It will not be uninteresting while pausing here, and making preparations to descend Snake, Lewis, or Saptin river,[183] to lead my readers back over that portion of my journey which lay among the mountains. I do not design to retrace my steps here, however, in order again to attempt a description of sufferings which can never be described. They are past; and let their remembrance {91} die. But a succinct account of the region lying west of the Anahuac ridge, and between latitudes 39° and 42° north—its mountains, its plains, its rivers, &c., will, I persuade myself, be new, and not without interest to the reader.

James' Peak, Pike's Peak, and Long's Peak, may be called the outposts of a lofty range of rocky mountains, which, for convenience in description, I have called Long's Range, extending nearly due north from the Arkansas, in latitude 39°, to the Great Gap in latitude 42° north.[184]

The range is unconnected with any other. It is separated from the Wind River Mountains by the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass, and from the Great Anahuac Range by the upper valleys of the Arkansas, those of the South Fork of the Platte, and those of the Green and Grand rivers. Two spurs spring off from it to the west: the one from James' Peak, the other from Long's Peak. These spurs, as they proceed westward, dip lower and lower till they terminate—the first in the rough cliffs around the upper waters of the Arkansas, and the latter in spherical sand-hills around the lower waters of Grand river.[185] The Anahuac Mountains were seen from about latitude 39° to {92} 42° north. This range lies about two hundred miles west of Long's Range, and between latitude 39 and 40°, has a general course of north north-west. It appeared an unbroken ridge of ice and snow, rising in some points, I think, more than fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. From latitude 41° it tends to the north-west by west, past the north-eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake to the northern end of it; and thence westwardly to a point south of Portneuf, where it unites with the range of the Snowy Mountains.

The Snowy Mountains are a transverse range or spur of the Rocky Mountains, which run from the Wind River Mountains, latitude 42° north, in nearly a right line to Cape Mendocino, latitude 40°, in Upper California. Many portions of this range, east as well as west of Fort Hall, are very lofty, and covered with perpetual snow. About one hundred miles from the coast of the Pacific it intersects that range of snowy peaks called the President's Range, which comes down from Puget's sound, and terminates in the arid plains about the mouth of the Colorado of the West.[186]

{93} The Wind River Mountains are a spur which shoots from the great northern chain, commonly called the Rocky Mountains, in latitude 42° and odd minutes north; and running in a south-easterly direction into the Great Prairie Wilderness, forms the northern wall of the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass.[187]

On the northern side of the Wind River Peaks, are the sources of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers;[188] on the south-eastern side rises the Sweetwater, the north-western-most branch of the North Fork of the Great Platte; on the southern side the Sheetskadee or Green river, the northern branch of the Colorado of the West; on the north-western side and north of the Snowy Mountains, spring down the Saptin, Snake, or Lewis river, the great southern branch of the Columbia.

On the western side of Long's Range, rises the Grand river, the principal branch of the Colorado of the West.[189] It furnishes four times the quantity of water that Green river does. Further south, in the vicinity of James' Peak, and on the west side of this range, rises the South Fork of the Great Platte.[190]

Close under the eastern base of the Anahuac {94} or Great Main Ridge, and nearly in latitude 39½° north, are the sources of the Arkansas.

The immense parallelogram lying within these ranges of mountains, may be described by saying that it is a desert of arid plains and minor mountains. And if this general appellation be qualified by the accounts given on previous pages of Boyou Salade, Old Park, &c. very small portions of the whole area, the description will be complete.

Fort Hall was built by Captain Wyeth, of Boston in 1832, for the purposes of trade with the Indians in its vicinity. He had taken goods into the lower part of the Territory, to exchange for salmon. But competition soon drove him from his fisheries to this remote spot, where he hoped to be permitted to purchase furs of the Indians without being molested by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose nearest post was seven hundred miles away.[191]

In this he was disappointed. In pursuance of the avowed doctrine of that company, that no others have a right to trade in furs west of the Rocky Mountains, whilst the use of capital and their incomparable skill and perseverance can prevent it, they established a fort near him, preceded him, {95} followed him, surrounded him every where, and cut the throat of his prosperity with such kindness, and politeness, that Wyeth was induced to sell his whole interest, existent and prospective, in Oregon, to his generous but too indefatigable, skilful, and powerful antagonists.

From what I saw and heard of Wyeth's management in Oregon, I was impressed with the belief that he was, beyond comparison, the most talented business-man from the States that ever established himself in the Territory.

The business of this post consists in exchanging blankets, ammunition, guns, tobacco, &c., with the neighbouring Indians, for the skins of the beaver and land otter; and in furnishing white men with traps, horses, saddles, bridles, provisions, &c., to enable them to hunt these animals for the benefit and sole use of the owners, the Hudson's Bay Company. In such cases the horses are borrowed without price; the other articles of the "outfit" sold on credit till the termination of the hunt; and the only security which the Company requires for the return of their animals, is the pledge of honour to that effect, and that the furs taken shall be appropriated at a stipulated price to the payment of arrears.

{96} Goods are sold at this establishment fifty per cent lower than at the American posts. White trappers are paid a higher price for their furs than is paid the Indians; are charged less for the goods which they receive in exchange; and are treated in every respect by this shrewd Company with such uniform justice, that the American trappers even are fast leaving the service of their countrymen, for the larger profits and better treatment of British employment. There is also a company of men connected with this Fort, under the command of an American mountaineer, who, following various tribes in their migratory expeditions in the adjacent American and Mexican domain, collect whatever furs may chance to be among them.

By these means, and various others subsidiary to them, the gentlemen in charge of this trading establishment, collected, in the summer of 1839, more than thirty packs of the best beaver of the mountains.

We spent the 2nd and 3rd most agreeably with Mr. Walker, in his hospitable adobie castle; exchanged with him our wearied horses for fresh ones; and obtained dried buffalo meat, sugar, cocoa, tea, and corn meal, a guide, and every other necessary within that gentleman's {97} power to furnish for our journey to Wallawalla. And at ten o'clock, A. M., of the 4th of September, we bade adieu to our very obliging countryman, and took to our saddles on the trail down the desert banks of the Saptin. As we left the Fort, we passed over the ground of an affray, which originated in love and terminated in death. Yes, love on the western declivity of the Rocky Mountains! and love of a white man for an Indian dame!

It appeared that a certain white trapper had taken to himself a certain bronze damsel of the wilderness to be his slave-wife, with all the solemn ceremonies of purchase and payment for the same in sundry horses, dogs, and loads of ammunition, as required by the custom in such affairs governing; and that by his business of trapping for beaver, &c., he was, soon after the banns were proclaimed, separated from his beloved one, for the term of three months and upwards, much against his tender inclination and interest, as the following showeth: for during the terms of his said absence, another white man, with intent to injure, &c., spoke certain tender words unto the said trapper's slave-wife, which had the {98} effect to alienate from him the purchased and rightfully possessed affections of his slave-spouse, in favour of her seducer. In this said condition did the beaver-catcher find his bride when he came in from the hunt. He loaded his rifle, and killed the robber of his heart. The grave of the victim is there—a warning to all who would trifle with the vested rights of an American trapper in the love of an Indian beauty.

