THE CANOE and THE SADDLE
or KLALAM and KLICKATAT
By THEODORE WINTHROP ^ <i^
TO WHICH ARE NOW FIRST ADDED HIS
WESTERN LETTERS AND JOURNALS
Edited, with an Introduction and Notes,
By JOHN H. WILLIAMS
jiuthor of " The Mountain that Was 'God'." "The Guardians
of the Columbia, " etc.
WITH SIXTEEN COLOR PLATES AND MORE
THAN ONE HUNDRED OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
TACOMA
JOHN H. WILLIAMS
1913
f
Copyright, 1913, by John H. Williams
Press of
Franklin- Ward Company,
Portland, Oregon.
TO
ELIZABETH WINTHROP JOHNSON
NIECE OF THEODORE WINTHROP
WHO KNEW AND LOVED HIM IN HER CHILDHOOD
"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again ?
How strange it seems and new!''
2bbtiOG
'^^^
Indian Graveyard on the Cowlitz River; Illustrating Canoe Burial.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Theodore Wintjirop's celebrated romance of frontier adventure
has been out of print for some years, but the frequent calls for a new
edition, properly illustrated, testify to its abiding charm and value.
In undertaking such an edition, I have felt that a book which seems
destined to remain the chief classic of our early Northwest deserves
most careful editing and very generous illustration. The reprint here
presented, with its addition of the author's letters and journals, cover-
ing his entire stay on the Pacific Coast, and with illustrations selected
from a wide field, will doubtless appeal to an even larger circle of readers
than that which welcomed "The Canoe and the Saddle" on its first
appearance, fifty years ago.
In annotating the author's text, my aim has been, without over-
loading the volume, to give such explanations and such quotations
from the authorities as may be needed to render the book wholly in-
telligible to distant readers, who may know nothing of the Siwash
and his home, and little of Northwestern history. The illustrations
are of several sorts. First of all, the book is a picture of the great stage
set by Nature for the drama of state-building. Hence many of the
pictures are of noble scenery. That the book might show Winthrop's
route from Western to Eastern Washington, as well as the famous "Citi-
zens' Road" which so greatly interested him, I made a trip during the
last summer across the Naches Pass with an expert photographer.
We were fortunate in obtaining a number of remarkable views of a
region never before photographed, — views of mountain, canyon and
forest that will aid readers to travel with Winthrop through a wonder-
ful district now almost unvisited.
But "Canoe and Saddle" is more than a nature book. As a brilliant
snap-shot picture of frontier conditions, I have tried to illustrate it
very largely from historical sources. The pictures of Indian life and
historic places and persons will be found unusually full and valuable.
In the table of illustrations, care has been taken to give credit to those
who have kindly aided me in collecting these interesting pictures of
pioneer days and leaders.
I am greatly indebted to the author's family for tjheir kindness in
placing his letters and journals at my disposal. Thanks are also due
to General Hodges and Colonel Allen for their reminiscences, printed
viii PREFACE.
at the end of this volume; to Mr. George H. Himes, secretary of the
Oregon Historical Society, Portland; Mr. W. H. Gilstrap, of the Wash-
ington State Historical Society and Ferry Museum, Tacoma, and Mr.
E. O. S. Scolefield, of the Provincial Library and Museum, Victoria,
B. C, for the valuable assistance they have given me in collecting
illustrations and verifying data. The New York Public Library, which
owns the Winthrop MSS., has kindly supplied desired fac-similes.
The American Museum of Natural History, in New York, and the
National Museum, Washington, D. C, have contributed many illus-
trations of Indian life and antiquities. I have quoted freely, with
acknowledgment, from the two most important works dealing with
the early years of our State, — General Hazard Stevens's life of his
father and Mr. C. A. Snowden's history, — and am also under obligations
to these authors for counsel and aid in many other ways. Dr. C. M.
Buchanan, of the Tulalip Agency, has greatly increased the value of
the book by his advice in matters of Indian philology and lore.
Save for a few typographical errors and obvious repetitions which
Winthrop would doubtless have corrected himself had he lived to edit
his manuscript, the text of "Canoe and Saddle" is reprinted in its orig-
inal form. The spelling is not always that of to-day, especially in the
matter of Indian names; but its quaintness is worth more than con-
formity to modern standards. The spelling of Indian words was, of
course, a phonetic go-as-you-please in his time, and has not yet become
so clearly settled as to give us established forms for more than a frac-
tion of such words. Thus in the text and notes will be found half a
dozen different spellings for "Naches," with almost as many for other
words. Until the publications of our Government adopt a standard,
uniformity in these words cannot be hoped for. In the notes, I have
used the forms which seem to be supported by the best current usage,
but have not attempted to make over the spelling of the several con-
tributors to the volume.
It has seemed desirable to preserve Winthrop's own title, "Klalam
and Klickatat." I have therefore used it in connection with the title
substituted by the original publishers. The design on the cover of the
volume is the coat of arms of the Winthrop family.
Tacoma, Oct. 15, 1913.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: WINTHROP IN THE NORTHWEST XIX
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE
I. AN ENTRANCE 3
II. A KLALAM GRANDEE .... 5
III. WHULGE 20
IV. OWHHIGH 44
V. FORESTS OF THE CASCADES •- - - 66
VI. "BOSTON TILICUM" - . - . 90
VII. TACOMA 99
VIII. SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN - - 123
IX. VIA MALA ...... 138
X. TREACHERY 150
XI. KAMAIAKAN 163
XII. LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT - - 185
XIII. THE DALLES.— THEIR LEGEND - - - 200
VOCABULARY 223
CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST
I. CALIFORNIA 229
II. THE NORTHWEST .... 240
III. WINTHROP'S NORTHWESTERN JOURNAL - 267
APPENDIX 309
Fac-siraile of Winthrop's Title. This was changed by the publishers to "The
Canoe and the Saddle."
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOR *
IN TACOMA HARBOR ... - Frontspiece.
From a painting by Sidney Lawrence, owned by ISIrs. George Browne,
of Tacoma. Colored engraving copyrighted by J. H. "Williams.
MOUNT BAKER, FROM PORT TOWNSEND - Facing 20
Admiralty Inlet and "Whidbey Island in foregroimd. After a pho-
tograph by P. M. Richardson.
THE OLYMPICS AND THE STRAITS OF JUAN DE FUCA 25
View from Victoria, B. C. After a photograph by Fleming Bro-
thers.
SEATTLE HARBOR AT SUNSET - - - - 32
After a photograph by Webster & Stevens.
THE "SIWASH HOOIHUT" . _ - . 81
After a photograph by Curtis & Miller.
WINTHROP GLACIER 92
Northeast slope of Mt. Rainier-Tacoma. Named in honor of Theo-
dore "Winthrop. After a photograph by Dr. B. R. Stevens.
VIEW SOUTHWEST FROM PYRAMID PEAK, NORTH OF
NACHES PASS 99
After a photograph by Curtis & Miller.
INDIAN BASKETS 120
After a photograph by A. M. Potter of baskets owned by Mrs.
Clinton A. Snowden and the Ferry Museum, Tacoma.
NACHES CANYON 138
After a photograph by E. F. Colville.
"LE PLAY HOUSE" 180
Ruins of the Atinam Mission. After a photograph by Curtis & Miller.
YAKIMA RUG-MAKER .... 185
After a photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse,
MOUNT ADAMS, SEEN FROM SUNNYSIDE - - 193
After a photograph by Asahel Curtis, copyright.
SUNSET ON THE COLUMBIA - - - - 204
After a photograph by S. C. Lancaster, copyright.
OLYMAN CHARON AND HIS DUG-OUT AT THE DALLES 217
After a photograph by Benjamin A. GiflPord, copyright.
* Excepting the first, these are from water-color paintings by Jud-
8on T. Sergeant, based on photographs.
xii ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE COLUMBIA AND MOUNT SAINT HELENS - - . 240
From near Portland. After a photograph by S. C. Reeves.
SIWASH BOATMEN OF WHULGE - - . 276
After a photograph by Asahel Cxxrtis, copyright.
ONE-COLOR HALFTONES.
THEODORE WINTHROP - - - Facing XIX
Last portrait of the author, made after a serious illness during the
Winter of 1860-'61, and never before published; a photograph taken
on metal by Lewis Rutherford, the celebrated astronomer. By
courtesy of the Author's Family.
CROSSING THE BAR AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA 3
From a painting by Captain Cleveland Rockwell, owned by the Mer-
chants' National Bank, of Portland, Ore.
INTERIOR OF A CHINOOK LODGE . . . IQ
From Commodore Wilkes's Exploration of 1845.
CLALLAM AND TILLAMOOK TWINED BASKETS - 17
By courtesy of the National Museum, Washington, D. C.
AMONG THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS - - - 28
Photograph by Webster & Stevens.
FORT STEILACOOM _ - ... 35
By courtesy of the Library of the University of Washington.
FORT NISQUALLY ..... 37
From a drawing made about 1868 by Edmund T. Coleman, an Eng-
lish landscape artist then living at Victoria, B. C. By courtesy of
the Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma.
ON THE GREAT PRAIRIE SOUTH OF TACOMA - 40
From a drawing made about 1868 by Edmund T. Coleman, showing
this broad outwash plain almost treeless as a result of Indian fires set
from time to time to keep back the Forest and increase the growth of
grass for the deer. By courtesy of Mr. D. W. Huggins.
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S FORT AT VICTORIA, B. C. 42
From a drawing made about the time of Winthrop's visit. By
courtesy of the Provincial Library and Museum, Victoria.
ON THE NISQUALLY PRAIRIE TO-DAY - - 49
Photograph by Andrew J. Stone.
AMONG THE DOUGLAS FIRS .... 60
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
LOWLAND CEDARS ALONG THE WHITE RIVER - 63
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
WHITE RIVER 66
Photograph by Curtis & ^liller.
NORTHWEST FACE OF MOUNT RAINIER-TACOMA - 75
Photograph by Curtis & IMiller.
JUNCTION OF THE WHITE AND GREENWATER RIVERS 78
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii
CAMPING AT BEAR PRAIRIE ... 85
Photograph by W. H. Gilstrap.
A STALWART YOUNG CEDAR .... 88
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
THE "BOSTON HOOIHUT" - - - . 96
Photograph by Curtis & IMiller.
OVERLOOKING NACHES PASS (2) - - 102-103
Photograph by Curtis & IMiller.
SUNSET AMONG THE MOUNTAINS ON A RAINY DAY 109
Photograph by Curtis & jNIiller.
MOUNTAIN MEADOW IN THE NACHES PASS - - 111
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
INDIAN SWEAT-HOUSE . - . . 126
Photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse, who writes: "This sweat-
house picture was made on the Umatilla Indian reservation a few
years ago. The sweat-house is universally used among all the North-
west tribes of Indians. In fact, no well-regulated teepee is complete
without a sweat-house near. It is the cure-all with the Indians for all
kinds of disease and sickness, and is used as a means of ordinary
cleanUness as well.
" The sweat-house cure for the measles was one of the principal
factors that brought on the Whitman massacre in 1847. Just prior to
the massacre, the Indians at the mission and near by broke out with
the measles, and Dr. Whitman administered medicine to them.
They would take the medicine, then go into their sweat-houses, re-
main as long as they could stand the heat, and then plunge from the
sweat-houses into the icy cold waters of the Walla Walla river, and
bob up dead. Hence Dr. Whitman was accused of poisoning them."
JUNCTION OF THE NACHES AND YAKIMA RIVERS 144
Photograph by Curtis & Miller.
WENAS VALLEY 157
Photograph by E. F. Colville.
AGED SQUAW OF "KLICKITAT PETER" AT FORT SIM-
COE - - ... - . 161
With apple-tree planted by Fathers d'Herbomez and Pandosy. Pho-
tograph by E. F. Colville.
YAKIMA VALLEY AND MOUNT ADAMS - - 172
i'hotograph by Curtis & Miller.
THE "HORSE-HEAVEN" COUNTRY - - - 197
Photograph by A. J. Anderson.
BAD LANDS OF THE COLUMBIA - - - 200
Photograph by Geo. M. Weister, copyright.
OLD FORT WALLA WALLA - - - - 208
From Governor Stevens's Railway Report, of 1854; after a draw-
ing by Stanley.
INDIANS FISHING FOR SALMON AT CELILO FALLS 211
Photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse.
PETROGLYPHS NEAR CELILO FALLS - - - 218
Photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse.
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE GRAND COULEE .... 221
From Governor Stevens's Railway Report, of 1854; after a drawing
by Stanley.
SAN FRANCISCO IN 1853 - - - - - 227
From an old print; by courtesy of Mr. Clinton A. Snowden.
FRONT STREET, PORTLAND, IN 1852 - - 243
From an old photograph owned by the Oregon Historical Society.
ASTORIA IN THE EARLY FORTIES - - - 244
From Wilkes's Exploration of 1845.
FORT VANCOUVER IN 1853 - - - - 250
From Governor Stevens's Railway Report, 1854; reproducing a
drawing by Gustave Sohon.
HAIDA BASKET MAKERS WITH LABRETS AND NOSE
RING - . . - . . 259
Photograph by the National ^Museum, Washington, D. C.
LOOKING DOWN THE COLUMBIA, AT THE LOWER
CASCADES - 261
Photograph by Geo. M. Weister. Copyright.
THE SOUND AND ITS ISLANDS, FROM HUNTER'S
POINT, NEAR OLYMPIA - - - - 264
Photograph by Collier. Copyright.
BELLINGHAM BAY AND SAN JUAN ISLANDS - 266
The large island on the right is Lummi Island, that in the distance
beyond is Cypress. Photograph by F. G. Hall.
CAPTAIN SOM-KIN 271
Chief of Umatilla Indian PoUce. Photograph by Major Lee Moor-
house.
