless swells, lifting
themselves over and beyond each other in beautiful, but to my wearied
limbs, and longing eyes in most vexatious continuity, till the sun
dipped his lower rim beneath the horizon.
A volcano burst the hills, thought I; and on I trudged with the little
strength that a large quantity of vexation gave me. Fires blister your
beautiful brows, I half uttered, as I dragged myself up the crowning
eminence, and saw the plateau declining in irregular undulations far
into the south-west--{156} a sterile waste, clothed in the glories of
the last rays of a splendid sunset. The crests of the distant swells
were fringed with bunch grass; not a shrub or a tree on all the field
of vision; and evidently no water nearer than the Columbia. Those
cattle which are, in the opinions of certain travellers, to depasture
these plains in future time, must be of sound wind and limb to gather
food and water the same day. I found myself so wearied on attaining
this goal of my wishes, that, notwithstanding the lateness of the
hour, I was literally compelled to seek some rest before attempting to
descend.
I therefore seated myself, and in the luxury of repose permitted
darkness to commence creeping over the landscape, before I could
rouse myself to the effort of moving. When I did start, my style
of locomotion was extremely varied, and withal sometimes not the
most pleasant to every portion of the mortal coil. My feet were not
unfrequently twice or thrice the length of that measure in advance
of my body. But the reader must not suppose that this circumstance
diminished my speed. I continued to slide down the hills, using as
vehicles the small sharp stones beneath me, until an opportunity
offered to put my {157} nether extremities under me again. Once I had
nearly plunged headlong from a precipice some fifty feet high, and
saved myself by catching a wormwood bush standing within three feet of
the brink. Finally, without any serious mishap, I arrived in camp, so
completely exhausted, that, without tasting food, I threw myself on my
couch for the night.
3rd. The earthy bluffs continued to bind the chasm of the river till
mid-day, when buttresses of basalt took their place. A little bunch
grass grew among the wild wormwood. Turkeys, grouse, and a species
of large hare frequently appeared; many ducks in the stream. For
three hours before sunset the trail was rugged and precipitous, often
overhanging the river, and so narrow that a mis-step of four inches
would have plunged horse and rider hundreds of feet into the boiling
flood. But as Skyuse horses never make such disagreeable mistakes,
we rode the steeps in safety. Encamped in a small grove of willows.
The river along the day's march was hemmed in by lofty and rugged
mountains. The rocks showed indubitable evidences of a volcanic origin.
As the sun went down, the Wallawalla village on the opposite shore
{158} sang a hymn in their own language, to a tune which I have often
heard sung in Catholic Churches, before the image of the Virgin. The
country in the south, as seen from the heights, was broken and barren;
view limited in all directions by the unevenness of the surface.
4th. Awakened this morning by the fall of a hundred tons of rock
from the face of the mountain near us. The earth trembled as if the
slumbering volcanoes were wrestling in its bowels. We were brought to
our feet, and opened and rubbed our eyes with every mark of despatch.
My "poor crane" and his hopeful son condescended to appear shocked; an
event in an Indian's life that occurs as seldom as his birth. I had
stationed myself near the fallen rocks as the sun's first rays awoke
the morning hymn of the Indian village.
It was a sweet wild tune that they sung to God among the dark mountains
of the Columbia. And sweeter, perhaps, in such a place, where every
motion of the heart is a monition that one is alone, and every thought
brings with it the remembrance that the social affections are separated
from the objects of their fondness, and where every moral sensibility
is chilled by a sense of {159} desolation and danger, calling into
exercise the resisting and exterminating propensities, and where the
holy memories of home find no response but in some loved star in the
unchanging heavens. In such a place how far sweeter than anything
beside is the evidence of the religious principle--the first teaching
of a mother's love, rising over the wastes of nature from the altar of
a pure heart--the incense of love going up to the heavenly presence.
At eight o'clock we were en route; at nine o'clock approached the
bend in the river, where it changes from a south-west to a north-west
course.[224] At this place the cliffs which overhang the southern bank
presented a fine collection of basaltic columns. Along the margin of
the river lay hillocks of scoriæ, piled together in every imaginable
form of confusion. Among them grew considerable quantities of bunch
grass, on which a band of Wallawalla horses were feeding. Sand-hills on
the opposite shore rose one thousand feet in the air. Basalt occurred
at intervals, in a more or less perfect state of formation, till the
hour of noon, when the trail led to the base of a series of columns
extending three-fourths of a mile down the bank. These were more
perfectly formed than any previously seen.
{160} They swelled from a large curve of the mountain side, like the
bastions of ancient castles; and one series of lofty columns towered
above another, till the last was surmounted by a crowning tower, a
little above the level of the plain beyond. And their pentagonal form,
longitudinal sections, dark shining fracture, and immense masses strewn
along my way, betokened me if not in the very presence of the Giant's
Causeway, yet on a spot where the same mighty energies had exerted
themselves which built that rare, beautiful wonder of the Emerald
Isle. The river was very tortuous, and shut in by high dykes of basalt
and sand hills the remainder of the day; saw three small rapids in the
Columbia; encamped at sunset; too weary to climb the heights.
5th. Arose at break of day, and ordering my guide to make arrangements
for starting as soon as I should return, I ascended the neighbouring
heights. Grassy undulating plains in all directions south of the river.
Far in the north-east towered the frozen peak of Mount Washington,
a perfect pyramid, clothed with eternal snows.[225] The view in the
north was hemmed in by mountains which rose higher than the place of
observation. On descending, my guide Crickie complained of ill-health;
and assigned that {161} circumstance as a reason why he should not
proceed with me to the Dalles. I was much vexed with him at the time,
for his unseasonable desertion, and believed that the real inducement
to his course was the danger to be apprehended from the Indians at
the Shutes. But I was sorry to learn from Dr. Whitman afterwards that
the poor fellow was actually sick, and that he suffered much at the
sand bank encampment, where I left him. After paying Crickie for his
faithful services thus far along, and giving him four days' provision
for himself and boy, a Wallawalla Indian who had encamped with us the
previous night, took charge of Crickie's horses, bearing myself and
packs, and led the way down the river.
The "poor crane" was an honest, honourable man; and I can never think
of all his kind acts to me, from the time I met him in the plains
beyond the Wallawalla mission, till I left him sick on the bank of the
Columbia, without wishing an opportunity to testify my sense of his
moral worth and goodness of heart in some way which shall yield him
a substantial reward for all he suffered in my service. Two hours'
ride brought to my ears the music of the "tum tum orter;" {162} the
Indian-English for the "thundering waters" of the Shutes.[226] These
are the only perpendicular falls of the Columbia, in its course from
the junction of its great northern and southern branches, to the ocean.