We made about ten miles, and halted for the night. Our guide displayed himself a five feet nine inch stout Wallawalla.[192] He had been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company many years, and was consequently assiduous and dutiful. Yes, consequently so; for neither Indian nor white man is long in their service without learning his place, and becoming active and faithful in doing his duty. As soon as we entered camp, our pack-horses were stripped of their burdens, and turned loose to feed; wood was gathered, and a fire blazing under the kettles, and "all out door" immediately rendered as comfortable to us, as skies spangled with stars, and earth strewn with snowy sand could be made. Wallawalla was a jolly oddity of a mortal. The frontal region of his head had been pressed in infancy {99} most aristocratically into the form of the German idiots; his eyes were forced out upon the corners of the head; his nose hugged the face closely like a bunch of affectionate leeches; hair black as a raven, and flowing over a pair of herculean shoulders; and feet——but who can describe that which has not its like under the skies. Such was Carbo, our Palinurus over the burnt plains of Snake River.

The short ride of the day had shown us the western limit of the partial fertility about Fort Hall. The earth had begun to be red, burnt, and barren; grass, sparse and dry; the shrubs and cotton-woods stinted and shrivelled.

The plain of the Trois Butes is situated between the Snowy mountain range on the south, and another ridge which, diverging from it above the sources of the Saptin River, follows that stream down to the Blue Mountains near Wallawalla. This plain by experiment is found to be eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. In the vicinity of the post, there is an abundance of grass for the subsistence of many thousands of animals. The soil, in various parts of it, also appears well adapted to the cultivation of the small grains and esculent roots. But {100} the fact that frosts occur almost every month of the year, shows the extent to which the arable sections can be rendered available for such purposes.

The Trois Butes rise on the plain fifteen or twenty miles east of the Fort.[193] They are pyramidal peaks, probably of volcanic origin, of two thousand feet in height above the plain, and twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea. Around their dark bases grow evergreen trees; from their sides burst small brooks, rendering verdant strips of the plain which radiate beautifully in all directions from them; and over all, during most of the year, hang their crests of glittering snows! East of the Butes, vegetation continually decreases till it ceases in the black crags which embosom the head streams of the river.

On the 5th, travelled thirty miles down the western bank of the river;[194] soil sandy and volcanic, bearing wild wormwood—in fact a desert; crossed a number of small streams putting into the Saptin; on these a little bunch of grass, and a few alders and willows, tried to grow. Whilst baiting at noon, we were agreeably surprised with an addition to our company, of a young Swiss trapper, eight years in the mountains; he {101} learned the silversmith business when in youth; afterwards entered a monastery and studied Latin, &c., for the order of Priests; ran away from the monastery, entered the French army, deserted, and came to America; sickened, was visited by a Roman priest who had been a classmate with him at the monastery; and having had a more numerous family than was required by the canons of his order, had fled to America, where his orisons would not be disturbed by the cries of infants. On entering our trapper's chamber they mutually recognized each other; and horror immediately seized the pious priest at the recollection of the trapper's sinfulness; and particularly the sin of forsaking the holy places of the mother church; of taking carnal weapons in hands that had been employed in making crosses in the sacred precincts of the cloister. The trapper had contracted the dangerous habit of thinking for himself, and replied to the godly man in a sharp and retaliatory manner; and among other things drew a very ungracious comparison between escaping from prayers and chants, and flying from an unlawful family.

This reference to former delinquencies in {102} a country to which he had fled to escape the remembrance of them, aroused the holy indignation of the priest to such an extent, that he immediately consigned the witness of his fault to worms, and his soul to an apprenticeship at fire eating in purgatory. Our trapper had become a heretic. In the blindness of his heart he had forgotten that the power to save and destroy the soul of man, had been committed to an order of men chosen, and set apart as the repositories of that portion of Omnipotence; and that whatever errors of conduct may occur in the life of these men, the efficiency of the anathematizing and saving commission is not thereby annulled; and he rose from his bed and hurled at the priest sundry counter anathemas in the form of chairs, and shovel and tongs. I could perceive in him no returning belief in the Omnipotent key of the "Roman Catholic apostolical mother Church." Instead of saying his prayers, and counting the beads of his rosary, he talked of the stirring scenes of a trapper's life, and recounted the wild adventures of the mountains; instead of the sublime Te Deum, he sang the thrilling martial airs of his native land; instead of {103} the crosier, he bore the faithful rifle; instead of the robes of sacred office, he wore the fringed deer skin frock of the children of the wilderness. He was a trapper—a merry mountain trapper.

6th. Twenty-five miles to-day; face of the country, black, hard and barren swells; encamped on a small tributary of the Saptin; very little grass for the animals; found here a family of the Root Digger Indians; the man half clad, children naked, all filthy. She was clad in a wrapper of mountain sheep skin.[195]

7th. Twenty miles. About mid-day heard a loud roaring of waters; descended the chasm of the river and discovered two enormous springs bursting from the basaltic cliffs of the opposite shore. Their roaring was heard three miles. The lower one discharged water enough to turn the machinery of twenty ordinary manufactories. The water foamed and rushed down inclined planes of rocks the distance of two hundred feet.[196] The country, an undulating, barren, volcanic plain; near the river cut into bluffs; lava every where; wild wormwood and another shrub two feet in height, bearing a yellow blossom, the only wood seen; encamped on a small stream about three miles {104} from the river. Found here the only grass which I had observed during the day.

8th. Still on the western bank of the Saptin; river one-fourth of a mile wide; water extremely clear; current five miles the hour; depth of water about four feet. On the eastern side, the soil appeared a dark mass of imbedded fused rock, stretching in broken undulations to the distant highlands. In that direction twenty miles lay a range of mountains like an irregular line of darkness on the horizon. Every thing touched by our horses' feet claimed a volcano for its birth-place. Thirty miles to-day.

9th. Face of the country the same as that passed over on the 8th—scarcely grass enough to feed our animals, and that dried to hay. The mountains on the west side of the river gradually nearing it. No timber since we left the immediate vicinity of Fort Hall. We cooked our food with the willow bushes which the Indians had killed and rendered dry for such purposes. All the rocks more or less fused; many large tracts of lava; a number of clear little brooks bubbling over the cinders of this great hearth of Nature's fire. Made forty miles.