INDIAN TEEPEE VILLAGE, UMATILLA RESERVATION 286
Photograph by Major Lee Moorhoiise.
BLOCKHOUSE AND PORTAGE RAILROAD AT THE CAS-
CADES OF THE COLUMBIA - - - - 289
Photograph by C. E. Watkins, 1867, owned by the Oregon His-
torical Society. There were two blockhouses at the Cascades.
This \aew shows the Middle Blockhouse, erected in the fall of
1855, between the Upper and Lower Cascades. Around it the battle
of the Cascades was fought on March 26, 1856. It was washed
away by a flood in 1S76. The Upper Blockhouse was built the
next November.
THE DALLES, OREGON, IN 1865 - - - 292
Fort Dalles, where Winthrop was twice entertained in 1853, is seen on
the ridge a mile back of the town, toward Mt. Hood. By coiu--
tesy of the Old Fort Dalles Historical Society.
THE DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA - - - 297
Photograph by Geo. M. Weister. Copyright.
BLUE MOUNTAINS OF CENTRAL OREGON - 300
View from Powder River Valley. Photograph by Geo. M. Weister.
IMMIGRANT TRAIN OF "PRAIRIE SCHOONERS" - 304
From a contemporary lithograph. Courtesy of Overland Monthly.
ILLUSTRATIONS. XV
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.*
INDLA.N GRAVEYARD ON COWLITZ RIVER - VI
From "Wanderings of An Artist," by Paul Kane, London, 1859.
FAC-SIMILE OF WINTHROP'S TITLE - - X
By courtesy of the New York Public Library.
THEODORE WINTHROP .... XXI
After a portrait by Rowse.
FAC-SIMILE OF WINTHROP'S MANUSCRIPT - - 2
By courtesy of the New Yorli Public Library.
PORT TOWNSEND IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES - 4
From drawing by "Porte Crayon," in Harper's Magazine, 1873.
MASK USED IN TRIBAL DANCES, ETC. 6
From original in Ferry Museum, Tacoma.
QUEEN VICTORIA: One of the wives of the Duke of York 18
From Nordhofl's "Northern CaUfornia, Oregon," etc., 1874.
MAKAH SQUAW GATHERING FAGOTS - - - 23
From photograph by Curtis & MiUer.
SIWASH MOTHER FLAT-HEADING HER INFANT - 26
From Nordhofl's "Northern California, Oregon," etc.
RETURN OF SIWASH FISHERMEN - - - 28
From photograph by Curtis & Miller.
CASCADES OF THE COLUMBIA, with Indians Fishing
from a Scaffolding over the water. - - . 29
From drawing by "Porte Crayon," in Harper's Monthly Maga-
zine, 1873.
SE-AT-TLH: Chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish Federa-
ation, after whom the City of Seattle was named - - 32
From photograph owned by Mr. C. B. Bagley.
INCISED DESIGN ON STONE DISH - - - 43
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
DR. WILLIAM ERASER TOLMIE, Hudson's Bay Factor
in charge at Fort Nisqually - - - - 45
From a portrait made in the Fifties. By courtesy of Mr. John
W. Tolmie.
EDWARD HUGGINS, Last Factor of the Hudson's Bay
Company at Fort Nisqually - - - - 47
From a daguerreotype of the Fifties. By coiutesy of Mr. D. W.
Huggins.
COLONEL MICHAEL T. SIMMONS: Indian Agent - 49
By courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma.
OW-HI, A Chief of the Yakimas - - - - 52
From a drawing by Governor Stevens's German soldier-artist, Gus-
tavo Sohon, 4th U. S. Infantry. Sohon was a highly intelligent
* Save for a few reproductions of old wood-cuts, these are from drawings
by Judson T. Sergeant and WilUam A. Bull from originals or photographs.
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS.
and versatile man. To his pencil we owe the well-known picture
of Fort Vancouver, facing page 250. He accompanied Governor
Stevens on his treatj--making expeditions, acting both as artist and
as interpreter; and on these occasions sketched the great Indian
leaders. Unlike most contemporary artists who attempted to depict
the Indians, he made no attempt to dress them up in conventional
war-paint and feathers. His drawings preserve for us all the promi-
nent chiefs of the Columbia River tribes, of whom we have no other
portraits. Some of them, notably this one of Ow-hi, admirably
suggest the character of the subjects, as described by Winthrop
and other writers. Gen. Hazard Stevens has very kindly placed these
portraits at my disposal, and I have reproduced such of them as show
the chiefs mentioned by Winthrop, with a few other leaders also
prominent in the Indian War of the Fifties.
TULALIP MAT-MAKER, CAMANO ISLAND - - 65
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
INDIAN CANOE ON THE PUYALLUP RIVER - 69
By Judson T. Sergeant.
CARVED WOOD TAMANOUS AND WAND - - 72
From original in Ferry Museum, Tacoma. Height, 4 feet, 6 inches.
NISQUALLY CARVED WOOD FIGURE - - 77
From original in Ferry Museum, Tacoma. Height, 5 feet, 8 inches.
BRIG. GEN. HENRY C. HODGES, U. S. A. - - 87
From photograph made in 1861. By courtesy of Gen. Hodges.
POTLATCH HOUSE OF THE SKOKOMISH 5NDIANS 89
This house, at Inati on Hood's Canal, was forty by two hundred feet
in size. The late Myron Eells, who spent many years among the
Skokoraish Indians, describes the Potlatch as follows;
"The Potlatch is the greatest festival the Indian has. 'Potlatch' is
a Chinook word, and means 'to give.' The central idea of it is a dis-
tribution of gifts by a few persons to the many present whom they
have incited. It is generally intertribal, from four hundred to two
thousand persons being present. From one to ten thousand dollars
in money, blankets, guns, canoes, cloth, and the like are given away.
Three Potlatches have been held at Skokomish within fifteen years,
and during the same time, as far as I know, the tribe have been
invited to nine others.
"The giving is carried to an extreme. In order to obtain the
money to give, they deny themselves so much for years, live in old
houses and in so poor a way, that the self-denial becomes an enemy
to health, civihzation and Christianity. If they would take the
money, improve land, build good houses, furnish them, and live de-
cently, it would be far better."
After showing how the Potlatches commonly led to orgies of
gambUng, red and black tamanous, and drunkeness, Mr. Eclls con-
tinues; "When some Alaska Indians, seeing the prosperity which
the Christian Indians of that region had acquired, asked what they
must do to become Christians, the reply was; 'First, give up your
Potlatches.' It was felt that there was so much evil connected with
them that they and Christianity could not flourish together. Among
the Twanas, while they are not dead, they are largely on the wane.
Among the Clallams, they still flourish." — Ten Years of Missionary
Work Among the Indians of Skokomish, by Rev. M. Eells, Boston, 1886.
EDWARD JAY ALLEN: Leader of the Road Builders - - 94
From photograph about the time of the Civil War. By courtesy
of Col. Allen.
ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii
YAKIMA STONE COOKING POTS - . . 98
From photograph by the American Museum of Natural History,
New York.
CARVED STONE IMAGE, from the Lower Columbia Valley 105
From photograph by American Museum of Natural History, Now
York.
HIAQUA, the Wampum, or Shell Money, of the Northwest 108
TA-WITS-POO, a Squaw - - - - - 121
Pliotograph by Major Lee Moorhouse.
A SIWASH CRADLE - - - . . 122
From Nordhoff's "Northern California, Oregon," etc., 1874.
COSTUMED FIGURE CARVED FROM AN ANTLER - 134
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.
YAKIMA SCULPTURED AND INLAID STONE PIPE 137
Made of steatite with wooden stem. One-half natural size. From
Smith's "Archaeology of the Yakima Valley."
GEN. GEORGE B. McCLELLAN ... 143
From a published portrait of the early Civil War period.
CARVED STONE CLUB HEAD, OR NET SINKER - 148
From Smith's "Archaeology of the Yakima Valley." One-third
natural size.
POTLATCH HOUSE OF THE LUMMI INDIANS - 149
Photograph by Harlan Smith. By courtesy of the American Mu-
seum of Natural History, New York.
WAKE MA: Aged Klickitat Squaw - - - - 157
From photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse.
FATHER CHARLES PANDOSY ... 175
By courtesy of the Rev. P. Le Chesne, O. M. I.
FATHER L. D'HERBOMEZ - - - - 176
By courtesy of the Rev. P. Le Chesne, O. M. I.
KAM-AI-A-KAN: Head Chief of the Yakimas - - 179
From a drawing by Gustave Sohon. By courtesy of Gen. Hazard
Stevens. "Kamiahkan of the Yakimas, was easily the greatest chief
present," says Snowden of Governor Stevens's treaty council at
Walla Walla. "He was to the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains
what Pontiac and Tecumpseh had been to their people on the east-
ern side, in their time." — Snowden; History of Washington, III 296.
CARVED STONE PIPE, from Grave near Fort Simcoe - 199
By courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York.
One-half natural size.
SKLOO: a Chief of the Yakimas - - - - 202
From a drawing by Gustave Sohon. By courtesy of Gen. Hazard
Stevens.
PU-PU-MOX-MOX: YELLOW SERPENT, Walla Walla Chief 204
From drawing by Gustave Sohon. Courtesy of Gen. Hazard Stevens.
INDIAN HOUSE OF SLABS, on the Columbia - - 219
Photograph by Major Lee Moorhouse.
xviii ILLUSTRATIONS.
ANIMAL-SHAPED BOWL CARVED IN LAVA - - 222
From Smith's "Archaeology of the Yakima Valley." By courtesy
of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
WAR-CLUB MADE OF THE BONE OF A WHALE - 239
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN, Famous Hudson's Bay Factor - 246
From a daguerreotype made in 1S56, a year before his death. By
courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.
GEN. B. L. E. BONNEVILLE - - - - 247
From a photograph made in 1873, five years before his death. By
courtesy of Mr. Clarence B. Bagley.
GEN. ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS - - - - 258
After a photograph made in 1861, when Gov. Stevens was forty-
three years old. By courtesy of Gen. Hazard Stevens.
PETER SKEEN OGDEN - . . . 259
By courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.
OLYMPIA IN THE SIXTIES - - - - 262
From a drawing by "Porte Crayon," in Harper's Monthly Maga-
zine for 1873.
MIDDLE BLOCKHOUSE AT THE CASCADES - 272
Built in 1855. From a photograph by Eaton. By courtesy of the
Oregon Historical Society.
SEATTLE IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES - - - 276
From Nordhoff's "Northern California, Oregon," etc.
SHE-CA-YAH: a Cayuse Chief - - - - 292
From a drawing by Gustave Sohon. By courtesy of Gen. Hazard
Stevens.
HAL-HAL-TLOS-SOT; THE LAWYER; head Chief of the
Nez Perces - ... - - 294
From a drawing by Gustave Sohon. By courtesy of Gen. Hazard
Stevens.
CARVED SEATED FIGURE HOLDING DISH - 305
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
WINTHROP'S GRAVE, in New Haven Cemetery - 308
Photograph by Leopold.
ADMIRAL PETER RAINIER - - - - 312
From a portrait in the Rainier Club, Seattle; photograph by Curtis
& Miller.
MAP.
WESTERN WASHINGTON AND NORTHWESTERN ORE-
GON, WITH WINTHROP'S ROUTE - - - 229
^/^
INTRODUCTION.
WINTHROP IN THE NORTHWEST.
Sixty years ago this last August, an incident touched with the color
of new lands and new eras took place on the west slope of the Cascades.
In a camp of red-shirted frontiersmen, two young men lay under the
same blanket, and talked half the night away in the enthusiasm of
youth for the inspiring things planned and doing in the new Territory
of Washington. The little community on Puget Sound, with few
resources save the courage of inexperience, had undertaken to break
the barriers which barred recruits for their commonwealth by building
a highway across the range to the Columbia River Valley. And here was
the little band of intrepid men sent out to achieve this incredible feat.
One of the youths bivouacking under the stars, although only twenty-
two, was the competent engineer and chief of the road-makers. His
guest was a wayfarer, unknown but not unwelcome, who had strayed
into their camp by the Greenwater at nightfall. The visitor shared
their evening meal, joined in their camp-fire jollity, and divided their
leader's bed of hemlock boughs. With sunrise, he was up and away,
riding fast across the great Naches Pass to meet soldier friends at old
Fort Dalles on the Columbia, and thence to hasten eastward, "over the
lonely land," as he tells us, to his home on the Atlantic. They parted
fast friends, host and guest; but neither knew the name of the other. No
visiting cards circulated in the forest of the Greenwater. "It was not
etiquette in those days on the frontier," writes the now venerable road-
builder, "to ask a name when not voluntarily given;" and he did not learn
the identity of the young genius he had entertained unawares until, ten
years later, he saw the hospitable Boston tilicum and the marvelous snor-
ing of the hooihut-builders set forth on the flashing pages of "The Canoe
and the Saddle."
The pleasant story, with its amusing suggestion of frontier custom,
carries us back to the last stage of the westward march of our nation.
What Winthrop saw here in 1853, and interpreted, was the opening
scene in the final act of a drama in which his own forefathers had greatly
played their parts two centuries before. The English colonists annexed
the Atlantic Coast to Britain by conquering homes for themselves in the
wilderness. So now Americans seized the Pacific Northwest, not by
XX INTRODUCTION.
armed force, or purchase, or any skill of statecraft, but by the hardi-
hood of the often despised "settler."
The modern study of history is mainly an examination of popular
movements. We are discovering that states are founded less by profes-
sional statesmanship than by the noiseless impulses of the masses.
