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.