10th. Fifteen miles over "cut rock" and wormwood deserts; and at mid-day descended {105} about six hundred feet in the chasm of the Saptin, and travelled along the brink of the river a short distance; crossed at a place called "The Islands," to the eastern shore.[197]

The river has been dipping deeper in the plain the last three days. A bird's eye view of it for sixty miles above the Islands would present a tortuous chasm, walled by basalt, trap, &c., and sunk along the centre of the valley, from one hundred to eight hundred feet deep, a black chasm, destitute of timber and other evidences of fertility, from a quarter to half a mile in width. In the centre of the bottom rushes the Saptin; over rocks and gravel a clear, pure, strong stream, with a current of five miles to the hour; water three and four feet in depth. Travelled seven or eight miles from the ford and fell in with eight or ten springs of limpid water, bubbling through the flinty crust of the plain. The sun was pouring upon us his fiercest rays, and our thirst was excessive. A halting, dismounting and rushing to the water, the application of our giant's lips to the liquid—a paralysis of his thirst produced by the boiling hot sensation which it imparted to his swearing apparatus, prepared us to resume our ride. Hot springs, {106} boiling hot—no apparent mineral properties.[198]

11th. Travelled to-day thirty-five miles over an irregular, rough, unseemly desert; volcanic stones strewn every where on a black, impenetrable, baked surface; soil too poor to bear the wormwood—trail too far east to see the river. At ten o'clock, met a petty chief of the Snake Root Diggers and his son on horseback, from Boisais river. He was dressed in a blanket coat, deer skin pants, and moccasins garnished with cut glass beads and strips of red flannel; the boy entirely naked. Carbo learned from him the situation of his tribe, and a few bits of Indian scandal, ascertained that we could reach Boisais river the next day, and that we could probably obtain fresh horses there. His copper-coloured highness than left us to pursue his way to Fort Hall, to get his guns repaired, and we continued ours to the lower Columbia, to get out of this grave of desolation. I had not seen an acre of land since leaving Fort Hall, capable of producing the grains or vegetables. Encamped on a small brook running westwardly towards the Saptin.

12th. On route at six o'clock in the morning; horses weary, and getting crippled {107} pitifully on the "cut rock;" face of the country absolute sterility; our trail near the mountains, about two hundred miles east of the Saptin.[199] At nine o'clock, came to the bluff overlooking Boisais river. Here the valley is sunken six or seven hundred feet; the whole of it below, to the limit of sight, appears to have subsided nearly to a level with the waters of the Saptin. Lines of timber ran along the Boisais, and plats of green grass and shrubs dotted its banks. The mountains, whence the river came, rose in dark stratified ridges. Where the stream escaped from them, there was an immense chasm, with perpendicular sides, which seemed to open into their most distant bases. Horrid crags beetled over its dismal depths. Lofty, rocky ridges extended far into the north. In the west and north-west towered the Blue Mountains.

We descended the bluff, followed down the Boisais three or four miles, and crossed the river into an encampment of Snake fishermen.[200] They were employed in laying in their winter store of salmon. Many horses were feeding on the plain. We turned ours loose also for a bite of the fresh {108} grass, while we bought fish, &c., and made other arrangements to improve digestion and our speed in travelling. Our business was transacted as follows:—For one large fish-hook we bought one salmon; for one paper of vermillion, six bunches of spawn; for one butcher-knife, one leathern fish rope. Carbo exchanged horses; disposed of one worth five shillings for one worth three, and gave a blanket and ten loads of ammunition to boot. He was vastly pleased with his bargain, and endeavoured to show himself so, by trying to grin like a white man; but he was not skilled in the science of manufacturing laughter, and made a deplorable failure of it. One of my own horses, whose feet were worn and tender, was exchanged with like profit to the shrewd jockeys.

These Indians are more filthy than the Hottentots. Both sexes were nearly naked. Their shelters were made with rush mats wrapped around cones of poles.

Having finished our trading, we travelled about ten miles down the stream, and encamped upon its bank. The plains were well covered with grass; many portions seemed susceptible of cultivation. The bed of {109} the river presented the usual characteristics of a mountain torrent; broad, shallow, with extensive bars of coarse gravel crossing the channel in all directions. The water limpid, and its quantity might be expressed by saying that the average depth was six inches, width ten yards, rate of current three miles an hour. In the month of June, however, it is said to bring from its maternal mountains immense floods.

13th. A breakfast of boiled spawn, and on trail at sunrise; travelled rapidly down the grassy intervales of Boisais; passed many small groves of timber. Many Indians employed in drying salmon, nearly naked, and dirty and miserable, ran after us for tobacco, and to drive a bargain for horses. All Indians have a mania for barter. They will trade for good or evil to themselves, at every opportunity. Here they beset us on every side. And if at any moment we began to felicitate ourselves on having at last escaped from their annoying petitions for "shmoke" and "hos," the next moment the air would resound with whips and hoofs, and "shmoke, shmoke," "hos," from half a dozen new applicants, more troublesome than their predecessors. No Jew, with old clothes and a pinch-beck watch to sell, ever {110} pressed customers with more assiduity than did these savages. But when we had travelled about thirty miles from our night camp, they all suddenly disappeared; and neither hut nor Shoshonie was seen more. They dare not pass the boundary between themselves and the Bonaks.

Soon after being relieved from these pests, our guide, Carbo, intimated that it would be according to the rules of etiquette in that country for him to leave us, unacquainted though we were with the right trail among the ten thousand that crossed the country in every direction, and proceed to Fort Boisais, to make the important announcement that four white faces were approaching the post. I remonstrated; but remonstrance was mere air in comparison with the importance of doing his duty in the most approved style; and away he shot, like an arrow from the bows of his tribe, over hillock and through the streams and copses, till lost from view. It was about four o'clock. The trails were so numerous, that we found it useless to continue on any of them. For if we selected any single one, that one branched into many every half mile. Thus we deemed it best to 'take our course,' as the {111} mariner would say, and disregard them altogether. In following this determination, we crossed the Boisais again and again; floundered in quagmires, and dodged along among whipping boughs and underbrush; and, when unimpeded by such obstacles, pelted the dusty plain with as sturdy a trot as ever echoed there, till the sun went down, and his twilight had left the sky. No Fort yet! nor had we yet seen the Saptin. We halted, held a council, and determined to "hold our course" westward; listened—heard nothing but the muttering Boisais, and travelled on. In half an hour, came to us a frightful, mournful yell, which brought us to an instantaneous halt. We were within fifty yards of the Bonak Indians, and were discovered!

This tribe is fierce, warlike, and athletic, inhabiting the banks of that part of Saptin, or Snake River, which lies between the mouth of Boisais, or Reed's River, and the Blue Mountains.[201] They make war upon the Blackfeet and Crows; and for that purpose often cross the mountains, through a gap between the track of Lewis and Clarke and the 'Great Gap.'[202] By these wars, their number has been much reduced. They are said to speak a language peculiar to themselves; {112} and are regarded by the whites as a treacherous and dangerous race. We had approached so near their camp, that whatever might be their disposition toward us, it was impossible to retreat. Darkness concealed the surrounding country, and hid the river and the trails. We could not escape without their permission and aid.

Our young Swiss trapper was the very man to grapple the dilemma. He bribed their good will and their safe conduct to the Fort. Five or six of them quickly seized horses, and, mounting without saddle or bridle, led the way. While these things were being done, horrid wails came from their huts among the bushes; and those who were with us responded to them. The only word uttered was one, which sounded like 'yap.' This they spoke at first in a low, plaintive key, and slowly; and then, on a higher note and rapidly, as if under stronger emotions of grief; and then fell away again to the low plaint of desponding sorrow. I noticed, as we rode along, that the tails of many of their horses were shorn of the hair in the most uncouth manner. The manes also were miserably haggled. The men who rode them wept, and at intervals wailed.