This has been the story of the entire American advance across the conti-
nent. But for the unnoticed migration of the Scotch-Irish settlers into
Kentucky and Tennessee before and during the Revolution, Great
Britain would probably now occupy the land from the Ohio to the
Pacific and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. There would
have been no Louisiana Purchase by President Jefferson; no Mississippi
Valley states; no great commonwealths beyond the Rockies. A few
thousand humble emigrants changed the programme of nations.
What happened in the East was repeated here. While the states-
men at Washington slept, and Britain's great commercial arm, the
Hudson's Bay Company, was left to rule the Northwest, Oregon was
won for the United States by the dirt-tanned pioneer and his ox-team.
Without Oregon, we should doubtless have no Pacific Coast to-day.
But Oregon, won, made California inevitable. And now the Oregon-
ians, pushing across the Columbia, had planted the seeds of a new state
on Puget Sound. The Territory of Washington had just been created
by Congress. Its first Governor, brave and capable Stevens, was com-
ing across the plains and mountains, surveying the route of a northern
transcontinental railway. It was a time of great dreams and equal
deeds. Let us not mistake the pioneers for backwoodsmen. In the
scattered handful inhabiting the new Territory were men strong enough
to build a state, and fine enough to stand together for some remark-
able enterprises in public service.
One such expression of community effort was this road-building
which our author stumbled upon in the Cascades. In its half-humor-
ous but wholly sympathetic way, his book rightly makes much of it.
The "Citizens' Road" is entitled to be remembered less for the service
it actually rendered than as an example of pluck and resourcefulness
against apparently insuperable difficulties. When the delay and red
tape of Captain George B. McClellan held back even the paltry sum
of $20,000 which Congress had voted to build a hundred miles of moun-
tain highway, the struggling settlers decided with amazing nerve to
undertake it with their own money and labor. The Boston Hooihut
is an epitome of the history of the West.
This West, with its promise of great forces and its freedom from
threadbare conventions, made a powerful appeal to the young seeker
after a career. "The free life these men lead," he says of his friends of
the Army, "has great charms for me." And again: "This Oregon is a
INTRODUCTION. xxi
noble country! It offers a grand field for a man who is either a world
in himself, or can have his own world about him."
Looking back sixty years, it may now be said that Winthrop was
probably better fitted to study and portray the West than any other
Eastern man who attempted to describe it. He came prepared to under-
stand and value it. His books and still more his private letters and
journals show him wholly free from that tenderfoot superiority of tone
THEODORE WINTHROP.
found in most of the contemporary writings of Eastern men who visited
the frontier. His personal charm, even more than the letters of intro-
duction which he brought, made him welcome among the leaders in
the new settlements. The few still living who knew him tell of his mag-
netism. They recall the jovial appreciation with which he met alike
the hardships and the inspiration of the frontier.
But what especially fitted Winthrop to depict the West was his
profound and well-reasoned Americanism. In an age when section-
alism was fast driving toward civil war, his point of view is broadly
xxii INTRODUCTION.
national. His pride in his country as a whole had only been deepened
by education and foreign travel. He had come home from Europe
feeling the value to humanity of the struggle and opportunities pre-
sented by the conquest of the new continent. In the rough battle
with the forest, in the stumpy farms on the little clearings, in the crude
road that would link the infant settlements with the outside world,
he recognized the very processes that had laid strong the foundations
of the republic to which later he so gladly gave his life. Ungainly as
was the present, this descendant of the great governors of Massachusetts
and Connecticut saw in it the promise of a splendid and beneficent future.
"These Oregon people," he says, "carrying to a new and grander
New England of the West a fuller growth of the American idea, under
whose teaching the man of lowest ambitions must still have some lit-
tle indestructible respect for himself, and the brute of most tyranni-
cal aspirations some little respect for others; carrying there a religion
two centuries farther on than the crude and cruel Hebraism of the
Puritans, — with such material, that Western society, when it crys-
tallizes, will elaborate new systems of thought and life. It is unphilo-
sophical to suppose that a strong race, developing under the best,
largest, and calmest conditions of nature, will not achieve a destiny."
Most of our writers in the years preceding the Civil War were
either occupied with sectional discussions and local traditions, or were
looking to Europe and the past for their inspiration. Hawthorne knew
no America save that of New England. Emerson sat aloof on the
heights of his philosophy. Longfellow's lyre was tuned to the key of
mediaeval romance. Whittier was absorbed in the great slavery con-
test. Lowell was winning fame with his political ballads. For fiction,
our people read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and reprints of the English
novelists. Our literature had not yet discovered the West. Winthrop's
Western books, "The Canoe and the Saddle" and "John Brent," minted
new ore.
I recall a meeting with George William Curtis more than twenty
years ago, memorable to me because the talk turned to Winthrop,
who had been one of my boyhood heroes, and I was delighted to hear
about him from one who had known him so well. Some chance
remark recalled his name, and Curtis's face lighted. "Ah, there was
a man we could ill spare!" he cried. "Winthrop's death was as great
a loss to American literature as was that of Keats to English poetry.
He was far ahead of his time in thinking continentally. Cut off before
his prime, his books, brilliant as they are, are the books of a young
man. But he had vision and power, and had he lived to improve his
art, I have always believed that he might have become the strongest,
because the most truly American, of our writers."
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
Much more was said of his friend's genial, thoughtful personality;
of his brave defiance of ill health, and of his brilliant talk that ranged
from philosophy to puns, and from the heated politics of the East to
stories of the frontier. But I shall never forget the feeling with which
the great editor told of Winthrop's faith in his country, and of his con-
viction, when the war clouds broke over Sumter, that in all his varied
experiences Life had been fitting him for some part in building the free
and United America that was to come.
It is this nationalism that gives "The Canoe and the Saddle" a
place quite unique among our books of humor and adventure. As a
story of travel among the mountains and forests, it was the first of a
long line of books that turned the eyes of the country westward to our
great scenery. As a spirited yet truthful contemporary picture of the
Indian and pioneer epoch, it records an important era which is fast
passing into history; and this service is greatly broadened by the letters
and journals now added. But it is more than a travel book, and more
than an historical document. It is both a picture and a prophecy.
Its especial value for its own day and ours is in its faith in the democ-
racy that was to weld all the sections into a nation.
Perhaps his finest expression of that faith is in his poem, "The East
and the West," written shortly before the Civil War, first published
in the Atlantic in 1863, and reprinted in the fascinating Memoir by
his sister:*
"We of the East spread our sails to the sea,
You of the West stride over the land;
Both are to scatter the hopes of the free
As the sower sheds golden grain from his hand.
*******
"And you, through dreary and thirsty ways
Where rivers are sand, and winds are dust;
Through sultry nights and feverish days
Move westward still, as the sunsets must;
"Where the scorched air quivers along the slopes.
Where the slow-footed cattle lie down and die,
Where horizons draw backward, till baffled hopes
Are weary of measureless waste and sky.
"Yes! Ours to battle relentless gales.
And yours the brave and patient way;
But we hold the storms in our trusty sails,
And for you the life-giving fountains play.
"There are stars above us, and stars for you.
Rest on the path and calm on the main;
♦ "The Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop, Edited by his Sister"
(Mrs. Laura Winthrop Johnson), New York, 1884.
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
Storms are but zephyrs when hearts are true,
We are no weaklings, quick to complain.
*******
"Man is nobler than men have been,
Souls are vaster than souls have dreamed,
There are broader oceans than eyes have seen.
Noons more glowing than yet have beamed."
Winthrop's visit to the Northwest gave full play to a love of action
that was fundamental in his character. This trait counterbalanced
his inherited tendency to introspection, perhaps ine^^table in a youth
whose veins carried the blood of that redoubtable theologian Jonathan
Edwards, as well as of the D wights and Woolseys of Yale; it saved
him, no doubt, from morbidness, and made him the sane, healthy-
minded young American that he was. Like many another serious
and precocious lad of that period, he had kept a diary during his col-
lege career, putting into it, after the fashion of his years, much religious
self-analysis. In this journal, soon after his graduation from Yale in
1848, when he was nineteen, he reproached himself for a "selfish boy-
hood" in which he "did little but read novels," and "had doubts about
free will!" But in the same pages we see the other side of his character;
"Labor!" he says, "labor is the great thing. I have learned that no
effort is thrown away." And now, ten years later, he uTote with keen
appraisal of values about the West, where labor was indeed "the great
thing," and where academic speculation had as yet no place.
"It is a stout sensation," he says, putting the code of the frontier
into words that show his sympathy, "to meet masculine, muscular
men at the brave point of a penetrating Boston hooihut, — men who
are mates, — men to whom technical culture means naught, — men to
whom myself am naught, unless I can saddle, lasso, cook, sing, and
chop; unless I am a man of nerve and pluck, and a brother in generos-
ity and heartiness. It is restoration to play at cudgels of jocoseness
with a circle of friendly roughs, not one of whom ever heard the word
bore, — with pioneers who must think and act, and wrench their living
from the closed hand of Nature."
This visit also intensified a mental bent that had found expression
even in the games of childhood, when he and his brother William, both
of whom were later to respond to Lincoln's first call for troops, used to
take the parts of soldiers. Nothing on the frontier interested him
more than the work of the Army, in its preservation of public order
and its dealings with the Indians. His stay here brought him in touch
with many brilliant young officers who were then helping to lay the foun-
dations of new states. He notes the opportunity for self-expression
offered by the Army life; he accompanies a detachment to Fort Dalles;
INTRODUCTION. xxv
he regrets that he cannot join the McClellan reconnaissance of the Cas-
cade passes, and help find a practicable route for the much-wanted
railway. In this interest we may see the hand of destiny pointing
him forward to the eager sacrifice of Great Bethel; and it is impossible
not to feel that, had he lived for other battles, his daring, energy and
capacity for leadership must have made him an exceptionally useful
volunteer officer.
Winthrop was fortunate, while on the Coast, to know the fine and
able men whom the Hudson's Bay Company placed in charge of its
"forts" in the West. Ogden, Tolmie and Huggins at once gave him
their confidence and friendship; and through their eyes he was enabled
to get a different view-point from that of the settler. To them especi-
ally he was indebted for much information about the Indians and their
speech, matters to which he gave close study, and which fill many pages
of his book as well as of his letters and diaries. The Indian interested
him, not as a subject for sentimentalism, but as a human being, primi-
tive but still endowed with the same instincts and capacities as his
white brother, and sadly subject to the same limitations.
Our author risked his life with the Red Men, and probably would
have lost it but for the presence of McClellan and his soldiers in the
Cascades. He squared the account by making his native guides the
subjects of character studies unexcelled in the pages of American humor.
The bibulous Duke of York and Loolowcan the Frowzy, as figures
in his siwash Odyssey, inspired a mock-heroic style that is both original
and enjoyable. I have yet to hear of a reader who can find a dull page
in that story of Indians sophisticated by the white man's blankets
and whiskey. Even the Chinook Jargon, deadliest of stupidities, yields
its amusement for this jester, to whom nothing human was foreign.
Winthrop's life has been well told by his sister, in the Memoir al-
ready mentioned, and by George William Curtis, in his delightful appre-
ciation prefixed to Winthrop's novel of New York life, "Cecil Dreame."
It is the story of an impressionable youth, molded by the influences
of an admirable home, by outdoor life and study of nature, and by
foreign travel. At Yale he took honors in languages, history and phil-
osophy; was mediocre in mathematics, but distinguished himself even
then as a writer. Graduation was followed by a year of further study,
in which he read widely and well; but a sickly constitution drove him
into the open, and he went abroad for two years, visiting most of Europe,
learning its languages fluently, studying its art, and gathering in Swit-
zerland, Italy and Greece that appreciation of natural beauty that
was to serve him so well in his pictures of our western mountains.
On his return to America in 1852, he entered the employ of the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, then engaged in carrying fortune-
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
seekers to California via Panama, and we soon find young Winthrop
at the Isthmus. From there ill health drove him north, and after a
brief stay in San Francisco, which he well described in his letters, his
wanderings brought him to the Northwest. Here his stay on the Colum-
bia was prolonged unexpectedly, by reason of illness, and to this acci-
dent we owe the visit to Puget Sound and the resulting book.
The few years that followed were of little note, — the years of a
youth trying to find the career that he knows to be his, first at the law
and then at literature. Ill health still hampered him, but in spite of
it, he wrote much, rewrote most of it with care, but published practic-
ally nothing. In the spring of 1861, his famous short story, "Love
and Skates," was accepted by Lowell for the Atlantic, and there is a
rumor that "John Brent" was accepted by one publisher on condition
that Winthrop omit the closing incident, since it would offend pro-
slavery readers. This he refused to do, preferring to abide his time.
In "John Brent" he says with what is evidently an autobiographic
significance: "Observation is the proper business of a man's third
decade; the less a spokesman has to say about his results until thirty,
the better, unless he wants to eat his words, or to sustain outgrown
formulas. Brent discovered this, and went about the world still point-
less, purposeless, minding his own business, getting his facts." Even
Curtis, as I am informed, did not know Winthrop as an author when
he wrote his exquisite sketch of Winthrop as a man and friend.
Then came the call of great issues for which he had been waiting.
At the first opportunity for service to his country, he left the widowed
mother and his sisters, and went to the front with the celebrated Seventh
Regiment of New York. When that regiment returned after its brief
defense of the capital, he remained as miUtary secretary to General
Benjamin F. Butler, commanding at Fortress Monroe. The rest is
soon told; how in his eagerness to serve, he sought to rally the waver-
ing lines in the engagement at Great Bethel, on June 10, 1861, and
fell with a bullet through his heart. He was then thirty-two years
old. Only two years before, as if Death had already marked him,
Winthrop had wTitten:
"Let me not waste in skirmishes my power, —
In petty struggles, — rather in the hour
Of deadly conflict may I nobly die!
In my first battle perish gloriously.
"No level life for me, no soft smooth seas.