And they do indeed thunder. A stratum of black rock forming the bed of
the river above, by preserving its horizontal position, rises at this
place above the natural surface of the stream, and forms an abrupt
precipice, hanging sixty feet in height over the bed below.
The river, when I passed was unfortunately at its lower stage--still
the Shutes were terribly grand. The main body of the water swept around
near its southern bank, and being there compressed into, a narrow rough
channel, chafed its angry way to the brink, where, bending a massive
curve, as if hesitating to risk the leap, it plunged into a narrow
cavern sixty feet deep, with a force and volume which made the earth
tremble. The noise was prodigious, deafening, and echoed in awful
tumult among the barren mountains. Further towards the other shore,
smaller jets were rushing from the imprisoned rocks which clustered
near the brow of the cliff, into other caverns; {163} and close under
the north bank, and farther down the stream, thundered another, nearly
equal in grandeur to the one first described.
On the portions of the rocky stratum left by the chafing waters, in
wearing out numerous channels below the present situation of the
Shutes, were the flag huts of one hundred Wallawalla fishermen. They
were taking salmon with scoop nets and bone pointed spears. These
people are filthy and naked. Some sat by fires swallowing roasted
salmon; others greasing themselves with the oil of that fish; others
were dressing and drying them; others stood down on the projections
in the chasms, sweeping their nets in the foaming waters; untaught,
un-elevated, least intelligent, least improvable human nature! It was
not deemed safe to remain long among these savages, who had begun to
examine my packs with more interest than strictly honest intentions
towards them seemed to require, and I took to the trail again on a fast
trot.
Some of them endeavoured to follow on foot, demanding a tribute of
"smoke" for the privilege of passing their dominions. But having none
at hand I pushed on, without regarding their suit, over sand hills,
{164} beds of volcanic stones, and hanging declivities, till rounding
a basaltic buttress, I came in view of the little plain on the south
western shore of the Dalles. The "Dalles," a French term for "flat
stones," is applied to a portion of the river here, where, by a process
similar to that going on at Niagara, the waters have cut channels
through an immense stratum of black rock, over which they used to fall
as at the Shutes.[227]
At low stages these are of sufficient capacity to pass all the waters.
But the annual floods overflow the "flat stones," and produce a lashing
and leaping, and whirling of waters, too grand for the imagination to
conceive. These "Dalles" are covered with the huts of the Chinooks, a
small band of a tribe of the same name, which inhabits the banks of
Columbia from this place to its mouth.[228] They flatten their heads
and perforate the septum of the nose, as do the Wallawallas, Skyuse and
Nez Percés.
The depression of the southern embankment of the chasm of the river at
the Dalles, extends eight miles along the stream, and from a half mile
to a mile in width. It is broken by ledges bursting through the {165}
surface, and in parts loaded with immense boulders of detached rocks.
Along the north-western border are groves of small white oaks; and on
the highlands in that direction are forests of pine, spruce and other
evergreens, clothing the whole country westward to the snowy peaks of
the President's Range.
In the south-west, specked with clusters of bunch grass, is an open
rolling plain, which stretches beyond the reach of vision. In the north
rise sharp mountains, thinly clad with evergreen trees; through an
opening among the peaks of which, appeared the shining apex of Mount
Adams.[229] In the north-east sweep away in brown barrenness, naked
cliffs and sandy wastes. I had taken a bird's-eye view of the Dalles
and the region round about, when my Indian cried out "Lee house." And
there it was, a mission house of the American P. E. Methodist Church,
in charge of Messrs. Lee and Perkins.[230]
I spent a week at the Dalles' mission, eating salmon and growing fat;
an event that had not lately occurred in the republic of the members of
my mortal confederacy.
The buildings of the mission, are a dwelling-house, {166} a house for
worship and for school purposes, and a workshop, &c. The first is a log
structure thirty by twenty feet, one and a half floor high, shingle
roofs, and floors made of plank cut with a whip-saw from the pines
of the hills. The lower story is divided into two rooms--the one a
dining-room, the other the family apartment of Mr. Perkins and lady.
These are lined overhead and at the sides with beautiful rush mats
manufactured by the Indians. The upper story is partitioned into six
dormitories, and a school-room for Indian children; all neatly lined
with mats. Underneath is an excellent cellar. The building designed for
a house of worship, was being built when I arrived. Its architecture is
a curiosity.
The frame is made in the usual form, save that instead of four main
posts at the corners, and others at considerable distances, for the
support of lateral girders, there were eleven on each side, and six
on each end, beside the corner posts--all equal in size and length.
Between these billets of wood were driven transversely, on which
as lathing, mortar made of clay, sand and straw, were laid to a
level with their exterior and interior faces. There is so little
falling {167} weather here, that this mode of building was considered
sufficiently substantial.
Messrs. Lee and Perkins were formerly connected with the mission on
the Willamette. Eighteen months before I had the happiness of enjoying
their hospitality, they came to this spot with axes on their shoulders,
felled trees, ploughed, fenced, and planted twenty acres of land with
their own hands, and erected these habitations of civilization and
Christianity on the bosom of the howling wilderness. Their premises are
situated on elevated ground, about a mile south-west from the river.
Immediately back is a grove of small white oaks and yellow pines; a
little north, is a sweet spring bursting from a ledge of rocks which
supplies water for house use, and moistens about an acre of rich soil.
About a mile to the south, are two or three hundred acres of fine land,
with groves of oaks around, and an abundant supply of excellent water.
Here it was the intention of the mission to open a farm under the care
of a layman from the States.
A mile and a half to the north, is a tract of about two hundred acres,
susceptible of being plentifully irrigated by a number of large streams
that pour down upon it from {168} the western mountains. Here, too,
they intended to locate laymen to open farms, and extract from the idle
earth the means of feeding themselves, the Indians, and the wayworn
white man from the burnt solitudes of the mountains. No location, not
even the sacred precincts of St. Bernard, on the snows of the Alps,
could be better chosen for the operations of a holy benevolence.
The Indians from many quarters flock to the Dalles and the Shutes in
the spring, and autumn, and winter to purchase salmon; the commercial
movements between the States and the Pacific will pass their door; and
there in after-days, the sturdy emigrants from the States will stop,
(as did the pilgrims on Plymouth rock,) to give grateful praise to Him
who stood forth in their aid, not indeed while struggling on the foamy
billow, but on the burning plain and the icy cliff, and in the deadly
turmoil of Indian battles on the way, and will seek food and rest for
their emaciated frames, before entering the woody glen and flowing
everglades of Lower Oregon.