I was afterwards informed that their tribe {113} was mourning the death of some of their number who had lately died; and that it is a custom with them and other western tribes, on the death of friends, in war or by disease, for all the surviving relatives to shear the manes and tails of their horses to the skin—kill all the animals of the deceased—pile all his personal property around his burial-place, and mourn, in the manner I have described, for several days. Their camp was eight miles south of Fort Boisais.

We rode the distance in three quarters of an hour. Other Bonak horsemen joined us along the way. Each one, as he overtook us, uttered the wail; and then one and another took it up and bore it along the scattered line of the cavalcade. It was not very dark—but it was night, and all its air was filled with these expressions of savage grief. Tears flowed, and sobs arrested oftentimes the wail half spoken. The sympathy of the poor creatures for each other appeared very sincere, and afforded strong inducement to doubt the correctness of the usually received opinion that the American Indians possess little of the social affections. They certainly manifested enough on this occasion to render the hour I passed with them more oppressively painful than I hope ever again to experience.

{114} Mr. Payette, the person in charge at Boisais, received us with every mark of kindness; gave our horses to the care of his servants, and introduced us immediately to the chairs, table and edibles of his apartments. He is a French Canadian; has been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company more than twenty years, and holds the rank of clerk; is a merry, fat old gentleman of fifty, who, although in the wilderness all the best years of his life, has retained that manner of benevolence in trifles, in his mode of address, of seating you and serving you at table, of directing your attention continually to some little matter of interest, of making you speak the French language 'parfaitement' whether you are able to do so or not, so strikingly agreeable in that mercurial people. The 14th and 15th were spent very pleasantly with this gentleman. During that time he feasted us with excellent bread, and butter made from an American cow, obtained from some of the missionaries; with baked, boiled, fried and broiled salmon—and, at my request, with some of his adventures in the wilderness.

Fort Boisais was established in 1832, as the post whence to oppose Wyeth's operations at Fort Hall.[203] From it, the Hudson's Bay Company sent their trading parties over {115} the country south, in advance and rear and around every movement of Wyeth. And by using liberally the fund laid by annually for that purpose, they undersold the American till he was forced from the country.

On the part of the Hudson's Bay Company, I see nothing strange or unmanly in this conduct, if looked at as a business transaction. People having equal rights in trade, assume necessarily the relative positions which their skill and capital can command. This is the position of Americans and Britons in Oregon. By a pusillanimous policy on the part of the American Government, we have given British subjects an equal right with our own citizens to trade in all that part of the Public Domain lying west of the Rocky Mountains. In the exercise of the rights thus granted, the Hudson's Bay Company employ their incomparable ingenuity and immense wealth in driving every American trader from the coasts of the North Pacific. And who is to be blamed for this? The Government of the United States, that has, through want of wisdom or firmness or justice, permitted these important rights of its citizens to be monopolized by foreign capitalists for the last thirty years.

This fort stands on the eastern bank of {116} the Saptin, eight miles north of the mouth of Boisais or Reed's river. It consists of a parallelogram about one hundred feet square, surrounded by a stockade of poles about fifteen feet in height. It was entered on the west side. Across the area north and south runs the principal building. It is constructed of logs, and contains a large dining room, a sleeping apartment and kitchen. On the north side of the area, in front of this, is the store; on the south side the dwellings of the servants; back of the main building, an outdoor oven; and in the north-east corner of the stockade is the bastion. This was Fort Boisais in 1839. Mons. Payette was erecting a neat adobie wall around it. He expected soon to be able to tear away the old stockade, and before this has doubtless done so.[204]

Among the curiosities of this establishment were the fore wheels, axletree and thills of a one-horse waggon, said to have been run by the American missionaries from the State of Connecticut through the mountains thus far toward the mouth of the Columbia. It was left here under the belief that it could not be taken through the Blue Mountains. But fortunately for the next that shall attempt to cross the continent, {117} a safe and easy passage has lately been discovered by which vehicles of the kind may be drawn through to Wallawalla.[205]

At ten o'clock on the 16th we found ourselves sufficiently rested to recommence our journey. Our packs and ourselves were sent across the Saptin in a canoe; and our horses having swam it, and having been packed and saddled firmly for a rapid march, and a 'bon jour' having been returned by Mons. Payette, with the additional kind wish of a 'bon voyage' to us, over the mountains, we left the old gentleman to his solitary dominion.

He usually collects, during the twelvemonth, twelve or fifteen packs of beaver, and employs himself in the salmon season in curing large quantities of that fish for the supply of other posts. Our course was down the west bank of the river. The soil was sand and clay mixed in nearly equal proportions. Its composition is such as to render it fruitful; but the absence of dews and rains forbids the expectation that it will ever be so. Vegetation, bunch-grass and wild wormwood. Travelled fifteen miles and encamped near a small bute, at the foot of which ran a little tributary of the Saptin. From the south bank of this {118} stream near our camp burst a great number of hot springs. Water impregnated with sulphur: temperature at the boiling point.[206]

17th. Soil as on the track of the 16th, save that the hills became higher and more gravelly. In the afternoon, crossed a brook putting into the Saptin. At mid-day, touched the Saptin, and left it again for the hills. Mid-afternoon, struck another small stream, and followed up its valley till night.[207] Estimated our day's journey at thirty miles.

18th. The hills higher and more rocky; those in the distance to the west and north-west partially covered with pines and cedars. Immediately around our track, the hills were clothed with dry bunch grass. Some of them had been burnt by the Indians. Many beautiful little valleys were seen among the highlands. Black birch, rose, and willow shrubs, and quaking-asp trees on the banks of the little brooks. Encamped under the cliffs of a bute. The moon was in the first quarter. Its cold beams harmonized well with the chilling winds of the mountains. The atmosphere all the day smoky, as in Indian summertime in the highlands of New England. Estimated distance travelled, twenty-five miles.

{119} 19th. Forenoon, over gently rising conical hills, clothed with bunch grass; soil in the valleys sand and clay. Cooked dinner at L'Arbor Seul, a lonely pine in an extensive plain.[208] Encamped at night on a stream coming from the Blue Mountains, in the north-west. Distance to-day, thirty miles.

20th. Track up the valley in which we encamped the preceding night, over gently undulating hills; high broken mountains on either side. About twelve o'clock, came to a very steep descent, a mile in length. The upper part of it was so precipitous that the animals with packs were obliged to make a zigzag track of a mile, to descend the half that distance; the lower part was less precipitous, but covered with loose volcanic rocks. Among these the horses plunged and bruised themselves badly; but fortunately none were seriously injured. Some rich soil in the valleys; heavy groves of yellow pine, spruce, and hemlock; quaking-asp on the streams, and in the ravines. From high swells, over which ran the trail, we saw an extensive valley, deeply sunken among the lofty mountains in the north-east. It appeared to be thickly coated with grass, some portions dry, others green. The {120} meadow lark made its appearance to-day. Towards night, we came again into the valley which we had entered at mid-day, and encamped under a majestic yellow pine.[209] Freezing breezes swept down from the woody mountain around us, and made our fire, blazing high under the dark groaning boughs, extremely agreeable. Travelled twenty-five miles.