No tender plaintive notes of lulling breeze;
I choose the night, so I may feel the gale,
Even though it wreck me on my foamy trail."
THE CANOE
AND THE SADDLE
/U ^^^iX^ ^^^ „i?^k^U^t ^Z Of^^-^^^^^C^ ^J^t^f'.^*^ ^^>^*C?<?
^^ff-t^^a-.-yC. /^^^r^^inr.g^ ^i^^-^j^^j^^SE^ ^^i>-^ .#^s>«^-^s«*^;
^^^i^C^^^^ Y^A-^^rt^^ >^»sS^;j^<^ ^^^^/^'^^svC ^^rx^^^i^le'^i^t^^
PAC-SIMILE OF WINTHROP'S MANUSCRIPT.
Page 36.
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
AN ENTRANCE.
A wall of terrible breakers marks the mouth of the
Columbia, Achilles of rivers.
Other mighty streams may swim feebly away seaward,
may sink into foul marshes, may trickle through the ditches
of an oozy delta, may scatter among sand-bars the currents
that once moved majestic and united. But to this heroic
flood was destined a short life and a glorious one, — a life
all one strong, victorious struggle, from the mountains to
the sea. It has no infancy, — two great branches collect
its waters up and down the continent. They join, and the
Columbia is born to full manhood. It rushes forward,
jubilant, through its magnificent chasm, and leaps to its
death in the Pacific.
Through its white wall of breakers Captain Gray, with
his bark, the Columbia, first steered boldly to discover
and name the stream. I will not invite my reader to fol-
low this example, an,d buffet in the wrecking uproar on the
bar. The Columbia, rolling seaward, repels us.
Let us rather coast along northward, and enter the
Northwest by the Straits of Fuca, upon the mighty tides
4 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE
of an inland sea. We will profit by this inward eddy of
ocean to float quietly past Vancouver Island, and land at
Kahtai, Port Townsend, the opening scene of my narrative.
The adventures chronicled in these pages happened
some years ago, but the story of a civilized man's solitary
onslaught at barbarism cannot lose its interest. A drama
with Indian actors, in Indian costume, upon an Indian
stage, is historical, whether it happened two hundred years
since in the northeast, or five years since in the northwest
corner of our country.
PORT TOWNSEND IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES.
II.
A KLALAM GRANDEE,
The Duke of York was ducally drunk. His brother,
King George, was drunk — royally. Royalty may disdain
public opinion, and fall as low as it pleases. But a brother
of the throne, leader of the opposition, possible Regent,
possible King, must retain at least a swaying perpendicu-
lar. King George had kept his chair of state until an angu-
lar sitting position was impossible; then he had subsided
into a curvilinear droop, and at last fairly toppled over,
and lay in his lodge, limp and stertorous.
In his lodge lay Georgius Rex, in flabby insensibility.
Dead to the duties of sovereignty was the King of the
Klalams.* Like other royal Georges, in palaces more regal
than this Port Townsend wigwam, in realms more civilized
than here, where the great tides of Puget Sound rise and
fall, this royal George had sunk in absolute wreck. Kings
are but men. Several kings have thought themselves the
god Bacchus. George of the Klalams had imbibed this
ambitious error, and had proved himself very much lower
than a god, much lower than a man, lower than any ple-
beian Klalam Indian, — a drunken king.
In the great shed of slabs that served them for palace
sat the Queen, — sat the Queens, — mild-eyed, melancholy,
copper-colored persons, also, sad to say, not sober. Eti-
quette demanded inebriety. The stern rules of royal inde-
corum must be obeyed. The Queen Dowager had suc-
*As to the spelling of Indian names, see Preface.
6 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
cumbed to ceremony; the Queen Consort was sinking; every
lesser queen, — the favorites for sympathy, the neglected
for consolation, — all had imitated their lord and master.
Qourtiers had done likewise. Chamberlain Gold Stick,
Black Rod, Garter King at Arms, a dozen high functionaries,
were prostrate by the side of prostrate majesty. Courtiers
grovelled with their sovereign. Sardanapalus never pre-
Mask used in Tribal Dances and Religious Ceremonies. From near
Bremerton, Wash.
sided, until he could preside no longer, at more tumble-
down orgies.
King, royal household, and court, all were powerless;
and I was a suppliant here, on the waters of the Pacific,
for means of commencing my homeward journey toward the
Atlantic. I needed a bark from that fleet by which King
George ruled the waves. I had dallied too long at Vancouver
Island, under the hospitable roof of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, and had consumed invaluable hours in making a detour
from my proper course to inspect the house, the saw-mill, the
bluff, and the beach, called Port Townsend. These were the
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 7
last days of August, 1853. I was to meet my overland com-
rades at the Dalles of the Columbia on the first of Septem-
ber. Between me and the rendezvous were the leagues of
Puget Sound, the preparation for an ultra-montane trip, the
passes of the Cascades, and all the dilatoriness and danger of
Indian guidance. Moments now were worth days of com-
mon life.
Therefore, as I saw those winged moments flit away
unharnessed to my chariot of departure, I became wroth,
and, advancing where the king of all this region lay, limp,
stertorous, and futile, I kicked him liberally.
Yes! I have kicked a king!
Proudly I claim that I have outdone the most radical
regicide. I have offered indignities to the person of royalty
with a moccasined toe. Would that that toe had been
robustly booted! In his Sans Souci, his (Eil de Boeuf, his
Brighton Pavilion, I kicked so much of a first gentleman of
his realm as was George R., and no scalping-knife leaped
from greasy seal-skin sheath to avenge the insult. One
bottle-holder in waiting, upon whose head I had casually
trodden, did indeed stagger to his seat, and stammer trucu-
lently in Chinook jargon, "Potlatch lum! — Give me to
drink," quoth he, and incontinently fell prone again, a
poor, collapsed bottle-holder.
But kicking the insensible King of the Klalams, that
dominant nation on the southern shores of Puget Sound,
did not procure me one of his canoes and a crew of his
braves to paddle me to Nisqually,* my next station, for a
blanket apiece and gratuities of sundries. There was no
help to be had from that smoky barn or its sorry inmates,
so regally nicknamed by British voyagers. I left them
*Fort Nisqually, the Hudson's Bay Company's great trading post
on Puget Sound, near the mouth of the Nisqually River, and a few
miles west of the present city of Tacoma, played a noteworthy part in
early Northwestern history. It was founded in 1833, and at the time of
Winthrop's visit, twenty years later, did a large business with the Indiana
both west and east of the Cascades, as well as with the white settlements
8 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
lying upon their dirty mats, among their fishy baskets,
and strode away, applying the salutary toe to each
dignitary as I passed.
Fortunately, without I found the Duke of York, only
ducally drunk. A duke's share of the potables had added
some degrees to the arc of vibration of his swagger, but had
not sent it beyond equilibrium. He was a reversed pendu-
lum, somewhat spasmodic in swmg, and not constructed
on the compensation principle, — when one muscle relaxed,
another did not tighten. However, the Duke was still
sober enough to have speculation in his eyes; and as he was
Regent now, and Lord High Admiral, I might still, by his
favor, be expedited.
It was a chance festival that had intoxicated the Kla-
lams, king and court. There had been a fraternization, a
from San Francisco to Alaska. The buildings were roomy, one-story
houses of logs, the principal ones set within a large stockade, which
was strengthened for defense with blockhouses, well stocked with fire-
arms and commanding the surrounding plain. The United States
government, in 1869, paid the Hudson's Bay Company and its subsid-
iary, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, $650,000 for their in-
terests here, thus ending the story of Great Britain's attempt to hold
the Northwest as a game preserve.
In 1853, although its fur trade was soon to be cut down by the settle-
ments, the "Fort" was still the most important commercial center in
the new Territory. The head factor was Dr. William Fraser Tolmie,
and his assistant, Edward Huggins, — both men of sterling character
and much respected by the American settlers.
"Nisqually," often assumed to be an aboriginal Indian word, is
merely an Indian adaptation of a white man's phrase. Like many
others in the vocabulary of the Northwest, this word owes its origin to
the French-Canadian servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Ob-
serving the flat countenances and pug noses of the natives on the upper
Sound, the half-breed voyageur called these savages ncz carre. The
Indians, probably thinking this a term of honor, appropriated it; and
being unable, like the Chinese, to pronounce the letter r, called them-
selves "nez kaUi." This sounded to English and American ears, and
soon got into written speech, as "Neskwalli" (Gibbs) or "Nisqually."
The Nisqually Indians were a family of small tribes inhabiting the south
and east shores of the Sound. The Nisqually River gets its name
from them.
"Siwash" is another Indian appropriation of a name given in con-
tempt by the coureur des bois. Little did the Indian suspect, in adopt-
ing the Canadian's satwage, that he was dubbing himself a "savage." In
due time, his defective pronunciation of the word got current as"Siwash."
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 9
powwow, a wahwah, a peace congress with some neighbor-
ing tribe, — perhaps the Squaksnamish, or Squallyamish,
or Sinahomish, or some other of the Whulgeamish, dwellers
by Whulge, — the waters of Puget Sound.* And just as the
festival began, there had come to Port Townsend, or Kahtai,
where the king of the Klalams, or S'Klalams, now reigned,
THE "DUKE OF YORK.
a devil-send of a lumber brig, with Hquor of the fieriest.
Orgies followed; a nation was prostrate.
The Duke was my only hope. Yet I must not betray
♦Winthrop's Indian names illustrate his general accuracy and pains-
taking interest in the Red Man and his language. His examples here
are fair specimens, phonetically rendered, of the gutteral clatter of si-
wash tribal names. There was, of course, no written Indian language,
and each student of the dialects had to guess at the best way to spell
the Indian words. "Squaksnamish," more commonly "Squaksamish,"
means the tribe of "Squak," which appears on our present-day maps as
"Issaquah." "Squallyamish" was the current name for the tribe of
Nisqually, also shortened by the Indians into "Squally," a form which
Winthrop frequently uses. "Sinahomish" is a variant for the more com-
mon name of the important tribe of "Snohomish." Gibbs {Pacific Rail-
way Report, I., 436) uses the same form. "Whulgeamish" is not found
10 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
eagerness. A dignitary among Indians does not like to
be bored with energy. If I were too ardent, the Duke
would grow coy. Prices would climb to the unapproachable.
Any exhibition of impatience would cost me largess of beads,
if not blankets, beyond the tariff for my canoe-hire. A
frugal mind, and, on the other hand, a bent toward irre-
sponsible pleasure, kept the Duke palpably wavering. He
would joyfully stay and complete his saturnalia, and yet
the bliss of more chattels, and consequent consideration,
tempted him. Which shall it be, "lumoti" or "pesispy," —
in other books, and may have been coined by Winthrop from the authen-
tic word "Whulge," in the fashion of other tribal names which he heard
in current use. Deans {American Antiquarian, VIII., 41, 1886) gives
the term "WhuUemooch," meaning "Dwellers on Puget Sound," and
says that this is "the national name of the various tribes on the north-
west coast of Washington.
For "Whulge," as the Indian name of Puget Sound, Winthrop also
had ample authority. The form he uses is merely a somewhat softened
rendering of that in use among most of the tribes on the Sound. Dr.
Charles M. Buchanan, the scholarly superintendent of the Tulalip
Indian Agency, reservations, and schools, and a lifelong student of the
Indian dialects and lore, writes me:
"Your informant, Jerry Meeker (an educated Puyallup Indian), is
correct, both as to his information and his pronunciation. He says
'Whulch' and I say 'Hwulch,' the only difference being that I aspirate
the word a little more strongly than does he. I prefer this to 'Whulge,'
though even this latter is only slightly removed from 'Hwulch.' Your
informant, Meeker, is correct also as to the meaning of the word, i. e.,
'salt water,' in contradistinction to 'k'oh' or 'drinking water,' 'fresh
water.' 'Hwulch' is generally used in this vicinity to indicate the neigh-
boring salt water, that is, Puget Sound. If Mr. beHeves the word
is not in general use, he is much mistaken. The Indians, however,
do not give it so soft or gentle a pronunciation as 'Whulge.' They
say 'Hwulch,' as if to rhyme with 'gulch.' "
Dr. Buchanan has furnished me with a copy of the treaty made by
Governor Stevens on January 22, 1855, at "Muckl'te oh, or Point El-
liott," with the Indians of northwestern Washington. This document
mentions the following tribes: 'Dwamish, Suquamash, Sk tahl-mish, Sam-
ahmish, Smalh kahmish, Skopeahmish, St-kah-mish, Snoqualmoo, Skai-
wha-mish, N'Quentl-ma-mish, Sk-tah-le-jum, Stoluck-wha-mish, Sno-
ho-m'sh, Skagit, Kik-i-allus, Swin a mish, Squin ah-mish, Sah ku mehu,
Noo-wha-ha, Nook wa-chah mish, Mee see-qua-guilch, Cho bah-ah-
bish, and other allied and subordinate tribes and bands."
After reading this list, one feels that Chas. Nordhoff hardly exag-
gerated the matter when, on visiting the territory in 1873, he opined
that the Northern Pacific Railway had selected Tacoma as its terminus
because it was "one of the few places on the Sound whose name did not
inspire horror and disgust."
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 11
bottle or blanket? revel and rum, or toil and toilette? — the
great alternative on which civilization hinges, as well among
Klalams as elsewhere. Sunbeams are so warm, and basking
such dulcet, do-nothing bliss, why overheat one's self now
for the woollen raiment of future warmth? Not merely
warmth, but wealth, — wives, chief est of luxuries, are
bought with blankets; with them canoes are bought, and
to a royal highness of savages, blankets are purple, ermine,
and fine linen.