A saw-mill, a grist-mill, and other machinery necessary to carry out a
liberal plan of operations, are in contemplation. The {169} fruit of
the oak, it is supposed, will support 1,000 hogs from the middle of
August to the middle of April; the products of the arable soil will
suffice to make that number into marketable pork; and as the grass
and other vegetation grow there during the winter months, twenty-five
or thirty square miles of pasturage round about, will enable them to
raise, at a trifling expense, immense numbers of sheep, horses and
cattle. Five acres of ground cultivated in 1839, produced twenty-five
bushels of the small grains, seventy-five bushels of potatoes, and
considerable quantities of other vegetables. This was an experiment
only on soil not irrigated. Gentlemen suppose it capable of producing
double that amount, if irrigated. The season, too, was unusually dry.
Around about the mission are clusters of friable sand-stone rocks of
remarkable form. Their height varies from ten to thirty feet; their
basilar diameters from three to ten feet: their shape generally
resembles that of the obelisk. These (fifteen or twenty in number)
standing among the oaks and pines, often in clusters, and sometimes
solitary, give a strange interest of antiquity to the spot. And this
illusion is increased by a {170} rock of another form, an immense
boulder resting upon a short, slender pedestal, and strikingly
resembling the Egyptian sphynx. The Indian tradition in regard to them
is, that they were formerly men, who, for some sin against the Great
Spirit, were changed to stone.
At the Dalles is the upper village of the Chinooks. At the Shutes,
five miles above, is the lower village of the Wallawallas. One of the
missionaries, Mr. Lee, learns the Chinook language, and the other, Mr.
Perkins, the Wallawalla; and their custom is to repair on Sabbath days
each to his own people, and teach them the Christian religion. The
Chinooks flatten their heads more, and are more stupid than any other
tribe on the Columbia. There was one among the Dalles' band, who, it
was said, resisted so obstinately the kind efforts of his parents to
crush his skull into the aristocratic shape, that they abandoned him
to the care of nature in this regard; and much to the scandal of his
family, his head grew in the natural form. I saw him every day while
I staid there. He was evidently the most intelligent one of the band.
His name is Boston; so called, because the form of his head resembles
that of Americans, {171} whom the Indians call "Boston," in order to
distinguish them from "King George's men,"--the Hudson Bay Company
gentlemen. Boston, although of mean origin, has, on account of his
superior energy and intelligence, become the war chief of the Dalles.
On the morning of the 14th, I overhauled my baggage, preparatory to
descending the river. In doing so, I was much vexed to find that the
Indians had, in some manner, drawn my saddle to the window of the
workshop in which it was deposited, and stripped it of stirrups,
stirrup-straps, surcingle, girths, and crupper. They had also stolen my
bridle.
The loss of these articles, in a region where they could not be
purchased--articles so necessary to me in carrying out my designs
of travelling over the lower country, roused in me the bitterest
determination to regain them at all hazards. Without reflecting for a
moment upon the disparity of numbers between my single self and forty
or fifty able-bodied Indians, I armed myself completely, and marched
my solitary battalion to the camp of the principal chief, and entered
it. He was away. I explained to some persons there by signs {172} and a
few words, the object of my search, and marched my army to an elevated
position and halted.
I had been stationed but a short time, when the Indians began to
collect in their chief's lodge, and whisper earnestly. Ten minutes
passed thus, and Indians were constantly arriving and entering. I was
supported in the rear by a lusty oak, and so far as I remember, was
ready to exclaim with the renowned antagonist of Roderick Dhu,
"Come one, come all;" &c.
but never having been a hero before or since, I am not quite certain
that I thought any such thing. My wrath, however, was extreme. To
be robbed for the first time by Indians, and that by such cowardly
wretches as these Chinooks were; and robbed too of my means of
exploring Oregon, when on the very threshold of the most charming part
of it, was an inconvenience and an ignominy worth a battle to remove.
Just at the moment of this lofty conclusion, thirty-eight or forty
Indians rushed around me; eight or ten loaded muskets were levelled at
my chest, within ten feet of me, and the old chief stood within five
feet, with {173} a duelling pistol loaded, cocked, and pointed at my
heart. While this movement was being made, I brought my rifle to bear
upon the old chief's vital organs. Thus both armies stood for the space
of five minutes, without the movement of tongue or muscle. Then one of
the braves intimated that it was "not good" for me to be out with arms;
and that I must immediately accommodate myself within doors. But to
this proposition the bravery of my army would not submit. I accordingly
informed him to that effect; whereupon the opposing army went into a
furious rage.
At this juncture of affairs, Mr. Lee came up, and acted as interpreter.
He inquired into the difficulty, and was told that the "whole Chinook
tribe was threatened with invasion, and all the horrors of a general
war, on what account they knew not." The commander of my army reported
that they had robbed him, and deserved such treatment; and that he had
taken arms to annihilate the tribe, unless they had restored to him
what they had stolen.
I was then told that "it was not good for me to appear in arms--that it
was good for me to go into the house." To this, my army with one voice
replied, "Nay, never, {174} never leave the ground, or the Chinooks
alive, tribe or chief, if the stolen property be not restored;" and
wheeling my battalion, drove first one flank and then the other of the
opposing hosts, fifty yards into the depths of the forests.
During this movement, worthy of the best days of Spartan valour, the
old chief stood amazed to see his followers, with guns loaded and
cocked, fly before such inferior numbers. After effecting the complete
rout of the opposing infantry, the army under my command took up the
old position without the loss of a single man. But the old chief was
still there, as dogged and sullen as Indian ever was. On approaching
him, he presented his pistol again near my chest, whereupon my rifle
was instantly in a position to reach his; and thus the renowned leaders
of these mighty hosts stood for the space of an hour without bloodshed.
Perhaps such another chief was never seen; such unblenching
coolness--excepting always the heat which was thrown off in a healthful
and profuse perspiration--and such perfect undauntedness, except an
unpleasant knocking of the knees together, produced probably by the
anticipated blasts of December. But while these exhibitions {175} of
valour were being enacted, one stirrup was thrown at my feet, and
then the other, and then the straps, the crupper, &c., until all the
most valuable articles lost, were piled before me. The conquest was
complete, and will doubtless shed immortal lustre upon the gallant
band, who, in the heart of the wilderness, dared to assert and
maintain, against the encroachments of a numerous and well-disciplined
foe, the "élite" of the Chinook army, the rights and high prerogative
of brave freemen and soldiers. The number of killed and wounded of
the enemy had not been ascertained, when the troops under my command
departed for the lower country.