21st. A day of severe travelling. In the forenoon, the trail ran over a series of mountains swelling one above another in long and gentle ascents, covered with noble forests of yellow pine, fir, and hemlock. Among these were frequent glades of rich pasture land; grass green, and numerous brooks of pure water leaping from the cliffs, or murmuring among the shrubbery. The snow-ball, the wax plant, the yellow and black currant—a species of whortleberry—the service berry—choke cherry—the elder—the shrub maple—and all the beautiful flowers that gem a mountain landscape during its short summer, clothed the ground. At twelve o'clock, we entered a deep ravine, at the bottom of which ran a brook of sweet clear water; we dined on its bank. A dish of rich cocoa, mush, and sugar, and dried buffalo tongue, on the {121} fresh grass, by a cool rivulet on the wild mountains of Oregon! Nature stretched her bare and mighty arms around us! The mountains hid the lower sky, and walled out the lower world! We looked upon the beautiful heights of the Blue Mountains, and ate among its spring blossoms, its singing pines, and holy battlements, ten thousand feet above the seas.

In the afternoon, we continued to ascend; vast rolls lifted themselves over one another, in a northerly direction, higher and higher, till in the distance their tops mingled with the blue of the sky. We followed this grassy ridge till near four o'clock, when we commenced descending. A mile over slowly declining hills, and then the descent became frightful. It appeared to stand 45° to the plane of the horizon. The horses, when they turned at the angles of the zigzag trail, often found the greatest difficulty to keep on their feet. Two miles of such descent, of bracing with might and main, deposited us in a ravine of great depth, hung far and near with cliffs and abrupt earthy borders, partially covered with pines. At the bottom a brook running in a northerly direction, struggled and roared among the fallen rocks. We {122} made our way with much difficulty down its banks a short distance, crossed it, and proceeding in a north-westerly direction to another stream flowing eastward, encamped among the pines. These valleys were filled with cold winds, which rushed through them in irregular gusts, chilling every thing they touched. We set fire to large piles of dry pine logs in camp, spread our couches, and wayworn as men ever were, ensconced ourselves in them for repose. Carbo did not retire; but went whistling about among the horses; untied his wallet of provisions, and ate a second time, punched the fire, and looked at the eastern sky with evident interest. The vales below had been set on fire by Indians; and I more than half supposed that he expected to see some of his tribe at our quarters. But my supposition was groundless.

As soon as the moon peeped over the eastern heights, he roused me to hear in broken French that our horses had nothing to eat in the place where they were; and that we, being rested, must climb the mountain to find food for them. No proposition, and the facts brought to urge its adoption, could have been more unfortunately reasonable and true—at that particular {123} time. My first impulse was to order him to his couch; but a hungry whinny from my roan pony, browsing near me, awakened me fully to the propriety of the measure proposed. I, therefore, summoned my weary limbs and bruised and ulcered feet, to their best efforts, and at twelve o'clock at night we were on march.

For some time we led our animals through the tangled wood, and then along a steep gravelly side of the chasm, where the foothold slipped at every step; awhile among rolling stones so thickly strewn upon the ground, that the horses touched it only when their weight drove their feet down between them; and then, awhile we seemed to hang on the cliffs, and pause between advancing and following the laws of gravitation to the bed of the torrent that battled its way in the caverns far below; and in the desperation of a last effort, climbed the bank to a place of safety. At length we arrived at a large indentation in the face of the mountain, up the encircling rim of which, the trail for half a mile was of comparatively easy ascent. At the end of this distance, another difficulty was superadded to all we had yet experienced.

The steeps were covered to the depth of {124} several feet with "cut rock"—dark shining cubes from one to three inches in diameter, with sharp corners and edges. It was well nigh impossible to force our horses on them. The most obedient one, however, was at length led and scourged upon them; and by repeating the same inflictions, the remainder were finally induced to follow. All walked except Smith. His horse was "a d—d brute, and was made to carry him or die."

The poor animals would slip, and gather, and cripple; and when unable longer to endure the cutting stone under their feet, would suddenly drop on their knee; but the pain caused by that position would soon force them to rise again, and struggle up the ascent. An half hour of such travelling conducted us over this stony surface to the smooth grassy swells, the surface of which was pleasant to the lacerated feet of our horses. The green grass grew thickly all around. The moon poured her bright beams through the frosty air on the slumbering heights; in the deep pine-clad vales dimly burned the Indian fires; from mountain to mountain sounded the deep bass of a thousand cascades.[210]

We encamped in a grove of pines which {125} crowned the mountain, at three o'clock in the morning.

22nd. We saddled early, and ascending for two hours a line of gentle grassy elevations, came to the beginning of the north-western declivities of the Blue Mountains. The trail ran down the ravines of small brooks flowing north-west, and occasionally over high swells which stretched down the plain that lies about the south-western branches of the Wallawalla River: we halted to dine.[211] In the afternoon we struck off north-westerly over the rolling plain. The soil in the depressions was a light and loose compound of sand and clay, and thinly covered with bunch grass. The swells were of gravel, and generally barren; trees on the brooks only, and these few, small and of little value.

About three o'clock we came into the camp of a middle-aged Skyuse Indian,[212] who was on his onward march from the buffalo hunt in the mountain valleys east and north-east of Fort Hall. He was a spare man of five feet eight inches, dressed in a green camlet frock-coat, a black vest, striped cotton shirt, leather pants, moccasins, and a white felt hat. There were two children, boys, neatly clad in deer-skin. His {126} camp equipage was very comfortable—four or five camp-kettles with tin covers, a number of pails with covers, a leathern tent, and an assortment of fine buffalo robes. He had had a very successful hunt. Of the seventeen horses in his caravan, six were loaded with the best flesh of the buffalo cow, cured in the best manner; two others bore his tent, utensils, clothing, robes, &c.; four others were ridden by himself and family; the five remaining were used to relieve those that, from time to time, might tire. These were splendid animals, as large as the best horses of the States, well knit, deep and wide at the shoulders; a broad loin, and very small lower limbs and feet; of extreme activity and capacity for endurance.

Learning that this Indian was proceeding to Dr. Whitman's mission establishment, where a considerable number of his tribe had pitched their tents for the approaching winter, I determined to leave the cavalcade and accompany him there. My guide Carbo, therefore, having explained my intentions to my new acquaintance, departed with the remainder of his charge for Fort Wallawalla.[213] Crickie, (in English "poor crane,") was a very kind man.