Calling the Duke's attention to these facts, I wooed
him cautiously, as craft wooes coyness; I assumed a lofty
indifference of demeanor, and negotiated with him from a
sham vantage-ground of money-power, knowing what trash
my purse would be, if he refused to be tempted. A gro-
tesque jargon called Chinook is the lingua-franca of the
whites and Indians of the Northwest. Once the Chinooks
were the most numerous tribe along the Columbia, and the
first, from their position at its mouth, to meet and talk with
strangers. Now it is all over with them; their bones are
dust; small-pox and spirits have eliminated the race. But
there grew up between them and ,the traders a lingo, an
incoherent coagulation of words, — as much like a settled,
logical language as a legion of centrifugal, marauding Bashi
Bazouks, every man a Jack-of-all-trades, a beggar and black-
guard, is like an accurate, unanimous, disciplined battalion.
It is a jargon of English, French, Spanish, Chinook, Kalla-
pooya, Haida, and other tongues, civilized and savage.
It is an attempt on a small scale to nullify Babel by com-
bining a confusion of tongues into a confounding of tongues,
— a witches' caldron in which the vocable that bobs up
may be some old familiar Saxon verb, having suffered
Procrustean docking or elongation, and now doing sub-
stantive duty; or some strange monster, evidently nurtured
within the range of tomahawks and calumets. There is
some danger that the beauties of this dialect will be lost
to literature.
12 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
"Carent quia vate sacro."
The Chinook jargon still expects its poet. As several of
my characters will use this means of conveying their thoughts
to my reader, and employ me only as an interpreter, I
have thought it well to aid comprehension by this little
philological preface.
My big talk with the Duke of York went on in such a
lingo, somewhat as follows: —
"Pottlelum mitlite King Jawge; Drunk lieth King
George," said I. "Cultus tyee ocook; a beggarly majesty
that. Hyas tyee mika; a mighty prince art thou, — pe kum-
tux skookoom mamook esick; and knowest how robustly
to ply paddle. Nika tikky hyack klatawah copa Squally,
copa canim; I would with speed canoe it to Squally. Hui
pesispy nika potlatch pe hui ikta; store of blankets will I
give, and plenteous sundries."
"Nawitka siks; yea, friend," responded the Duke, grasp-
ing my hand, after two drunken clutches at empty air.
"Klosche nika tum tum copa hyas Baasten tyee;* tender
is my heart toward thee, great Yankee don. Yaka pot-
tlelum — halo nika — wake cultus mann Dookeryawk; he
indeed is drunk — not I — no loafer-man, the Duke of
York. Mitlite canim; got canoe. Pe klosche nika tikky
klatawah copa Squally; and heartily do I wish to go to
Squally."
Had the Duke wavered still, and been apathetic to
temptation of blankets, and sympathetic toward the joys
of continued saturnalia, a new influence now brought to
bear would have steadied him. One of his Duchesses,
only duchessly intoxicated, came forth from the ducal lodge,
and urged him to effort.
"Go, by all means, with the distinguished stranger,
*The first American vessels to visit the north coast were commonly
from Boston. Hence the Chinook jargon designated all Americans
as "Boston men." Similarly, the coming of Vancouver and other Eng-
lish navigators during the reign of George III. gave the jargon the
phrase "King George men" for all Britishers.
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 13
my love," said she, in Chinook, "and I will be the solace
of thy voyage. Perchance, also, a string of beads and a
pocket-mirror shall be my meed from the Boston chief,
a very generous man, I am sure." Then she smiled enticingly,
her flat-faced grace; and introduced herself as Jenny Lind,
or, as she called it, "Chin Lin." Indianesque, not fully
Indian, was her countenance. There was a trace of tin
in her copper color, possibly a dash of Caucasian blood in
her veins. Brazenness of hue was the result of this union,
and a very pretty color it is with eloquent blushes mantling
through it, as they do mantle in Indian cheeks. Her fore-
head was slightly and coquettishly flattened by art, as a
woman's should be by nature, unless nature destines her
for missions foreign to feminineness, and means that she shall
be an intellectual roundhead, and shall sternly keep a
graceless school, to irritate youthful cherubim into original
sinners. Indian maids are pretty; Indian dames are hags.
Only high civilization keeps its women beautiful to the last.
Indian belles have some delights of toilette worthy of con-
sideration by their blonde sisterhood. mistaken harridans
of Christendom, so bountifully painted and powdered, did
ye but know how much better than your diffusiveness of
daub is the concentrated brilliance of vermilion stripes
parting at the nose-bridge and streaming athwart the cheeks!
Knew ye but this, at once ye would reform from your
undeluding shams, and recover the forgotten charms of
acknowledged pinxit.
At last, persuaded by his own desires and the solicitations
of his fair Duchess, the Duke determined to transport me.
He pointed to a grand canoe on the beach, — that should
be our Bucentaur, and now he must don robes of ceremony
for the voyage. For, indeed, both ducal personages were
in deshabille. A dirty shirt, blue and short, was the
Duke's chief habiliment; hers, a shirt longer, but no cleaner.
Within his palace-curtains now disappeared the second
grandee of the Klalams, to bedeck himself. Presently I
14 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
lifted the hanging mat that served for door to his shed of
slabs, and followed him. His family and suite were but crapu-
lous after their less than royal potations. He despatched
two sleepy braves to make ready the canoe, and find paddles.
"Where is my cleanest shirt. Chin Lin?" he asked.
"Nika macook lum; I buy grog with um," replied the
Duchess.
"Cultus mamook; a dastardly act," growled the Duke,
"and I will thwack thee for't."
Jenny Lind sank meekly upon the mud-floor, and wept,
while the Duke smote her with palm, fist, and staff.
"Kopet! hold!" cried I, rushing forward. "Thy beauteous
spouse has bought the nectar for thy proper jollity. Even
were she selfish, it is uncivilized to smite the fair. Among
the Bostons, when women wrong us, we give pity or con-
tempt, but not the strappado." Harangues to Indians
are traditionally in such lofty style.
The Duke suffered himself to be appeased, and proceeded
to dress without the missing article. He donned a faded
black frock-coat, evidently a misfit for its first owner in
civilization, and transmitted down a line of deformed
wearers to fall amorphous on the shoulders of him of York.
For coronet he produced no gorgeous combination of velvet,
strawberry-leaves, and pearls; but a hat or tile, also of civil-
ization, wrinkled with years and battered by world-wander-
ing, crowned him frowzily. Black dress pantaloons of
brassy sheen, much crinkled at the bottom, where they fell
over moccasins with a faded scarlet instep-piece, completed
his costume. A very shabby old-clo' Duke. A virulent
radical would have enjoyed him heartily, as an emblem
of decay in the bloated aristocracy of this region. Red
paint daubed over his clumsy nose, and about the flats
surrounding his little, disloyal, dusky eyes, kept alive the
traditional Indian in his appearance. Otherwise he might
have been taken for a decayed priest turned bar-tender, or
a colporteur of tracts on spiritualism, or an ex-constable
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 16
pettifogger in a police court. Commerce, alas! had come
to the waters of Whulge, stolen away his Indian simplicity,
and made him a caricature, dress, name, and nature. A
primitive Klalam, clad in skins and undevoured by the
flames of fire-water, he would have done well enough as a
type of fish-fed barbarism. Civilization came, with step-
mother kindness, baptized him with rum, clothed him in
discarded slops, and dubbed him Duke of York. Hapless
scarecrow, disreputable dignitary, no dukeling of thine
shall ever become the Louis Philippe of Klalam revolutions.
Boston men are coming in their big canoes over sea. Pikes*
have shaken off the fever and ague on the banks of the
muddy Missouri, and are striding beyond the Rockies.
Nasal twangs from the east and west soon will sound
thy trump of doom. Squatters will sit upon thy dukedom,
and make it their throne.
Tides in Whulge, which the uneducated maps call
Puget Sound, rush with impetus, rising and falling eighteen
*The word "Pikes" was long current in the West for the rougher
element among the frontiersmen. Nordhoflf found it still in common
use in the early seventies. It has now become obsolete, except as a sur-
vival among the remaining pioneers. The fact that many disorderly
characters came from the several Pike Counties in the Mississippi
Valley States must bear the blame for this undiscriminating use of the
county name as a description of the big-talking, tobacco-spitting, and
semi-lawless variety of bipeds, not unknown to other counties than Pike.
"America is manufacturing several new types of men. The Pike
is one of the newest. He is a bastard pioneer. With one hand he
clutches the pioneer vices; with the other he beckons forward the vices
of civilization. It is hard to understand how a man can have so little
virtue in so long a body, unless the shakes are foes to virtue in the
soul, as they are to beauty in the face.
"He is a terrible shock, this unlucky Pike, to the hope that the
new race on the new continent is to be a handsome race. I lose that
faith, which the people about me now have nourished, when I recall
the Pike. He is hung together, not put together. He inserts his lank
fathom of a man into a suit of molasses-colored homespun. Frowzy
and husky is the hair Nature crowns him with; frowzy and stubby the
beard. He shambles in his walk. He drawls in his talk. He drinks
whiskey by the tank. His oaths are to his words as Falstaff's sack to
his bread. I have seen Maltese beggars, Arab camel-drivers, Domini-
can friars, New York Aldermen, Digger Indians; the foulest, frowziest
creatures I have ever seen are thorough-bred Pikes." — Winthrop: John
Brent.
16 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
or twenty feet. The tide was rippling winningly up to the
stranded canoes. Our treaty was made; our costume was
complete; we prepared to embark. But lo! a check! In
malignant sulks, King George came forth from his mal-
perfumed lodge of red-smeared slabs. "Veto," said he.
"Dog am I, and this is my manger. Every canoe of the
fleet is mine, and from this beach not one shall stir this day
of festival!"
Whereupon, after a wrangle, short and sharp, with the
Duke, in which the King whipped out a knife, and brandished
it with drunken vibrations in my face, he staggered back,
and again lay in his lodge. Had he felt my kick, or was
this merely an impulse of discontented ire?
How now? Could we not dethrone the sovereign, and
confiscate his property? There are precedents for such a
course. But savage life is full of chances. As I was urging
the soberish Duke to revolutionary acts, or at least to a
forced levy from the royal navy, a justifiable piracy, two
canoes appeared rounding the point.
" 'Come unto these yellow sands,' ye brass-colored
braves," we cried. They were coming, each crew roving
anywhither, and soon, by the Duke's agency, I struck a
bargain for the leaky better of the two vessels.
No clipper that ever creaked from status quo in Webb's
shipyard, and rumbled heavily along the ways, and rushed
as if to drown itself in its new element, and then went
cleaving across the East River, staggering under the intoxi-
cating influence of a champagne-bottle with a blue ribbon
round its neck, cracked on the rudder-post by a blushing
priestess, — no such grand result of modem skill ever sur-
passed in mere model the canoe I had just chartered for
my voyage to Squally. Here was the type of speed and
grace to which the most untrammelled civilization has
reverted, after cycles of junk, galleon, and galliot building,
— cycles of lubberly development, but full of instruction
as to what can be done with the best type when it is reasoned
CLALLAM AND TILLAMOOK TWINED BASKETS.
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 17
out or rediscovered. My vessel was a black dug-out with
a red gunwale. Forty feet of pine-tree had been burnt
and whittled into a sharp, buoyant canoe. Sundry cross-
pieces strengthened it, and might be used as seats or backs.
A row of small shells inserted in the red-smeared gunwale
served as talismans against Bugaboo. Its master was a
withered ancient; its mistress a haggish crone. These two
were of unsavory and fishy odor. Three young men, also
of unsavory and fishy odor, completed the crew. Salmon
mainly had been the lifelong diet of all, and they were
oozier with its juices than I could wish of people I must
touch and smell for a voyage of two days.
In the bargain for canoe and crew, the Duke constituted
himself my courier. I became his prey. The rule of tea-
making, where British ideas prevail, is a rough generaliza-
tion, a spoonful for the pot and one for each bibber. The
tariff of canoe-hire onWhulge is equally simple, — a blanket
for the boat and one for each paddler. The Duke carefully
included himself and Jenny Lind among the paddling
recipients of blankets. I ventured to express the view that
both he and his Duchess would be unwashed supernumer-
aries. At this he was indignant. He felt himself necessary
as impresario of the expedition.
"Wake closche ocook olyman siwash; no good that old-
man savage," said he, pointing to the skipper. "Yaka
pottlelum, conoway pottlelum; he drunk, all drunk. Wake
kumtux Squally; no understand Squally. Hyas tyee Dooker-
yawk, wake pottlelum, — kumtux skookoom mamook esick,
pe tikky hyack klatawah copa Squally; mighty chief the
Duke of York, not drunk, understand to ply paddle mightily,
and want to go fast to Squally."
"Very well," said I, "I throw myself into your hands.
My crew, then, numbers six, the three fishy youths, Oly-
man siwash, Jenny Lind, and yourself. As to Olyman's
fishy squaw, she must be temporarily divorced, and go ashore;
dead weight will impede our voyage."
18
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
"Nawitka," responded the Klalam, "cultus ocook oly-
man cloocheman; no use that oldman woman." So she went
ashore, bow-legged, monotonous, and a fatalist, like all
old squaws.
"And now," continued the Duke, drawing sundry greasy
documents from the pocket of that shapeless draggle-tail
QUEEN VICTORIA: One of the Wives of the "Duke of York."
coat of his, "mika tikky nanitch nika teapot; wilt thou
inspect my certificates?"