In the evening which succeeded this day of carnage, the old chief
assembled his surviving followers, and made war speeches until
midnight. His wrath was immeasurable. On the following morning, the
Indians in the employ of the mission left their work.
About ten o'clock, one of the tribe appeared with a pack-horse, to
convey Mr. Lee's and my own packs to the water-side. The old chief
also appeared, and bade him desist. He stood armed before the house
an hour, making many threats against the {176} Bostons, individually
and collectively; but finally retired. As soon as he had entered his
lodge, the horse of his disobedient subject was loaded, and rushed to
the river. An effort was made to get oarsmen for our canoe, but the
old hero of a legion of devils told them, "the high Bostons would kill
them all, and that they must not go with him." Mr. Lee, however, did
not despair.
We followed the baggage towards the river. When within a quarter of a
mile of it, two Americans, members of Richardson's party, Mr. Lee and
an Indian or two, whom the old chief had not succeeded in frightening
took the canoe from the bushes, and bore it to the river on their
shoulders.
The natives were stationed beyond rifle-shot upon the rocks on either
side of the way, bows and arrows, and guns in hand. Indian Boston was
in command. He stood on the loftiest rock, grinding his teeth, and
growling like a bloodhound, "Bostons ugh;" and springing upon his bow,
drove his arrows into the ground with demoniac madness. I stopped, and
drew my rifle to my face, whereupon there was a grand retreat behind
the rocks. My army marched slowly and majestically on, as became the
dignity {177} of veteran victors. The women and children fled from
the wigwams by the way; and the fear of the annihilation of the whole
tribe only abated when my wrath was, to their understanding, appeased
by the interference of Mr. Lee. Thus the tribe was saved from my
vengeance--the whole number, fifty or sixty stout savages, were saved!
an instance of clemency, a parallel to which will scarcely be found in
the history of past ages.
Being convinced, at last, that my intentions towards them had become
more pacific, six oarsmen, a bowsman, and steersman, were readily
engaged by Mr. Lee, and he shoved off from that memorable battle-ground
on a voyage to the Willamette. These Indians have been notorious
thieves ever since they have been known to the whites. Their meanness
has been equally well known. Destitute of every manly and moral virtue,
they and their fathers have hung around the Dalles, eaten salmon, and
rotted in idleness and vice; active only in mischief, and honest only
in their crouching cowardice towards those they suppose able to punish
their villany.[231]
There is some very curious philosophy among them: as for example,
they believe {178} human existence to be indestructible by the laws
of nature; and never diseased, unless made so by the Medicine men or
conjurers, who are believed to enter into the system in an unseen
manner, and pull at the vitals. They also hold that one Medicine man
can cast out another. Accordingly, when one of them is called to a
patient and does not succeed in restoring him to health, he is believed
to be accessory to his death, and is punished as such by the relatives
of the deceased.
Their mode of treating patients is to thrust them into a sweat oven,
and thence, reeking with perspiration, into the cold streams. After
this, they are stretched out at length on the ground, wrapped very
warmly, and kneaded, and rolled, and rubbed, with great severity.
The abdomen is violently pressed down to the spine, and the forehead
pressed with the might of the operator; the arms and limbs, pinched
and rubbed, rolled and bruised. Meanwhile, the conjuror is uttering
most beastly noises. As might be supposed, patients labouring under the
febrile diseases, are soon destroyed.
In order, however, to keep up their influence among the people, the
conjurors of {179} a tribe, male and female, have cabalistic dances.
After the darkness of night sets in, they gather together in a wigwam,
build a large fire in the centre, spread the floor with elk skins, set
up on end a wide cedar board, and suspend near it a stick of wood in a
horizontal position. An individual seizes the end of the stick, swings
the other end against the cedar board, and thus beats noisy time to
a still more noisy chant. The dance is commenced sometimes by a man
alone, and often by a man and woman. And various and strange are the
bodily contortions of the performers. They jump up and down, and swing
their arms with more and more violence, as the noise of the singing and
thumping accompaniment increases, and yelp, and froth at the mouth,
till the musician winds up with the word "_ugh_"--a long, strong,
gutteral grunt; or until some one of the dancers falls apparently dead.
When the latter is the case, one of the number walks around the
prostrate individual, and calls his or her name loudly at each ear, at
the nose, fingers, and toes. After this ceremony, the supposed dead
shudders greatly, and comes to life. And thus they continue to sing,
and thump, and {180} dance, and die, and come to life through the
night. They are said to be very expert at sleight of hand.
The Chinooks, like all other Indians, believe in existence after death;
but their views of the conditions of that existence, I could not learn.
The conjurors teach them, that they themselves shall be able to visit
their tribe after the body shall have decayed; and when approaching the
end of their days, inform the people in what shape they will manifest
themselves. Some choose a horse, others a deer, others an elk, &c., and
when they die, the image of their transmigrated state is erected over
their remains.[232]
The reader is desired to consider Mr. Lee and myself gliding,
arrow-like, down the deep clear Columbia, at two o'clock in the
afternoon of the 15th, and to interest himself in the bold mountain
embankments clothed with the deep, living green of lofty pine and
fir forests, while I revert to the kind hospitalities of the Dalles'
mission. Yet how entirely impossible is it to relate all that one
enjoys in every muscle of the body, every nerve and sense, and every
affection of the spirit when he flies from the hardships and loneliness
of deserts to the {181} comforts of a bed, a chair, and a table, and
the holy sympathy of hearts moulded and controlled by the higher
sentiments. I had taken leave of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins with the feelings
that one experiences in civilized lands, when leaving long-tried and
congenial friends.
The good man urged me to return and explore with him, during the rainy
season in the lower country, some extensive and beautiful prairies,
which the Indians say lie sixty or seventy miles in the north, on the
east side of the President's range; and Mrs. Perkins kindly proposed to
welcome my return for that object with a splendid suit of buckskin, to
be used in my journeyings.