{127} Immediately after the departure of Carbo and company, he turned my worn-out animals loose, and loaded my packs upon his own, gave me a splendid saddle-horse to ride, and intimated by significant gestures that we would go a short distance that afternoon, in order to arrive at the mission early the next day. I gave my assent, and we were soon on the way. Our course was north-easterly over sharp swells, among which ran many clear and beautiful brooks; soil gravel, loam, sand and clay, and well covered with dry bunch grass, incapable of producing the grains without irrigation. The swells and streams run north-westerly from the Blue Mountains. Our course was diagonally across them.

Having made about ten miles at sunset, we encamped for the night. I noticed, during the drive, a degree of forbearance towards each other, in this family of savages which I had never before observed in that race. When we halted for the night the two boys were behind. They had been frolicking with their horses, and as the darkness came on, lost the trail. It was a half-hour before they made their appearance, and during this time, the worthy parents exhibited the most affectionate solicitude {128} for them. One of them was but three years old, and was lashed to the horse he rode; the other only seven years of age. Young pilots in the wilderness at night! But the elder, true to the sagacity of his race, had taken his course, and struck the brook on which we had encamped, within three hundred yards of us. The pride of the parents at this feat, and their ardent attachment to their children, were perceptible in the pleasure with which they received them at their evening fire, and heard the relation of their childish adventure.

The weather was so pleasant that no tent was pitched. The willows were beat, and buffalo robes spread over them. Underneath were laid other robes, on which my Indian host seated himself with his wife and children on one side, and myself on the other. A fire burned brightly in front. Water was brought, and the evening ablutions having been performed, the wife presented a dish of meat to her husband, and one to myself. There was a pause. The woman seated herself between her children. The Indian then bowed his head and prayed to God! A wandering savage in Oregon calling upon Jehovah in the name of Jesus {129} Christ! After the prayer, he gave meat to his children, and passed the dish to his wife.

While eating, the frequent repetition of the words Jehovah and Jesus Christ, in the most reverential manner, led me to suppose they were conversing on religious topics; and thus they passed an hour. Meanwhile, the exceeding weariness of a long day's travel admonished me to seek rest.

I had slumbered, I know not how long, when a strain of music awoke me. I was about rising to ascertain whether the sweet notes of Tallis's Chant came to these solitudes from earth or sky, when a full recollection of my situation, and of the religious habits of my host, easily solved the rising inquiry, and induced me to observe instead of disturbing. The Indian family was engaged in its evening devotions. They were singing a hymn in the Nez PercÉs language. Having finished it, they all knelt and bowed their faces upon the buffalo robes, and Crickie prayed long and fervently. Afterwards they sang another hymn and retired. This was the first breathing of religious feelings that I had seen since leaving the States. A pleasant evidence that the Oregon wilderness was beginning to bear the rose of Sharon {130} on its thousand hills, and that on the barren soil of the Skyuse heart was beginning to bud and blossom and ripen the golden fruits of faith in Jehovah, and hope in an after-state.

23rd. We were on our way before the sun rose. The dawn on an Oregon sky, the rich blue embankment of mountains over which the great day-star raised his glowing rim, the blandness of the air, the lively ambling of the caravan towards the neighbouring abode of my countrymen, imparted to my mind and body a most agreeable exhilaration. Crickie, and his wife and children also, appeared to enjoy the atmosphere and scenery of their native valley; and we went on together merrily over the swelling plains and murmuring streams till about eight o'clock, when Crickie spurred his horse in advance of the cavalcade, and motioned me to follow him.

We rode very rapidly for about three hours over a country gently undulating, well set with bunch grass, and intersected with small streams flowing north-west. The dust had risen in dark clouds during our ride, and rendered it necessary to bathe before presenting ourselves at the mission. We therefore halted on the bank of a little brook {131} overhung with willows, and proceeded to make our toilet. Crickie's paraphernalia was ample for the purpose, and showed that among his other excellencies, cleanliness held a prominent place. A small mirror, pocket-comb, soap and a towel, were immediately produced; and the dust was taken from his person and wardrobe with a nicety that would have satisfied a town exquisite.

A ride of five miles afterward brought us in sight of the groves around the mission. The plains far and near were dry and brown. Every form of vegetation was dead save the forest trees, whose roots drank deeply of the waters of the stream. We crossed the river, passed the Indian encampment hard by, and were at the gate of the mission fields in presence of Dr. Whitman. He was speaking Skyuse at the top of his voice to some lazy Indians who were driving their cattle from his garden, and giving orders to others to yoke their oxen, get the axes, and go into the forest for the lower sleepers of the new mission house.[214] Mr. Hall, printer at the Sandwich Islands, soon appeared in working dress, with an axe on his shoulder; next came Mr. Monger, pulling the pine shavings from his fore-plane.[215] All seemed desirous to {132} ask me how long a balloon line had been running between the States and the Pacific, by which single individuals crossed the continent. The oxen, however, were yoked, and axes glistening in the sun, and there was no time to spend, if they would return from their labour before nightfall. So that the whence and wherefore of my sudden appearance among them, were left for an after explanation. The doctor introduced me to his excellent lady, and departed to his labour.[216]

The afternoon was spent in listless rest from the toils of my journey. At sunset, however, I strolled out and took a bird's-eye view of the plantation and plain of the Wallawalla. The old mission-house stands on the north-east bank of the river, about four rods from the water-side, at the north-east corner of an enclosure containing about two hundred and fifty acres; two hundred of which are under good cultivation. The soil is a thin stratum of clay, mixed with sand and a small proportion of vegetable mould, resting on a base of coarse gravel. Through this gravel, water from the Wallawalla filtrates, and by capillary attraction is raised to the roots of vegetation in the incumbent earth. The products are wheat, {133} Indian corn, onions, turnips, ruta-baga, water, musk and nutmeg melons, squashes, asparagus, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, &c., in the garden—all of good quality, and abundant crops.

The Wallawalla is a pretty stream. Its channel is paved with gravel and sand, and about three rods in width; water two feet deep, running five or six miles the hour, and limpid and cool through the year. A hundred yards below the house, it makes a beautiful bend to the south-west for a short distance, and then resumes its general direction of north-west by north, along the border of the plantation. On the opposite bank is a line of timber and underwood, interlaced with flowering brambles. Other small groves occur above and below along the banks.

The plain about the waters of this river is about thirty miles square. A great part of this surface is more or less covered with bunch grass. The branches of the river are distributed over it in such manner that most of it can be grazed. But, from what came under my own observation, and the information received from respectable American citizens, who had examined it more minutely than I had time to do, I suppose {134} there to be scarcely two thousand acres of this vast extent of surface, which can ever be made available for the purposes of cultivation. The absence of rains and dews in the season of crops, and the impossibility of irrigating much of it on account of the height of the general surface above the streams, will afford sufficient reasons for entertaining this opinion.

The doctor returned near night with his timber, one elm and a number of quaking-asp sticks; and appeared gratified that he had been able to find the requisite number of sufficient size to support his floor. Tea came on, and passed away in earnest conversation about native land and friends left there—of the pleasure they derived from their present occupation—and the trials that befell them while commencing the mission and afterwards.