I took the foul papers without a shudder, — have we not
all been educated out of squeamishness by handling the
dollar-bills of civilization? There was nothing ambiguous
in the wording of these "teapots." It chanced sometimes,
in days of chivalry, that spies bore missions with clauses
sinister to themselves, as this: "The bearer is a losel vile, —
have you never a hangman and an oak for him?" The
Duke's testimonials were of similar import. They were
A KLALAM GRANDEE. 19
signed by Yankee skippers, by British naval officers, by
casual travellers, — all unanimous in opprobrium. He was
called a drunken rascal, a shameless liar, a thief; called each
of these in various idioms, with plentiful epithets thrown
in, according to the power of imagery possessed by the
author. Such certificates he presented gi-avely, and with
tranquil pride. He deemed himself indorsed by civilization,
not branded. Men do not always comprehend the world's
cynical praise. It seemed also that his Grace had once
voyaged to San Francisco in what he called a "skookoom
canim copa moxt stick; a colossal canoe with two masts."
He did not state what part he played on board, whether
cook, captain, stowaway, or Klalam plenipo to those within
the Golden Gate. His photograph had been taken at
San Francisco. This he also exhibited in a grandiose man-
ner, the Duchess, Olyman siwash, and the three fishy
siwashes examining it with wonder and grunts of delight.
Now it must not be supposed that the Duke was not
still ducally drunk, or that it was easy to keep him steady
in position or intention. Olyman siwash, also, though not
patently intoxicated, wished to be, — so did the three un-
savory, hickory-shirted, mat-haired, truculent siwashes.
Olyman would frequently ask me, aside, in the strange,
unimpassioned, expressionless undertone of an Indian, for
a "lumoti," Chinook jargon for la houteille, meaning no
empty bottle, but a full. Never a lumoti of delay and danger
got Olyman from me. Our preparations went heavily
enough. Sometimes the whole party would squat on the
beach, and jabber for ten minutes, ending always by de-
manding of me liquor or higher wages. But patience and
purpose always prevail. At last, by cool urgency, I got them
all on board and away. Adieu Port Townsend, town of
one house on a grand bluff, and one saw-mill in a black
ravine. Adieu intoxicated lodges of Georgius Rex Kla-
lamorum! Adieu Royalty! Remember my kick, and con-
tinue to be h'happy as you may.
III.
WHULGE.
According to the cosmical law that regulates the west
ends of the world, Whulge is more interesting than any of
the eastern waters of our country. Tame Albemarle and
Pamlico, Chesapeake and Delaware, Long Island Sound,
and even the Maine Archipelago and Frenchman's Bay,
cannot compare with it. Whulge is worthy of the Scandi-
navian savor of its name. Its cockney misnomer should
be dropped. Already the critical world demands who was
"Puget," and why should the title be saved from Lethe and
given to a sound. Whulge is a vast fiord, parting rocks
and forests primeval with a mighty tide. Chesapeakes
and the like do very well for oyster "fundums" and shad-
fisheries, but WTiulge has a picturesque significance as
much greater as its salmon are superior to the osseous
shad of the east. Some of its beauties will appear in this
my voyage.
I sat comfortably amidships in my stately but leaky
galley, Bucentaur hight for the nonce. Olyman si wash
steered. The Duke and Duchess, armed with idle paddles,
were between him and me. The fishy trio were arranged
forward, paddling to starboard and port. It was past
noon of an August day, sultry, but not blasting, as are the
summer days of that far Northwest. We sped on gallantly,
paddling and spreading a blanket to the breeze.
The Duke, however, sogered bravely, and presently
called a halt. Then, to my consternation, he produced a
"lumoti" and passed it. Potations pottle-deep ensued.
hai/onaaiol al baslal
oi iriJiow ,>lE9q haqijrfg-bxiuom ,9via8/)n-: .lelxiggni nt:
2i( n99W}9<.I 9DB9q L'uJdqiaq lo mofdmt* eJiriw s biisJe
Jo§ I exnea eJl ♦ » * .anoJha lariroid lyo bns
ai boqqib bsd I le^'ts .saed 8Ji i& ^dhi imrntrj 9di moil
tacli .isAbQ oj eA .:r8£9l nornlae-baliod i; jxj joq tisdj
tjd Jon bluorfg anuiJ^inoM rj'>Jio;_ :.i: ■ ' 'jfi'nrf •:>njj;r
".ebaqid b^dBiugnr
MOUNT BAKER FROM PORT TOWNSEND.
Admiralty Inlet and Whidbey Island in foreground.
"Kulshan, misnamed Mount Baker by the vulgar, is
an irregular, massive, mound-shaped peak, worthy to
stand a white emblem of perpetual peace between us
and our brother Britons. * * * Its name I got
from the Lummi tribe at its base, after I had dipped in
their pot at a boiled-salmon feast. As to Baker, that
name should be forgotten. Mountains should not be
insulted by being named after undistinguished bipeds."
—Chapter III.
WHULGE. 21
Each reveller took one sixth of the liquor, and, after the
Duke's exhaustive draught, an empty bottle floated astern.
A general stagger began to be perceptible among the sitters.
Their paddling grew spasmodic.
After an interval I heard again a popping sound, not
unknown to me. A gurgle followed. I turned. The Duke
was pouring out a cupful from his second bottle. He handed
me the cup and lumoti for transmission to the fishy, for-
ward. This must stop. I deposited the bottle by my side
and emptied the cup into Whulge. Into an arm of the
Pacific in the far Northwest I poured that gill of fire-water.
Answer me from the northeast corner, Neal Dow, was
it well done?
Then raged the siwashes all, from Olyman perched on
high and wielding a helmsman paddle aft, to a special
blackguard in the bow with villain eyes no bigger than a
flattened pea, and a jungle of coarse black hair, thick as
the mane of a buffalo bull. All stowed their paddles and
talked violently in their own tongue. It was a guttural,
sputtering language in its calmest articulation, and now
every word burst forth like the death-rattle of a garroted
man.
Finally, in Chinook, "Kopet; be still," said the Duke.
"Keelapi; turn about," said he.
They brandished paddles, and, whirling the canoe around,
tore up the water violently for a few strokes. I said nothing.
Presently they paused, and talked more frantically than
before. Something was about to happen.
Aha! What is that, Duke? A knife! What are these,
dirty siwashes? Guns are these, flint-locks of the Hud-
son's Bay pattern. "Guns for thee, spiteful spiller of
enlivening beverage, and capturer of a lumoti. Butchery
is the order of the day!"
"Look you, then, aborigines all. I carry six siwash lives
at my girdle. This machine — mark it well! — is called
a six-shooter, an eight-inch navy revolver, invented by
22 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Col. Sam Colt, of Hartford, Conn. God bless him! We
are seven, and I should regret sending you six others to the
Unhappy Hunting-Grounds of the Kicuali Tyee, Anglice
Devil, the lowermost chieftain. Look down this muzzle
as I whisk it about and bring it to bear on each of you in
turn. Rifled you observe. Pleasant, well-oiled click that
cylinder has. Behold, also, this other double-ban^elled
piece of artillery, loaded, as you saw but now, with polecat-
shot, in case we should see one of these black and white
objects skulking along shore. Unsavory though ye be, my
Klalams, I should not wish to identify you in your deaths
with that animal."
Saying this, with an air of indifference, but in expressive
pantomime, I could not fail to perceive that the situation
was critical. Three drunken Indians on this side, and two
and a woman on that, and I playing bottle-holder in the
midst, — what would follow? Their wild talk and threaten-
ing gestures continued. I kept my pistol and one eye cocked
at him of the old clo', the teapots, and the daguerreotype;
my other eye and the double-barrel covered the trio in the
bow. This deadlock lasted several minutes. Meantime
the canoe had yielded to the tide, and was now sweeping
on in a favorable course.
At last the Duke laid down his knife, Olyman si wash
his gun, the three fishy ones theirs, and his Grace, stretching
forth an eloquent arm, made a neat speech. Fluency is
impossible in few-worded Chinook jargon, but brevity is
more potent.
"Hyas silex nika; in wrathful sulks am I. Masatche nika
tum tum copa mika; bitter is my heart toward thee. Wake
cultus tyee Dookeryawk; no paltry sachem, the Duke of
York. Wake kamooks, halo pottlelum; no dog, by no
means a soaker. Ancoti conoway tikky mamook iscum
mika copa Squally, — alta halo; but now, all wished to con-
duct thee to Squally; now, not so. Alta nesika wake tikky
pesispy, pe shirt, pe polealely, pe kaliaton, pe hiu ikta, —
WHULGE.
23
tikky keelapi; now we no want blankets and shirts and
powder and shot and many traps, — want to return. Cono-
way silex, — tikky moosum; all in the sulks, — want to
sleep."
Whereupon, as if at a signal, all six dived deep into
slumber, — slumber at first pretended, perhaps to throw me
off my guard, perhaps a crafty method of evading the diffi-
culty of a reconciliation, and the shame of yielding. So
deep did they plunge into sham sleep, that they sunk into
real, and presently I heard the gurgle of snores.
While they slept, the canoe drifted over Whulge. Fleet
waters bore me on whither they listed, fortunately whither
I also listed, and, if ever the vessel yawed, a few quiet strokes
with the paddle set her right again. The current drew me
away from under shore, and to the south, through dis-
tancing haze of summer, the noble group of the Olympian
24 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Mountains became visible, — a grand family of vigorous
growth, worthy more perfect knowledge. They fill the
southern promontory, where Whulge passes into the Pacific,
at the Straits of Fuca. On the highest pinnacles of this
sierra, glimmers of perpetual snow in sheltered dells and
crevices gave me pleasant, chilly thoughts in that hot
August day. After the disgusting humanity of King
George's realms, and after the late period of rebellion and
disorganization, the calming influence of these azure
luminous peaks, their blue slashed with silver, was tran-
scendent.
So I sat watchful, and by and by I heard a gentle voice,
"Wake nika moosum; I sleep not."
"Sleepest thou not, pretty Duchess, flat-faced one,
with chevrons vermilion culminating at thy nose-bridge?
Wilt thou forgive me for spilling thy nectar, Lalage of the
dulcet laugh, dulcet-spoken Lalage? Would that thou
wert clean as well as pretty, and had known but seldom the
too fragrant salmon! — would that I had never seen thee
toss off a waterless gill of fire-water! Please wake the Duke."
The Duke woke. Olyman woke. Woke Klalams one
and all. Sleep had banished wrath and rancor. All grasped
their paddles, and, soon warming with work, the fugleman
waked a wild chant, and to its stirring vibrations the canoe
shook and leaped forward like a salmon in the buzz of a
tideway.
We careered on for an hour. Then I suggested a pause
and a picnic. Brilliant and friendly thought, — "Conoway
tikky muckamuck;" all want to eat. Take then, my par-
doned crew, from my stores, portions of dried cod. Thin
it is, translucent, and very nice for Klalam or Yankee.
Take also hardtack at discretion, — "pire sapolel," or fired
corn, as ye name it. Our picnic was rumless, wholesome,
and amicable, and after it paddling and songs were re-
newed with vigor. We were not alone upon Whulge. Many
lumber vessels were drifting or at anchor under the opposite
THE OLYMPICS AND THE STRAITS OF JUAN
DE FUCA.
View from Victoria, B. C.
"To the south, through distancing haze of summer, the
noble group of the OljTnpian Mountains became vis-
ible, — a grand family of vigorous growth, worthy more
perfect knowledge. They fill the southern promontory,
where Whulge passes into the Pacific, at the Straits of
Fuca."
—Chapter III.
MA'Jl 'iU >TIAHT8 3HT Q^IA 3DHMYJ0 3HT
.AO'JT 3a
-erv amfiosd eruelni/oM neiqrcTilO 9f?J to qi/aig sidon
9iom '{riJiov/ ,riJwoig auoiosiv lo ylimfi] brferg fi — ,9[di
, iio^flomoiq mgriJuca 9xf3 lift Y^riT .egbglwonsl iToahgq
\o eJifi-iJS adJ Jb .Dftbs*! 9dt otai aaeesq 98lt;dW sisriw
All ■»^Jq05\0—
WHULGE. 26
shore, loaded mainly with fir-trees, soon to be drowned as
piles for San Francisco docks. Those were prosperous days
in the Pacific. The country which goes to sea through
Whulge had recently split away from Oregon, and called
itself Washington, after the General of that name. Indian
Whulgeamish and Yankee Whulgers were reasonably polite
to each other, the Pacific Railroad was to be built straight-
way, Ormus and Ind were to become tributary. It was the
epoch of hope, but fruition has not yet come. Savages and
Yankees have since been scalping each other in the most
uncivil way, the P. R. R. creeps slowly outward, Ormus
and Ind are chary of tribute. Dreams of growth are faster
than growth.
The persons of my crew have been described. They
all, according to a superstition quite common among Indians,
declined to give their names, or even an alias, as other
scamps might do, except the Duke and Duchess, proud in
their foreign appellatives. I will substitute, therefore, the
names of the crew of another canoe in which I had previously
voyaged from Squally to Vancouver Island, with Dr. Tol-
mie, factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at the former
place. These were: 1. Unstu or Hahal, the handsome;
2. Mastu or La Hache; 3. Khaadza; 4. Snawhaylal; 5.
Ay-ay- whun, briefly A-wy; 6. Ai-tu-so; 7. Nuckutzoot;
8. Paicks; and two women, Tlaiwhal and Smoikit-um-whal,
"Smoikit" meaning chief. They were of several different
tribes, Squallyamish, Skagits, members of the different
"amish" that dwell along the Sound, and two, Ai-tu-so
and Nuckutzoot, proudly distinguished themselves as Haida,
a generic name applied to nations northward of Whulge.
These few type names, not without melody or drollery,
may be interesting to the philo-siwash. It would be in-
appropriate to the method of this sketch to go into detail
with regard to Indians of Whulge. But literature has taken
little notice of those distant gentry, and before they retreat
into the dim past, to become subjects of threnody with other
26 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
lost tribes, let me chronicle a few surface facts of their life
and manners.