But I must leave my friends to introduce the reader to the "Island
of the Tombs."[233] Mr. Lee pointed to it, as the tops of the cedar
board houses of the dead peered over the hillocks of sand and rock
among which they stood. We moored our canoe on the western side, and
climbed up a precipice of black shining rocks two hundred feet; and
winding among drifts of sand the distance of one hundred yards came to
the tombs. They consisted of boxes ten or twelve feet square on the
ground, eight or ten high, made of cedar {182} boards fastened to a
rough frame, in an upright position at the sides, and horizontally over
the top. On them, and about them, were the cooking utensils, and other
personal property of the deceased. Within were the dead bodies, wrapped
in many thicknesses of deer and elk skins, tightly lashed with leather
thongs, and laid in a pile with their heads to the east. Underneath the
undecayed bodies were many bones from which the flesh and wrappings had
fallen: in some instances a number of waggon loads. Three or four of
the tombs had gone to ruins, and the skulls and other bones lay strewn
on the ground. The skulls were all flattened. I picked up one with the
intention of bringing it to the States. But as Mr. Lee assured me that
the high veneration of the living for the dead would make the attempt
very dangerous, I reluctantly returned it to its resting place.[234]
We glided merrily down the river till sunset, and landed on the
northern shore to sup. The river had varied from one to one and a half
miles in width, with rather a sluggish current; water clear, cool, and
very deep. Various kinds of duck, divers, &c., were upon its beautiful
surface. The {183} hair seal was abundant.[235] The mountains rose
abruptly on either side from five hundred to two thousand feet, in
sweeping heights, clad with evergreen trees. Some few small oaks grew
in the nooks by the water side. Among these were Indian wigwams,
constructed of boards split from the red cedar on the mountains. I
entered some of them. They were filthy in the extreme. In one of them
was a sick man. A withered old female was kneading and pinching the
devil out of him. He was labouring under a bilious fever. But as a
"Medicine man" was pulling at his gall, it was necessary to expel him;
and the old hag pressed his head, bruised his abdomen, &c., with the
fury and groaning of a bedlamite.
Not an acre of arable land appeared along the shores. The Indians
subsist on fish and acorns of the white oak. The former they eat fresh
during the summer; but their winter stores they dry and preserve in the
following manner:--The spine of the fish being taken out, and the flesh
being slashed into checks with a knife, so as to expose as much surface
as possible, is laid on the rocks to dry. After becoming thoroughly
{184} hard, it is bruised to powder, mixed with the oil of the leaf fat
of the fish, and packed away in flag sacks. Although no salt is used
in this preparation, it remains good till May of the following year.
The acorns, as soon as they fall from the trees, are buried in sand
constantly saturated with water, where they remain till spring. By this
soaking their bitter flavour is said to be destroyed.
After supper, Mr. Lee ordered a launch, and the Indian paddles were
again dipping in the bright waters. The stars were out on the clear
night, twinkling as of old, when the lofty peaks around were heaved
from the depths of the volcano. They now looked down on a less grand,
indeed, but more lovely scene. The fires of the natives blazed among
the woody glens, the light canoe skimmed the water near the shore,
the winds groaned over the mountain tops, the cascades sang from cliff
to cliff, the loon shouted and dove beneath the shining wave; it was
a wild, almost unearthly scene, in the deep gorge of the Columbia.
The rising of the moon changed its features. The profoundest silence
reigned, save the dash of paddles that echoed faintly from the shores;
our canoe sprang lightly over {185} the rippling waters, the Indian
fires smouldered among the waving pines; the stars became dim, and the
depths of the blue sky glowed one vast nebula of mellow light. But the
eastern mountains hid awhile the orb from sight.
The south-western heights shone with its pale beams, and cast into the
deeply sunken river a bewitching dancing of light and shade, unequalled
by the pencil of the wildest imagination. The grandeur, too, of grove,
and cliff, and mountain, and the mighty Columbia wrapped in the drapery
of a golden midnight! It was the new and rapidly opening panorama of
the sublime wilderness. The scene changed again when the moon was high
in heaven.
The cocks crew in the Indian villages; the birds twittered on the
boughs; the wild fowl screamed, as her light gilded the chasm of the
river, and revealed the high rock Islands with their rugged crags and
mouldering tombs. The winds from Mount Adams were loaded with frosts,
and the poetry of the night was fast waning into an ague, when Mr. Lee
ordered the steersman to moor. A crackling pine fire was soon blazing,
and having warmed our shivering {186} frames, we spread our blankets,
and slept sweetly till the dawn.
Early on the morning of the 16th, our Indians were pulling at the
paddles. The sky was overcast, and a dash of rain occasionally fell,
the first I had witnessed since leaving Boyou Salade.[236] And
although the air was chilly, and the heavens gloomy, yet when the large
clear drops pattered on my hat, and fell in glad confusion around our
little bark, a thrill of pleasure shot through my heart. Dangers,
wastes, thirst, starvation, eternal dearth on the earth, and dewless
heavens, were matters only of painful recollection. The present was the
reality of the past engrafted on the hopes of the future; the showery
skies, the lofty green mountains, the tumbling cataracts, the mighty
forests, the sweet savour of teeming groves, among the like of which I
had breathed in infancy, hung over the threshold of the lower Columbia,
the goal of my wayfaring.
Hearken to that roar of waters! see the hastening of the flood! hear
the sharp rippling by yonder rock; the whole river sinks from view in
advance of us. The bowsman dips his paddle deeply and quickly; the
frail canoe shoots to the {187} northern shore between a string of
islands and the main land; glides quickly down a narrow channel; passes
a village of cedar board wigwams on a beautiful little plain to the
right; it rounds the lower island; behold the Cascades!--an immense
trough of boulders of rocks, down which rushes the "Great River of the
West." The baggage is ashore; the Indians are conveying the canoe over
the portage, and while this is being done, the reader will have time to
explore the lower falls of the Columbia, and their vicinage.[237]
The trail of the Portage runs near the torrent, along the rocky slope
on its northern bank, and terminates among large loose rocks, blanched
by the floods of ages, at the foot of the trough of the main rapid. It
is about a mile and a half long. At its lower end voyagers reembark
when the river is at a low stage, and run the lower rapids. But when
it is swollen by the annual freshets, they bear their boats a mile and
a half farther down, where the water is deep and less tumultuous. In
walking down this path, I had a near view of the whole length of the
main rapids. As I have intimated, the bed of the river here is a vast
inclined trough of white rocks, sixty {188} or eighty feet deep, about
four hundred yards wide at the top, and diminishing to about half that
width at the bottom. The length of this trough is about a mile. In that
distance the water falls about one hundred and thirty feet; in the
rapids, above and below it, about twenty feet, making the whole descent
about one hundred and fifty feet. The quantity of water which passes
here is incalculable. But an approximate idea of it may be obtained
from the fact that while the velocity is so great, that the eye with
difficulty follows objects floating on the surface, yet such is its
volume at the lowest stage of the river, that it rises and bends like a
sea of molten glass over a channel of immense rocks, without breaking
its surface, except near the shores, so deep and vast is the mighty
flood!