Among the latter, was mentioned the drowning of their child in the Wallawalla the year before, a little girl two years old. She fell into the river at the place where they took water for family use. The mother was in the house, the father a short distance away on the premises. The alarm was conveyed to them almost instantly, and they and others rushed to the stream, and sought {135} for their child with frantic eagerness. But the strong heavy current had carried it down and lodged it in a clump of bushes under the bank on which they stood. They passed the spot where it lay, but found it too late. Thus these devoted people were bereft, in the most afflicting manner, of their only child—left alone in the wilderness.[217]

The morning of the 24th opened in the loveliest hues of the sky. Still none of the beauty of the harvest field—none of the fragrance of the ripened fruits of autumn were there. The wild horses were frolicking on the plains; but the plains smoked with dust and dearth. The green woods and the streams sent up their harmonies with the breeze; but it was like a dirge over the remains of the departed glories of the year. And yet when the smoking vegetables, the hissing steak, bread white as snow, and the newly-churned golden butter graced the breakfast table, and the happy countenances of countrymen and countrywomen shone around, I could with difficulty believe myself in a country so far distant from, and so unlike my native land, in all its features. But during breakfast, this pleasant illusion was dispelled by one of the causes which induced it.

{136} Our steak was of horse-flesh! On such meat this poor family subsist most of the time. They do not complain. It enables them to exist to do the Indian good, and thus satisfies them.[218] But can it satisfy those who give money for the support of missionaries, that the allowance made by their agents for the support of those who abandon parents and freedom and home, and surrender not only themselves to the mercy of the savages, but their offspring also, should be so meagre, as to compel them to eat horse-flesh! This necessity existed in 1839, at the mission on the Wallawalla, and I doubt not exists in 1843.

The breakfast being over, the doctor invited me to a stroll over his premises. The garden was first examined; its location, on the curving bank of the Wallawalla; the apple trees, growing thriftily on its western border; the beautiful tomato and other vegetables, burdening the grounds. Next to the fields. The doctor's views of the soil, and its mode of receiving moisture from the river, were such as I have previously expressed. "For," said he, "in those places where you perceive the stratum of gravel to be raised so as to interrupt the capillary attraction of the superincumbent earth, the {137} crop failed." Then to the new house. The adobie walls had been erected a year. These were about forty feet by twenty, and one and a half stories high. The interior area consisted of two parlours of the ordinary size, separated by an adobie portion. The outer door opened into one of them; and from this a door in the partition led to the other. Above were to be sleeping apartments. To the main building was attached another of equal height designed for a kitchen, with chambers above for servants. Mr. Monger and a Sandwich Islander were laying the floors, making the doors, &c.

The lumber used was a very superior quality of yellow pine plank, which Dr. Whitman had cut with a whip saw among the blue mountains, fifteen miles distant. Next to the "caral." A fine yoke of oxen, two cows, an American bull, and the beginning of a stock of hogs were thereabout. And last to the grist-mill on the other side of the river. It consisted of a spherical wrought iron burr four or five inches in diameter, surrounded by a counter-burred surface of the same material. The spherical burr was permanently attached to the shaft of a horizontal water-wheel. The surrounding burred surface was firmly fastened to {138} timbers, in such a position that when the water-wheel was put in motion, the operation of the mill was similar to that of a coffee-mill. It was a crazy thing, but for it the doctor was grateful.

It would, with the help of himself and an Indian, grind enough in a day to feed his family a week, and that was better than to beat it with a pestle and mortar. It appeared to me quite remarkable that the doctor could have made so many improvements since the year 1834. But the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree from the labours of the school, are, perhaps, circumstances which will render possibility probable, that in five years one man without funds for such purposes, without other aid in that business than that of a fellow missionary at short intervals, should fence, plough, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness; learn an Indian language and do the duties, meanwhile, of a physician to the associate stations on the Clear Water and Spokan.[219]

In the afternoon, Dr. Whitman and his {139} lady assembled the Indians for instruction in reading. Forty or fifty children between the ages of seven and eighteen, and several other people gathered on the shady side of the new mission-house at the ringing of a hand-bell, and seated themselves in an orderly manner on wooden benches. The doctor then wrote monosyllables, words, and instructive sentences in the Nez PercÉs language, on a large blackboard suspended on the wall, and proceeded first to teach the nature and power of the letters in representing the simple sounds of the language, and then the construction of words and their uses in forming sentences expressive of thought. The sentences written during these operations were at last read, syllable by syllable, and word after word, and explained until the sentiments contained in them were comprehended; and it was delightful to notice the undisguised avidity with which these people would devour a new idea. It seemed to produce a thrill of delight that kindled up the countenance and animated the whole frame. A hymn in the Nez PercÉs language, learned by rote from their teachers, was then sung, and the exercises closed with prayer by Dr. Whitman in the same tongue.

{140} 25th. I was awakened at early dawn by the merry sounds of clapping boards, the hammer, the axe and the plane; the sweet melodies of the parent of virtue, at this cradle of civilization. When I rose everything was in motion. Dr. Whitman's little herd was lowing in the river; the wild horses were neighing at the morning breeze; the birds were caroling in the groves. I said, every thing was alive. Nay, not so. The Skyuse village was in the deepest slumber, save a few solitary individuals who were stalking with slow and stately tread up a neighbouring bute, to descry the retreat of their animals. Their conical skin lodges dotted the valley above the mission, and imparted to the morning landscape a peculiar wildness. As the sun rose, the inmates began to emerge from them.

It was a chilly hour; and their buffalo robes were drawn over their shoulders, with the hair next the body. The snow-white flesh side was fringed with the dark fur that crept in sight around the edges, and their own long black glistening tresses fell over it far down the back. The children were out in all the buoyancy of young life, shouting to the prancing steed, or betting gravel stones that the arrows upon their little {141} bows would be the first to clip the sturdy thistle head upon which they were waging mimic war. The women were busy at their fires, weaving mats from the flag; or sewing moccasins, leggings, or hunting shirts. Crickie was giving meat to his friends, who the past winter had fed him, and taken care of him, while lying sick.

This is the imperial tribe of Oregon. They formerly claimed a prescriptive right to exercise jurisdiction over the country down the Columbia to its mouth; and up the North and South Forks to their sources. In the reign of the late high Chief, the brother of him who now holds that station, this claim was acceded to by all the tribes within those districts. But that talented and brave man left at his death but one son, who, after receiving a thorough education at the Selkirk settlement on Red River of Lake Winnipeg, also died—and with him the imperial dignity of the Skyuse tribe.[220]

The person in charge at Fort Wallawalla, indeed dressed the present incumbent in better style than his fellows; proclaimed him high chief, and by treating him with the formality usually tendered to his deceased brother, has obtained for him the {142} name, but not the respect and influence belonging to the office. He is a man of considerable mental power, but has none of the fire and energy attributed to his predecessor. The Wallawallas and Upper Chinooks are the only tribes that continue to recognise the Skyuse supremacy.