It seems a sorry thing, but is really a wise admonition
of Nature, that we should first distinguish in people their
faults and deformities. The first observation when one of the
Whulgeamish appears is, "Lo the flat-head!" Among them
a tight-strapped cushion controls the elastic skull of child-
Slwash Mother Flat-heading her Infant.
hood, crushing it back idiotic. Now a forehead should not
be too round, or a nose too straight, or a cheek too ruddy,
or a hand too small. Nature, however, does quite well
enough by those she means to be flat-head beauties. In-
dians do not recognize this, and strive to better Nature.
Civilization, beholding the total failure of the skull-crushing
system, is warned, and resolves to discard its coxcombries
and deformities, and to strive to develop, not to distort,
the body and soul.
WHULGE. 27
Are thoughts equally profound to be suggested by
other corporeal members of Klalams and their brethren?
All are bow-legged. All of a sad-colored, Caravaggio brown,
through which salmon-juices exude, and which is varnished
with fish-oil. All have coarse black hair, and are beardless.
Old people of either sex are hardly to be distinguished,
man from woman. The young ladies are not without charms,
and blush ingenuously. The fashion of fish-ivory ornaments,
hung to the lower lip, has retreated northward, and glass
beads and necklaces of hiaqua, a shell like a quill tooth-pick,
conchologically known as a species of Dentalium, have
replaced the disgusting labial appendages.* Hickory shirts
and woollen blankets are worn instead of skin raiment,
mat aprons, and Indian blankets, woven of the hair of the
fleecy dog. In fact, except for paint, these Indians might
pass well enough for dirty lazzaroni.
Gigantic clams, cod, and other maritimes, but chiefly
salmon, are the food of the Whulgeamish. Ducks and geese
visit their shores, and are bagged. No infrequent polecat
skulks about their unsavory cabins, and meets the fatal
arrow. Grasshoppers and crickets, dried, yield them pies.
They cultivate a few potatoes, pluck plentiful berries, and
dig sweet kamas bulbs in the swamps. Few things edible
are disdained by them.
Once, the same summer, as I voyaged with a crew of
the Lummi tribe toward Fraser River, they discerned a
dead seal grotesquely floating on the water. Him they em-
barked, with roars of laughter, as his unwieldiness slipped
through their fingers; and they supped and surfeited un-
harmed on rancid phoca that evening. But salmon, netted,
hooked, trolled, speared, weired, scooped, — salmon taken by
various sleight of savage skill, — is the chief diet of Whulge.
In the tide-ways toward the Sound's mouth, the Indians
*"Labret3" are still somewhat used among the natives of British
Columbia, as may be seen in the illustration from a recent photograph
showing Haida basket makers wearing such lip ornaments of bone.
28 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
anchor two canoes parallel, fifteen feet apart, and stretch
a flat net of strips of inner bark between them, sinking it
just below the surface. They don a head-gear like a "rat's
nest," conf ected of wool, feathers, furry tails, ribbons, and
rags, considered attractive to salmon, and "hyas tamanous,"
highly magical. Salmon, either wending their unconscious
way, or tuft-hunting for the enchantments of the magic cap,
come swimming in shoals across the suspended net. Where-
upon every fisher, with inconceivable screeches, whoops, and
howls, beats the water to bewilder the silver swimmers,
Return of Siwash Fishermen.
and, hauling up the net, clutches them by dozens. Some-
times fleets of canoes go a trolling, one fisherman in each
slight shallop. He fastens his line to his paddle, and as he
paddles trolls. A pretty sight to behold is a rocky bay of
Whulge, gay with a fleet of these agile dugouts, and ever
and anon illumined with a gleam when a salmon takes the
bait. In the voyage I have mentioned with Dr. Tolmie, a
squadron of such trollers near the Indian village of Kowitchin
crowded about us, praying to be vaccinated, and paying
a salmon for the privilege. Small-pox is the fatalest foe
of the Indian.
Spearmen also for food are the siwashes. In muddy
streams, where Boston eyes would detect nothing, Indian
^ a
a -5.
<3 t«
WHULGE.
29
sees a ripple, and divines a fish. He darts his long wooden
spear, and out it ricochets, with a banner of salmon at its
point. But salmon may escape the coquettish charms of the
trolling-hook, may safely run the gauntlet of the parallel
canoes and their howling, tamanoiis-cap wearers; the spear,
misguided in the drumly gleam, may glance harmless from
scale-armed shoulders: still other perils await them. These
Cascades of the Columbia, ^ith Indian Fishing from a Scaffolding
over the Water.
aristos of the waters need change of scene. Blubberly fish
may dwell through a life-long pickle in the briny deep, and
grow rancid there like olives too salt, but the delicate
salmon must have his bubbles from the brlinnen. Besides,
his youthful family, the parrs, must be cradled on the rip-
ples of a running stream, and in innocent nooks of freshness
must establish their vigor and consistency, before they
30 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
brave the risks of cosmopolitan ocean life. For such reasons
gentleman salmon seeks the rivers, and Indian, expecting
him there, builds a palisade of poles athwart the stream.
The traveller, thus obstructed, whisks his tail, and coasts
along, seeking a passage. He finds one, and dashes through,
but is stopped by a shield of wicker-work, and, turning
blindly, plunges into a fish-pot, set to take him as he whirls
to retreat, bewildered.
At the magnificent Cascades of the Columbia, the
second-best water bit on our continent, there is more
exciting salmon-fishing in the splendid turmoil of the rapids.
Over the shoots, between boulders and rifts of rock, the
Indians rig a scaffolding, and sweep down stream with a
scoop-net. Salmon, working their way up in high exhilara-
tion, are taken twenty an hour, by every scooper. He
lifts them out, brilliantly sheeny, and, giving them, with a
blow from a billet of wood, a hint to be peaceable, hands
over each thirty-pounder to a fusty attache, who, in turn,
lugs them away to the squaws to be cleaned and dried.
Thus in Whulge and at the Cascades the salmon is
taken. And now behold him caught, and lying dewy in
silver death, bright as an unalloyed dollar, varnished with
opaline iridescence. "How shall he be cooked?" asks squaw
of sachem. "Boil him, entoia, my beloved" (Haida tongue),
"in a mighty pot of iron, plumping in store of wapatoo,
which pasaiooks, the pale-faces, name potatoes. Or, my
cloocheman, my squaw, roast of his thicker parts sundry
chunks on a spit. Or, best of all, split and broil him on an
upright frame-work, a perpendicular gridiron of aromatic
twigs. Thus by highest simple art, before the ruddy blaze,
with breezes circumambient and wafting away any mephitic
kitcheny exhalations, he will toast deliciously, and I will
feast thereupon, my cloocheman, whilst thou, working
partner of our house, art preparing these brother fish to
be dried into amber transparency, or smoked in a lachrymose
cabin, that we may sustain ourselves through dry-fish Lent,
WHULGE. 31
after this fresh-fish Carnival is over." Such discussions
occur not seldom in the drama of Indian life.
In the Bucentaur, after our lunch on kippered cod and
biscuits, we had not tarried. Generally in that region,
in breezeless days of August, smoke from burning forests
falls, and envelops all the world of land and water. In
such strange chaos, voyaging without a compass is impossi-
ble. Canoes are often detained for days, waiting for the
smoke to lift. To-day, fortunately for my progress, there
was a fresh breeze from China-way. Only a soft golden
haze hung among the pines, and toned the swarthy coloring
of the rocky shores.
All now in good humor, and Col. Colt in retirement,
we swept along through narrow straits, between piny
islands, and by sheltered bays where fleets might lie hidden.
With harmonious muscular throes, in time with Indian songs,
the three stoutly paddled. The Duke generally sogered,
or dipped his blade with sham vehemence, as he saw me
observing him. Olyman steered steadily, a Palinurus
skilful and sleepless. Jenny Lind, excusable idler, did not
belie her musical name. She was our prima donna, and
leader of the chorus. Often she uttered careless bursts of
song, like sudden slants of rays through cloudiness,
and often droned some drowsy lay, to which the
crew responded with disjointed, lurching refrain. Few of
these airs were musical according to civilized standards.
Some had touches of wild sentiment or power, but most
were grotesque combinations of guttural howls. In all,
however, there were tones and strains of irregular original-
ity, surging up through monotony, or gleams of savage ire
suddenly flashing forth, and recalling how one has seen,
with shudders, a shark, with white sierras of teeth, gnash
upon him not far distant, from a bath in a tropic bay. I
found a singular consolation in the unleavened music of
my crew. Why should there not be throbs of rude power
in aboriginal song? It is well to review the rudiments
32
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
sometimes, and see whether we have done all we might in
building systems from the primal hints.
The songs of Chin Lin, Duchess of York, chorussed
by the fishy, seemed a consoling peace-offering. The under-
tone of sorrow in all music cheats us of grief for our own
distress. To counteract the miseries of civilization, we
must have the tender, passionate despairs of Favorita and
SE-AT-TLH
Chief of the Duwamish and Suqamish Federation, after whom
tlie City of Seattle was named.
Traviata; for the disgusts of barbarism I found Indian howls
sufficient relief.
By and by, with sunset, paddle-songs died away, and
the Bucentaur slowed. The tide had turned, and was urgently
against us. My tired crew were oddly dropping off to
sleep. We landed on the shingle for repose and supper.
Twilight was already spreading downward from the zenith,
and pouring gloom among the sombre pines. Grotesque
SEATTLE HARBOR AT SUNSET.
"According to a cosmical law that regulates the west
ends of the world, Whulge is more interesting than any
of the eastern waters of our country. Tame Albemarle
and Pamlico, Chesapeake and Delaware, Long Island
Sound, and even the Maine Archipelago and French-
man's Bay, cannot compare with it. Whulge is worthy
of the Scandinavian savor of its name, — a vast fiord,
parting rocks and forests primeval with a mighty tide."
—Chapter III.
WHULGE. 83
masses of blanched drift-wood strewed the shore and grouped
themselves about, — strange semblances of monstrous shapes,
like amorphous idols, dethroned and waiting to perish by
the iconoclastic test of fire. Poor Prometheus may have
been badly punished by that cruel fowl of Caucasus, but
we mortals got the unquenchable spark. I carried a modi-
cum of compact flame in a match-box, and soon had a funeral
pyre of those heathenish stumps and roots well ablaze, — a
glory of light between the solemn wall of the forest and the
dark glimmering flood.
On the romantic shores of Whulge, illumined by my
fire, I had toasted salt pork for supper, while the siwashes
banqueted to repletion on dried fish and the unaccustomed
luxury of hardtack, and were genially happy. But when,
with kindly mind, I, their chieftain, brewed them a princely
pot of tea, and tossed in sugar lavishly, sprinkling also unper-
ceivedly the beverage with forty drops from the captured
lumoti, and gave them tobacco enough to blow a cloud,
then happiness capped itself with gayety and merriment.
They heaped the pyre with fuel, and made it the chief
jester of their jolly circle, chuckling when it crackled, and
roaring with laughter when the frantic tongues of flame
leaped up, and shot a glare, almost fiendish, over the wild
scene.
I sat apart with my dhudeen, studying the occasion
for its lesson. "Would I be an Indian, — a duke of the
Klalams?" I asked myself. "As much as I am to-night, —
no more, and no longer. To-night I am a demi-savage, jolly
for my rest and my supper, and content because my hampers
hold enough for to-morrow. I can identify myself thoroughly,
and delight that I can, with the untamed natures of my
comrades. I can yield myself to the dominion of the same
impulses that sway them out of impassiveness into frantic
excitement. They sit here over the fire, now jabbering
lustily, and now silent and drifting along currents of associa-
tion, undiverted by discursive thought, until some pervading
34 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
fancy strikes them all at once, and again all is animation
and guttural sputter of sympathy. I can also let myself
go bobbing down the tide of thoughtless thought, until I
am caught by the same shoals, or checked by the same reef,
or launched upon the same tumultuous seas, as they. These
influences are primeval, aboriginal, fresh, enlivening for
their anti-cockney savor. Wretchedly slab-sided, and not
at all fitting among the many-sided, is he who cannot adapt
himself to the dreams and hopes, the awes and pleasures of
savage life, and be as good a savage as the brassiest
Brass-skin.
"However, it is not amiss," continued my soliloquy,
puffing itself away with the last whiffs of my pipe, "to have
the large results of the world's secular toil in posse. It is
sometimes pleasant to lay aside the resumable ermine.
It is easy to linger while one has a hand upon the locomotive's
valve. I will, on the whole, remain an American of the
nineteenth century, and not subside into a Klalam brave.
Every sincere man has, or ought to have, his differences or
his quarrels with status quo, — otherwise what becomes of
the millennium? My personal grudge with the present
has not yet brought me to the point of rupture and reaction."
Had I uttered these reflections in a prosy lecture, my
fishy suite could not have been sounder asleep than they
now were. They had coiled themselves about the fire, in
genuine slumber, after labor and overfeeding. Without
dread of treachery, I bivouacked near them. I was more
placable and less watchful than I should have been had I
known that the Kahtai Klalams, under the superintendence
of King George and the Duke, were in the habit of murder-
ing. They sacrificed a couple of pale-faced victims within
the year, as I afterwards was informed. However, the
lamb lay down with the wolf, and suffered no harm. From
time to time I awoke, and rolled another log upon the pyre,
and then returned to my uneasy naps on the pebbles,^
uneasy, not because the pebbles dimpled me somewhat
WmiLGE. 36
harshly through my blankets, not because the inextinguish-
able stars winked at me fantastically through ether, nor
because my scalp occasionally gave premonitions of depart-
ure; but because I did not wish, when offered the boon of a
favorable tide, to be asleep at my post and miss it.