In the June freshets, when the melted snows from the western
declivities of seven hundred miles of the Rocky Mountains, and those
on the eastern sides of the President's Range, come down, the Cascades
must present a spectacle of sublimity equalled only by Niagara.
This is the passage of the river through the President's Range,
and the mountains near it on either {189} side are worthy of their
distinguished name. At a short distance from the southern shore they
rise in long ridgy slopes, covered with pines, and other terebinthine
trees of extraordinary size,[238] over the tops of which rise bold
black crags, which, elevating themselves in great grandeur one beyond
another, twenty or thirty miles to the southward, cluster around the
icy base of Mount Washington. On the other side of the Cascades is a
similar scene. Immense and gloomy forests, tangled with fallen timber
and impenetrable underbrush, cover mountains, which in the States,
would excite the profoundest admiration for their majesty and beauty,
but which dwindle into insignificance as they are viewed in presence of
the shining glaciers, and massive grandeur of Mount Adams, hanging over
them.
The river above the Cascades runs north-westwardly; but approaching
the descent, it turns westward, and, after entering the trough,
south-westwardly, and having passed this, it resumes its course to the
north west. By this bend, it leaves between its shore and the northern
mountains, a somewhat broken plain, a mile in width, and about four
miles in length. At the upper end of the rapids, this plain is {190}
nearly on a level with the river, so that an inconsiderable freshet
sets the water up a natural channel half way across the bend. This
circumstance, and the absence of any serious obstruction in the form
of hills, &c., led me to suppose that a canal might be cut around the
Cascades at a trifling expence, which would not only open steamboat
navigation to the Dalles, but furnish at this interesting spot, an
incalculable amount of water power.[239]
The canoe had been deposited among the rocks at the lower end of the
trough, our cocoa and boiled salmon, bread, butter, potatoes, &c., had
been located in their proper depositories, and we were taking a parting
gaze at the rushing flood, when the sound of footsteps, and an order
given in French to deposit a bale of goods at the water side, drew our
attention to a hearty old gentleman of fifty or fifty-five, whom Mr.
Lee immediately recognized as Dr. McLaughlin.[240] He was about five
feet eleven inches in height, and stoutly built, weighing about two
hundred pounds, with large green blueish eyes, a ruddy complexion,
and hair of snowy whiteness. He was on his return from London with
dispatches from the Hudson's Bay Company's Board in {191} England, and
with letters from friends at home to the hundreds of Britons in its
employ in the north-western wilderness. He was in high spirits. Every
crag in sight was familiar to him, had witnessed the energy and zeal of
thirty years' successful enterprise; had seen him in the strength of
ripened manhood, and now beheld his undiminished energies crowned with
the frosted locks of age. We spent ten minutes with the doctor, and
received a kind invitation to the hospitalities of his post; gave our
canoe, freighted with our baggage, in charge of the Indians, to take
down the lower rapids, and ascended the bluff to the trail which leads
to the tide-water below them. We climbed two hundred feet among small
spruce, pine, fir, and hemlock trees, to the table land.
The track was strewn with fragments of petrified trees, from three
inches to two feet in diameter, and rocks, (quartz and granite, _ex
loco_), mingled with others more or less fused. Soon after striking
the path on the plain, we came to a beautiful little lake, lying near
the brink of the hill. It was clear and deep; and around its western,
northern, and eastern shores, drooped the boughs of a thick hedge of
small evergreen {192} trees, which dipped and rose charmingly in its
waters. All around stood the lofty pines, sighing and groaning in
the wind. Nothing could be seen, but the little lake and the girding
forest; a gem of perfect beauty, reflecting the deep shades of the
unbroken wilderness. A little stream creeping away from it down the
bluff, babbled back the roar of the Cascades.[241]
The trail led us among deep ravines, clad with heavy frosts, the soil
of which was a coarse gravel, thinly covered with a vegetable mould.
A mile from the lake, we came upon a plain level again. In this place
was a collection of Indian tombs, similar to those upon the "Island
of tombs." These were six or eight in number, and contained a great
quantity of bones. On the boards around the sides were painted the
figures of death, horses, dogs, &c. The great destroyer bears the same
grim aspect to the savage mind that he does to ours.--A skull and the
fleshless bones of a skeleton piled around, were his symbol upon these
rude resting places of the departed.[242] One of them, which our Indian
said, contained the remains of a celebrated "Medicine man," bore the
figure of a horse rudely carved {193} from the red cedar tree. This was
the form in which his _posthumous_ visits were to be made to his tribe.
Small brass kettles, wooden pails, and baskets of curious workmanship,
were piled on the roof.
Thence onward half a mile over a stony soil, sometimes open, and again
covered with forests, we reached our canoe by the rocky shore at the
foot of the rapids. Mr. Lee here pointed out to me a strong eddying
current on the southern shore, in which Mr. Cyrus Shepard and Mrs.
Doctor White and child, of the Methodist Mission on the Willamette,
were capsized the year before, in an attempt to run the lower
rapids.[243] Mr. Shepard could not swim--had sunk the second time, and
rose by the side of the upturned canoe, when he seized the hand of Mrs.
White, who was on the opposite side, and thus sustained himself and
her, until some Indians came to their relief. On reaching the shore,
and turning up the canoe, the child was found entangled among the
cross-bars, dead!
The current was strong where we re-entered our canoe, and bore us
along at a brisk rate.--The weather, too, was very agreeable; the
sky transparent, and glowing with a mild October sun. The scenery
{194} about us was truly grand. A few detached wisps of mist clung to
the dark crags of the mountains on the southern shore, and numerous
cascades shot out from the peaks, and tumbling from one shelf to
another, at length plunged hundreds of feet among confused heaps of
rocks in the vale. The crags themselves were extremely picturesque;
they beetled out so boldly, a thousand feet above the forests on the
sides of the mountain, and appeared to hang so easily and gracefully
on the air. Some of them were basaltic. One appeared very remarkable.
The mountain on which it stood was about one thousand two hundred feet
high. On its side there was a deep rocky ravine. In this, about three
hundred feet from the plain, arose a column of thirty or forty feet in
diameter, and, I judged more than two hundred feet high, surmounted by
a cap resembling the pediment of an ancient church.