The Skyuse are also a tribe of merchants. Before the establishment of Forts Hall and Boisais, they were in the habit of rendezvousing at "La Grande Rounde," an extensive valley in the Blue Mountains, with the Shoshonies and other Indians from the Saptin, and exchanging with them their horses for furs, buffalo robes, skin tents, &c. But since the building of these posts, that portion of their trade is nearly destroyed. In the winter season, a band of them usually descends to the Dalles, barters with the Chinooks for salmon, and holds councils over that mean and miserable band to ascertain their misdemeanors, and punish them therefore by whipping. The Wallawallas, however, are their most numerous and profitable customers. They may well be termed the fishermen of the Skyuse camp. They live on both banks of the Columbia, from the Blue Mountains to the Dalles, and employ themselves principally {143} in taking salmon. For these, their betters, who consider fishing a menial business, give them horses. They own large numbers of these animals. A Skyuse is thought to be poor who has but fifteen or twenty of them. They generally have many more. One fat, hearty old fellow, owns something more than two thousand; all wild, except many as he needs for use or sale.

To these reports of the Indians, Dr. Whitman gave little credence; so at variance were some of the facts related, with what he presumed the Hudson's Bay Company would permit to be done by any one in their employment, or under their patronage—the abuse of American citizens, and the ungentlemanly interference with their characters and calling.

On the morning of the 27th, the arrival of Mr. Ermetinger, the senior clerk at Fort Hall from Fort Wallawalla, created quite a sensation. His uniform kindness to the Missionaries has endeared him to them.[221] My companion, Blair, accompanied him. The poor old man had become lonely and discouraged, and as I had encouraged him to expect any assistance from me which his circumstances might demand, it afforded me the greatest pleasure to make his merits {144} known to the Missionaries, who needed an artisan to construct a mill at the station on the Clear Water. Dr. Whitman contracted with him for his services and Blair was happy. I sincerely hope he may for ever be so.

I attended the Indian school to-day. Mrs. Whitman is an indefatigable instructress. The children read in monosyllables from a primer lately published at the Clear Water station. After reading, they repeated a number of hymns in the Nez PercÉs, composed by Mr. Smith, of the Spokan station.[222] These were afterwards sung. They learn music readily. At nightfall, I visited the Indian lodges in company with Dr. Whitman. In one of them we saw a young woman who imagined that the spirit of a Medicine man, or conjuror, had entered into her system, and was wasting her life. She was resorting to the native remedy for such evils—singing wild incantations, and weeping loudly. This tribe, like all others west of the mountains, believe in witchcraft under various forms—practice sleight-of-hand, fire-eating, &c. They insert rough sticks into their throats, and draw them up and down till the blood flows freely, to make them long-winded on march. They {145} flatten the head, and perforate the septum, or partition of the nose. In this orifice they wear various ornaments. The more common one that I noticed was a wolf's tooth.

The Skyuse have two distinct languages: the one used in ordinary intercourse, the other on extraordinary occasions; as in war-councils, &c. Both are said to be copious and expressive. They also speak the Nez PercÉs and Wallawalla.

On the 28th, Mr. Ermetinger started for Fort Hall, and Blair for the Clear Water. Early in the day, the Indians brought in large numbers of their horses to try their speed. These are a fine race of animals; as large, and of better form, and more activity than most of the horses in the States. Every variety of colour is found among them, from the shining coal-black to the milk-white. Some of them are pied very singularly; for instance, a roan body with bay ears, and white mane and tail. Some are spotted with white on a roan, or bay, or sorrel ground, with tail and ears tipped with black. They are better trained to the saddle than those of civilized countries.

When an Indian wishes an increase of his serving animals, he mounts a fleet horse, {146} and, lasso in hand, rushes into his band of wild animals, throws it upon the neck of the chosen one, and chokes him down; and while in a state of insensibility, ties the hind and fore feet firmly together. When consciousness returns, the animal struggles violently, but in vain, to get loose. His fear is then attacked by throwing bear-skins, wolf-skins, and blankets at his head till he becomes quiet. He is then loosened from the cord, and rears and plunges furiously at the end of a long rope, and receives another introduction to bear-skins, &c. After this, he is approached and handled; or, if still too timid, he is again beset with blankets and bear-skins, as before, until he is docile. Then come the saddling and riding. During this training, they uniformly treat him tenderly when near, and rudely when he pulls at the end of the halter. Thus they make their wild steed the most fearless and pleasant riding animals I ever mounted.

The course pursued by Mr. Whitman, and other Presbyterian Missionaries, to improve the Indians, is to teach them the Nez PercÉs language, according to fixed grammatical rules, for the purpose of opening to them the arts and religion of civilized {147} nations through the medium of books. They also teach them practical agriculture and the useful arts, for the purpose of civilizing their physical condition. By these means, they hope to make them a better and a happier people. Perhaps it would be an easier way to the same result, if they would teach them the English language, and thus open to them at once the treasures which centuries of toil, by a superior race, have dug from the mines of intelligence and truth.

This was the evening before the sabbath, and Dr. Whitman, as his custom was, invited one of the most intelligent Indians to his study, translated to him the text of scripture from which he intended to teach the tribe on the morrow, explained to him its doctrines, and required of him to explain in turn. This was repeated again and again, until the Indian obtained a clear understanding of its doctrines.

The 29th was the sabbath, and I had an opportunity of noticing its observance by the Skyuse. I rose before the sun. The stars were waxing dim on the morning sky, the most charming dawn I ever witnessed. Every possible circumstance of sublimity conspired to make it so. There was the {148} pure atmosphere; not a wisp of cloud on all its transparent depths. The light poured over the Blue Mountains like a cataract of gold; first on the upper sky, then deepening its course through the lower air, it gilded the plain with a flood of brightness, mellow, beautiful brightness; the charms of morning light, on the brown, boundless solitudes of Oregon. The breeze scarcely rustled the leaves of the dying flowers; the drumming of the woodpecker on the distant tree, sounded a painful discord; so grand, so awful, and yet so sweet, were the unuttered symphonies of the sublime quiet of the wilderness.

At ten o'clock the Skyuse assembled for worship in the open air. The exercises were according to the Presbyterian form; the invocation, the hymn, the prayer, the hymn, the sermon, a prayer, a hymn, and the blessing; all in the Nez PercÉs tongue. The principal peculiarity about the services was the mode of delivering the discourse. When Dr. Whitman arose and announced the text, the Indian who had been instructed on the previous night, rose and repeated it; and as the address proceeded, repeated it also by sentence or paragraph, till it was finished. This is the custom of {149} the Skyuse in all their public speaking. The benefit resulting from it in this case, apparently, was the giving the doctrines which the Doctor desired to inculcate, a clearer expression in the proper idiom of the language.

During the recess, the children were assembled in sabbath school. In the afternoon, the service was similar to that of the morning. Every thing was conducted with much solemnity. After worship, the Indians gathered in their lodges, and conversed together concerning what they had heard. If doubt arose as to any point, it was solved by the instructed Indian. Thus passed the sabbath among the Skyuse.

On the 29th, I hired Crickie to take me to the Dalles; and, Mrs. Whitman having filled my sacks with bread, corn-meal, and other edibles, I lashed my packs once more for the lower Columbia.