Far up its sides grew a number of shrub cedars, which had taken root
in the crevices, and, as they grew, sunk down horizontally, forming
an irregular fringe of green around it. A short distance further down
was seen a beautiful cascade. The stream appeared to rise near the
very apex of the {195} mountain, and having run a number of rods in
a dark gorge between two peaks, it suddenly shot from the brink of a
cliff into the copse of evergreen trees at the base of the mountain.
The height of the perpendicular fall appeared to be about six hundred
feet. Some of the water was dispersed in spray before reaching the
ground; but a large quantity of it fell on the plain, and sent among
the heights a noisy and thrilling echo.[244] On the north side of the
river, the mountains were less precipitous, and covered with a dense
forest of pines, cedars, firs, &c.
The bottom lands of the river were alternately prairies and woodlands;
the former clad with a heavy growth of the wild grasses, dry and
brown--the latter, with pine, fir, cotton-wood, black ash, and various
kinds of shrubs. The river varied in width from one to two miles,
generally deep and still, but occasionally crossed by sand-bars. Ten
or twelve miles below the cascades we came upon one, that, stretching
two or three miles down the river, turned the current to the southern
shore. The wind blew freshly, and the waves ran high in that quarter;
so it was deemed expedient to lighten the canoe. To this {196} end Mr.
Lee, the two Americans and myself, landed on the northern shore for a
walk, while the Indians should paddle around to the lower point of the
bar. We travelled along the beach. It was generally hard and gravelly.
Among the pebbles, I noticed several splendid specimens of the agate.
The soil of the flats was a vegetable mould, eighteen inches or two
feet in depth, resting on a stratum of sand and gravel, and evidently
overflown by the annual floods of June. The flats varied from a few
rods to a mile in width. While enjoying this walk, the two Americans
started up a deer, followed it into the woods, and, loth to return
unsuccessful, pursued it till long after our canoe was moored below the
bar. So that Mr. Lee and myself had abundant time to amuse ourselves
with all manner of homely wishes towards our persevering companions
till near sunset, when the three barges of Dr. McLaughlin, under their
Indian blanket sails and sapling masts, swept gallantly by us, and
added the last dreg to our vexation. Mr. Lee was calm, I was furious.
What, for a paltry deer, lose a view of the Columbia hence to the Fort!
But I remember with satisfaction that no one was materially {197}
injured by my wrath, and that my truant countrymen were sufficiently
gratified with their success to enable them to bear with much
resignation, three emphatic scowls, as they made their appearance at
the canoe.
The dusk of night was now creeping into the valleys, and we had twenty
miles to make. The tide from the Pacific was setting up, and the wind
had left us; but our Indians suggested that the force of their paddles,
stimulated by a small present of "shmoke" (tobacco,) would still carry
us in by eleven o'clock. We therefore gave our promises to pay the
required quantum of the herb, ensconced ourselves in blankets, and
dozed to the wild music of the paddles, till a shower of hail aroused
us. It was about ten o'clock. An angry cloud hung over us, and the
rain and hail fell fast; the wind from Mounts Washington and Jefferson
chilled every fibre of our systems; the wooded hills, on both sides
of the river were wrapped in cold brown clouds; the owl and wolf were
answering each other on the heights; enough of light lay on the stream
to show dimly the islands that divided its waters, and the fires of the
wigwams disclosed the naked groups of savages around them.
{198} It was a scene that the imagination loves. The canoe, thirty
feet in length, (such another had cut those waters centuries before);
the Indians, kneeling two and two, and rising on their paddles;
their devoted missionary surveying them and the villages on the
shores, and rejoicing in the anticipation, that soon the songs of
the redeemed savage would break from the dark vales of Oregon; that
those wastes of mind would soon teem with a harvest of happiness and
truth, cast a breathing unutterable charm over the deep hues of that
green wilderness, dimly seen on that stormy night, which will give me
pleasure to dwell upon while I live. "On the bar!" cried Mr. Lee; and
while our Indians leaped into the water, and dragged the canoe to the
channel, he pointed to the dim light of the Hudson Bay Company's saw
and grist mill two miles above on the northern shore.
We were three miles from Vancouver. The Indians knew the bar, and were
delighted to find themselves so near the termination of their toil.
They soon found the channel, and leaping aboard plied their paddles
with renewed energy. And if any one faltered, the steersman rebuked
him with his own hopes of "shmoke" and "scheotecut," (the Fort) which
never failed {199} to bring the delinquent to duty. Twenty minutes of
vigorous rowing moored us at the landing. A few hundred yards below,
floated a ship and a sloop, scarcely seen through the fog. On the shore
rose a levee or breastwork, along which the dusky savages were gliding
with stealthy and silent tread; in the distance were heard voices in
English speaking of home. We landed, ascended the levee, entered a
lane between cultivated fields, walked a quarter of a mile, where,
under a long line of pickets, we entered Fort Vancouver--the goal of my
wanderings, the destination of my weary footsteps![245]
Mr. James Douglass, the gentleman who had been in charge of the post
during the absence of Dr. McLaughlin, conducted us to a room warmed by
a well-fed stove; insisted that I should change my wet garments for dry
ones, and proffered every other act that the kindest hospitality could
suggest to relieve me of the discomforts resulting from four months'
journeying in the wilderness.[246]
FOOTNOTES:
[223] For a brief sketch of Pambrun see our volume xxi, p. 280, note
74. In her letters Mrs. Whitman speaks repeatedly of kindness received
from this Hudson's Bay Company factor, whose death she deplores. See
Oregon Pioneer Association _Transactions_, 1891, pp. 88, 103, 139,
140.--ED.
[224] The general trend of the river is west; just above John Day's
River, in Gilliam County, there is a bend to the north-west, which is
the point Farnham had reached.--ED.
[225] Farnham evidently thought that he saw Mount St. Helens (see our
volume vi, p. 246, note 50), which he here calls Mount Washington,
although later giving it the title of Mount Adams (see our volume
xxix, note 32--Farnham). Lewis and Clark made a similar mistake--see
_Original Journals_, iii, p. 135. What our traveller saw was the
present Mount Adams, for which see note 225, below.--ED.
[226] All early travellers speak of the attempts of the Indians, in
their designation of the neighborhood, to express the sound of the
falling waters. Lewis and Clark speak of it as "tumm;" according to
Ross (our volume vii, p. 133), it was "Lowhum." The Shutes (Des Chutes)
is another name for the Great Falls of the Columbia.--ED.
[227] The ordinary meaning of the word "dalles" is paving stones; but
by the Canadian French it was also used to indicate a channel which
carried off the waters dammed above--hence any form of confined,
swiftly-flowing waters. Lewis and Clark spoke of these chasms through
which the Columbia rushes as the Long and Short Narrows; by Farnham's
time the term "Dalles" had become the ordinary appellation.--ED.
[228] For the Chinook see Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p.
240, note 40.--ED.
[229] Mount Adams (9570 feet) is one of the volcanic peaks of the
Cascade Range in Klickitat County, Washington, about thirty miles east
of Mount St. Helens. Both these volcanoes were in a state of eruption
in 1842-43.--ED.
[230] For Daniel Lee see Townsend's _Narrative_ in our volume xxi, p.
138, note 13. H. K. W. Perkins came out to re-inforce the Methodist
mission in September, 1837, and not long afterwards married Elvira
Johnson, who had preceded him a few months. They joined with Daniel
Lee in establing the Dalles mission in 1838, where they labored with
varying success until about 1845, then returning to the "states."
Mrs. Whitman spent the winter of 1842-43 at this mission, during her
husband's absence. The mission house was located on the south bank of
the river, just below the Long Narrows, near an Indian village called
Kaclasco; the station was named Wascopum. See p. 388, note 208, in De
Smet's _Letters_, our volume xxvii.--ED.
[231] Farnham has not exaggerated the bad reputation of the Indians
at the Dalles. Lewis and Clark felt that they owed their lives at
this point to the strength of their party, and came nearer to having
a skirmish with the natives of that locality than elsewhere on the
Columbia waters. See also Ross's _Oregon Settlers_ in our volume
vii, pp. 126-131, and Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, pp.
274-276.--ED.
[232] Daniel G. Brinton, _Myths of the New World_ (Philadelphia, 1896),
p. 298, considers that belief in transmigration is but little known
among North American Indians. What traces may be found are due to
totemic influence, and probably relate to reversion to the primitive
spirit represented by the clan animal, rather than to transmigration
into living animals. This statement of Farnham's would appear to have
been suggested by totem poles near the graves.--ED.
[233] The well-known Sepulchre Island, known in the native tongue
as "Memaloose" (the abode of the dead). Many of the islands in the
Columbia were used for burial; this in particular; about three miles
below the mouth of Klickitat River, was noted by Lewis and Clark,
who found erected thereupon thirteen large box-tombs--see _Original
Journals_, iii, p. 170; iv, p. 283. In 1884 this island became the
place of sepulchre for an Oregon pioneer, Vic Trevitt, whose monument
has become a prominent landmark.--ED.
[234] The Indians held in great reverence the tombs and the bones
therein contained, and were quick to take vengeance for any spoliation.
The flattened skulls always were an object of curiosity to whites, and
many were surreptitiously carried away by the latter. See Townsend's
experience in our volume xxi, pp. 338, 339.--ED.
[235] Either one of the _Phocidæ_, or the _Zalophus californianus_,
well known on the Pacific coast; both of these are hair seals.--ED.
[236] For this region, now known as South Park, see _ante_, p. 199,
note 123.--ED.
[237] The Cascades, with their portage path, were to all early
travellers the best-known features of the lower Columbia. See Lewis and
Clark, _Original Journals_, iii, pp. 179-185; Ross's _Oregon Settlers_
in our volume vii, pp. 121-125; and Townsend's _Narrative_ in our
volume xxi, pp. 291-293.--ED.
[238] For the varieties of pine and other terebinthine (turpentine
producing) trees of the North-west Coast, see _Original Journals
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iv, pp. 41-57, 84, 85, with
identifications by Charles V. Piper, a naturalist familiar with the
region.--ED.
[239] This project of a canal was undertaken by the United States
government in 1878, when it was found that the difficulties were
so great that the work had no counterpart. However, after numerous
modifications, a canal was built on the south (Oregon) side of the
river, with a great steel lock at the upper Cascades. The work was
opened for navigation in November, 1896, but was not wholly completed
until 1900. Over four million dollars has been spent on this important
improvement. See the chief engineer's _Report in House Docs._, 56
Cong., 1 sess., viii, pp. 584-586.--ED.
[240] For Dr. John McLoughlin, see our volume xxi, p. 296,
note 81.--ED.
[241] Probably the one now known as Trout Lake. Lewis and Clark speak
of the "ponds" encountered in passing over the portage path.--ED.
[242] The description of this place tallies well with that given by
Lewis and Clark; see _Original Journals_, iii, pp. 178, 179.--ED.
[243] Cyrus Shepard, who came out (1834) with the first missionary
party (see our volume xxi, p. 138, note 13), was a valuable member of
the Methodist mission, where he had chief charge of the Indian manual
training school. In 1837 his fiancée, Susan Downing, came from the
states, and they were married in July of that year. His death occurred
at the mission in 1840.
Mrs. Elijah White came to Oregon with her husband, a missionary
physician, in May, 1837.--ED.
[244] Of the many beautiful falls on this part of the river the
Horsetail, Multnomah, Bridal Veil, and Latourell are notable; probably
the Bridal Veil is the most beautiful, but the Multnomah may be the
cascade here noted.--ED.
[245] For a brief sketch of Fort Vancouver see our volume xxi, p. 297,
note 82. Farnham gives a detailed description in our volume xxix.--ED.
[246] Sir James Douglas was born (1803) in British Guiana. Taken
to Scotland when a child, he left in order to enter the Canadian
fur-trade, and met Dr. John McLoughlin at Fort William, on Lake
Superior. McLoughlin persuaded the youth to accompany him to the
Pacific, where (1824) he was in service at Fort St. James under Factor
Connelly, whose daughter Douglas married. For some years he was in
charge of Fort St. James, being summoned (1828) to Vancouver, where he
became second in command. Promoted to be chief trader (1830) and chief
factor two years later, he was much employed in visits of inspection
and in building new posts. In 1841-42 he went on a diplomatic and
trading embassy to California. In 1843 Fort Victoria was built under
his direction. Upon Dr. McLoughlin's resignation (1845), Douglas became
his successor as head of the Hudson's Bay Company's interests on the
Pacific, removing from Fort Vancouver to Victoria in 1849. There he
continued to rule until his resignation from the Company (1859), when
the British government appointed him governor of the newly-erected
province of British Columbia, an office which he held until 1864, being
in the preceding year knighted for his services. After release from
official duties, Sir James visited Europe, returning to his home in
Victoria, where he died August 2, 1877.--ED.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were
silently corrected.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.