A new flood-tide was about to be sent whirling up into
the bays and coves and nooks of Whulge when I shook up
my sobered hero of the libellous teapots, shook up Olyman
and his young men, and touched the Duchess lightly on
the shoulder, as she lay with her red-chevroned visage
turned toward the zenith. The Duke alone grumbled, and
shirked the toil of launching the Bucentaur. We others
went at it heartily, dragging our vessel down the shingle
to the chorus of a guttural De Profundis. It was an hour
before dawn. We reloaded, and shoved off into the chill,
star-lighted void, — a void where one might doubt whether
the upper stars or the nether stars were the real orbs. Our
red fire watched us as we sailed away, glaring after us
like a Cyclops sentinel until we rounded a point and passed
out of his range, only to find ourselves sadly gazed at by a
pale, lean moon just lifting above the pines. With the
flames of dawn a wind arose and lent us wings. I succeeded
in inspiring my crew with a stolid intention to speed me.
A comrade-ry grew up between me and the truculent black-
guard who wielded the bow paddle, so that he essayed
unintelligent civilities from time to time, and when we
landed to breakfast, at a point where a giant arbor-vitae
stood a rich pyramid of green, he brought me salal-berries,
and arbutus-leaves to dry for smoking; meaning perhaps to
play Caliban to my Stephano, and worshipping him who
bore the lumoti. The Duke remained either "hyas kla hye
am," in the wretched dumps, or "hyas silex," in the deep
sulks, as must happen after an orgie, even to a princely
personage. I could get nothing from him, either in philology
or legend, — nothing but the Klalam name of Whulge,
K'uk'lults. However, thanks to a strong following wind
36 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
and the blanket-sail, we sped on, never flinching from the
tide when it turned and battled us.
We had rounded a point, and opened Puyallop Bay, a
breadth of sheltered calmness, when I, lifting sleepy eyelids
for a dreamy stare about, was suddenly aware of a vast
white shadow in the water. What cloud, piled massive
on the horizon, could cast an image so sharp in outline, so
full of vigorous detail of surface? No cloud, as my stare,
no longer dreamy, presently discovered, — no cloud, but a
cloud compeller. It was a giant mountain dome of snow,
swelling and seeming to fill the aerial spheres as its image
displaced the blue deeps of tranquil water. The smoky
haze of an Oregon August hid all the length of its lesser
ridges, and left this mighty summit based upon uplifting
dimness. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in
the unearthly regions of clear blue noonday sky. The shore
line drew a cincture of pines across the broad base, where
it faded unreal into the mist. The same dark girth
separated the peak from its reflection, over which my canoe
was now pressing, and sending wavering swells to shatter the
beautiful vision before it.
Kingly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible
comrade or consort, though far to the north and the south
its brethren and sisters dominated their realms, each in
isolated sovereignty, rising above the pine-darkened sierra
of the Cascade Mountains, — above the stern chasm where
the Columbia, AchOles of rivers, sweeps, short-lived and ju-
bilant, to the sea, — above the lovely vales of the Willa-
mette and Umpqua. Of all the peaks from California to
Fraser River, this one before me was royalest. Mount
Regnier Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature
perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody.* More
melodiously the siwashes call it Tacoma, — a generic term
also applied to all snow peaks. Whatever keen crests and
crags there may be in its rock anatomy of basalt, snow
*As to Winthrop's error here, see Appendix A.
WHULGE. 37
covers softly with its bends and sweeping curves. Tacoma,
under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or an ancient
volcano fallen in, and perhaps as yet not wholly lifeless.
The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of
feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force
and hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes
are calmer and more divine; and, even if they have failed
to attain absolute dignified grace of finish, and are riven
and broken down, they still demand our sympathy for
giant power, if only partially victor. Each form — the
dome, the cone, and the pyramid — has its tjT)e among
the great snow peaks of the Cascades.
And now let the Duke of York drowse, the Duchess
cease awhile longer her choking chant, and the rest nap it
on their paddles, floating on the image of Tacoma, while I
ask recognition for the almost unknown glories of the
Cascade Mountains. We are poorly off for such objects
east of the Mississippi. There are some roughish excrescences
known as the Alleghanies. There is a knobby group of
brownish "Wliite Mountains. Best of all, high in Down-
East is the lonely Katahdin. Hillocks these, — never
among them one single summit brilliant forever with snow,
golden in sunshine, silver when sunshine has gone; not one
to bloom rosy at dawn, and to be a vision of refreshment
all the sultry summer long; not one to be lustrous white
over leagues of woodland, sombre or tender; not one to
repeat the azure of heaven among its shadowy dells.
Exaltation such as the presence of the sublime and solemn
heights arouses, we dwellers eastward cannot have as an
abiding influence. Other things we may have, for Nature
will not let herself anywhere be scorned; but only moun-
tains, and chief est the giants of snow, can teach whatever
lessons there may be in vaster distances and deeper depths
of palpable ether, in lonely grandeur without desolation,
and in the illimitable, bounded within an outline. There-
fore, needing all these emotions at their maximum, we were
38 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
compelled to make pilgrimages back to the mountains of
the Old World, — commodiously as may be when we con-
sider sea-sickness, passports, Murray's red-covers, and
h-less Britons everywhere. Yes, back to the Old World
we went, and patronized the Alps, and nobly satisfying
we found them. But we were forced to inspect also the
heritage of human institutions, and such a mankind as they
had made after centuries of opportunity, — and very sadly
depressing we found the work, so that, notwithstanding
many romantic joys and artistic pleasures, we came back
malcontent. Let us, therefore, develop our own world.
It has taken us two centuries to discover our proper West
across the Mississippi, and to know by indefinite hearsay
that among the groups of the Rockies are heights worth
notice.
Farthest away in the west, as near the western sea as
mountains can stand, are the Cascades. Sailors can descry
their landmark summits firmer than cloud, a hundred
miles away. Kulshan, misnamed Mount Baker by the vulgar,
is their northernmost buttress, up at 49° and Fraser River.
Kulshan is an irregular, massive, mound-shaped peak,
worthy to stand a white emblem of perpetual peace between
us and our brother Britons. The northern regions of
Whulge and Vancouver Island have Kulshan upon their
horizon. They saw it blaze the winter before this journey
of mine; for there is fire beneath the Cascades, red war
suppressed where the peaks, symbols of truce, stand in
resplendent quiet. Kulshan is best seen, as I saw it one
afternoon of that same August, from an upland of Vancouver
Island, across the golden waves of a wheat-field, across the
glimmering waters of the Georgian Sound, and far above
its belt of misty gray pine-ridges. The snow-line here is
at five thousand feet, and Kulshan has as much height in
snow as in forest and vegetation. Its name I got from the
Lummi tribe at its base, after I had dipped in their pot at a
boiled-salmon feast. As to Baker, that name should be
WHULGE. 89
forgotten. Mountains should not be insulted by being
named after undistinguished bipeds, nor by the prefix of Mt.
Mt. Chimborazo, or Mt. Dhawalaghiri, seems as feeble
as Mr. Julius Caesar, or Signor Dante.
South of Kulshan, the range continues dark, rough, and
somewhat unmeaning to the eye, until it is relieved by
Tacoma, vulgo Regnier. Upon this Tacoma's image I
was now drifting, and was about to make nearer acquaint-
ance with its substance. One cannot know too much of a
nature's nobleman. Tacoma the second, which Yankees
call Mt. Adams, is a clumsier repetition of its greater
brother, but noble enough to be the pride of a
continent. Dearest charmer of all is St. Helens, queen of
the Cascades, queen of Northern America, a fair and grace-
ful volcanic cone. Exquisite mantling snows sweep along
her shoulders toward the bristling pines. Sometimes she
showers her realms with a boon of light ashes, to notify
them that her peace is repose, not stupor ; and sometimes
lifts a beacon of tremulous flame by night from her summit.
Not far from her base the Columbia crashes through the
mountains in a magnificent chasm, and Mt. Hood, the
vigorous prince of the range, rises in a keen pyramid fourteen
or sixteen thousand feet high, rivalling his sister in glory . *
Mt. Jefferson and others southward are worthy snow peaks,
*The heights of the several northwestern snow-peaks described in
this chapter are given by the United States Geological Survey's "Dic-
tionary of Altitudes," as follows: Mt. Rainier, 14,363; Mt. Adams,
12,470; Mt. Hood, 11,225; Mt. Baker, 10,827; Mt. St. Helens, 10,000.
Early Oregonians, as Winthrop hints, held greatly exaggerated notions
of the height of Mt. Hood. A member of the first party to reach its sum-
mit, Thomas J. Dryer, editor of the Portland Oregonian, published an
account of the ascent in which he asserted with fine exactness, if not ac-
curacy, that the elevation was 18,361 feet !
This ascent was made August 4, 1854. The leader of the party was
William Barlow, son of Captain Samuel K. Barlow, builder of the famous
"Barlow Road" across the Cascades south of Mt. Hood, by which many
thousands of settlers entered the Willamette Valley.
Dryer had climbed Mt. St. Helens a year before. His published ac-
count says he was accompanied by "Messrs. Wilson, Smith, and Drew."
St. Helens was frequently in eruption during the first years of white
settlement, and down to about 1842. This is noted in the journals
40 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
but not comparable with these; and then this masterly
family of mountains dwindles ruggedly away toward Cali-
fornia and the Shasta group.
The Cascades are known to geography, — their summits
to the lists of volcanoes. Several gentlemen in the United
States Army, bored in petty posts, or squinting along
Indian trails for Pacific railroads, have seen these monu-
ments. A few myriads of Oregonians have not been
able to avoid seeing them, have perhaps felt their enno-
bling influence, and have written, boasting that St. Helens
or Hood is as high as Blanc. Enterprising fellows have
climbed both. But the millions of Yankees — from codfish
of the Hudson's Bay Fort at Vancouver, and in the private letters
and diaries of the time. These records show that the expulsion of ashes
was sometimes so tremendous as to darken the sky at Vancouver for
days at a time, and more than once ashes are reported to have fallen
in considerable amount, as far away as The Dalles.
Mt. Adams was first ascended in the same year as Mt. Hood, the
successful climbers being Col. B.F.Shaw, Glen Aiken, and Edward J.
Allen, the builder of the Naches Pass road.
Fourteen years later Mt. Baker was climbed, after several unsuc-
cessful attempts, by Edmund T. Coleman, an English landscape painter
then living in Victoria. His party included Thomas Stratton of Port
Townsend, David Ogilvy of Victoria, and a settler named Tenant.
The highest and noblest of all these snow mountains remained longest
unconquered. Dr. William F. Tolmie had made a botanizing trip to the
upland "parks" in 1833, being the first white man to visit the peak.
His visit resulted in the first discovery and announcement of the exist-
ence of glaciers in the present territory of the United States south of
Alaska. In 1857, Lieutenant (later General) A. V. Kautz, accompanied
by several soldiers from Fort Nisqually, first attempted the ascent, and
reached the crest of South Peak, a few hundred feet lower than the ac-
tual summit. Thirteen years later, on August 17, 1870, this summit,
now known as Columbia's Crest, was gained by Gen. Hazard Stevens,
son of the Territory's first governor, who had himself served with dis-
tinction as a young officer during the Civil War, and was then living at
Olympia as United States collector of internal revenue; and Philemon
Beecher Van Trump, of Yelm, Wash, General Stevens published a de-
lightful account of their feat, "The Ascent of Takhoma," in the Atlantic
Monthly of November, 1876. Widely acquainted with Indians of the
territorial period, he says:
"Tak-ho-ma, or Ta-ho-ma, among the Yakimas, Klickitats, Puy-
allups, Nisquallys, and allied tribes is the generic term for mountain,
used precisely as we use the word 'Mount,' as Takhoma Wynatchie, or
Mount Wynatchie. But they all designate Rainier simply as Takhoma,
or The Mountain, just as the mountain men used to call it 'Old He.' "
WHULGE. 41
to alligators, chewers of spruce-gum or chewers of pig-tail,
cooks of chowder or cooks of gumbo — know little of
these treasures of theirs. Poet comes long after pioneer.
Mountains have been waiting, even in ancient worlds, for
cycles, while mankind looked upon them as high, cold,
dreary, crushing, — as resorts for demons and homes of
desolating storms. It is only lately, in the development
of men's comprehension of nature, that mountains have
been recognized as our noblest friends, our most exhalting
and inspiring comrades, our grandest emblems of divine
power and divine peace.*
More of these majesties of the Cascades hereafter; but
now meseems that I have long enough interrupted the
desultory progress of my narrative. We have floated long
enough, my Klalam braves, on the white reflection of
Tacoma. To thy paddle, then, sluggard Duke. Dip and
plough into Whulge, ye salmon-fed. Squally and blankets
be the war-cry of our voyage.
But first obey the injunction of an Indian ditty, oddly
sung to the air of Malbrook:^ —
"Klatawah ocook polikely,
Klatawah Steilacoom;"
"Go to-night, — go to Steilacoom." Steilacoom was a mili-
tary post a mile inland from Whulge. It had a port on the
Sound, consisting of one warehouse, where every requisite
of pioneer hfe was to be had. Thither I directed my course,
pork and hardtack to buy, compact prog for my mountain
journey. Also, because I could not ride the leagues of a
transcontinental trip, barebacking the bonyness of prau-ie
nags, a friend had given me an order for a capital saddle of
his, stored there. The crafty trader at Port Steilacoom
♦Appreciation of the mountains and interest in their exploration
are modern to a degree that Western Americans can now scarcely under-
stand. As late as 1854, Murray's "Handbook for Switzerland" con-
tained such discouragements to the mountain-climber as the following:
"The ascent of Mont Blanc is attempted by few. Those who are im-
42 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
denied the existence of my friend's California saddle, a
grandly roomy one I had often bestrode, and substituted
for it an incoherent dragoon saddle. He hoped, the scamp,
that my friend would never return to claim his property,
and he would be left residuary legatee.
Some strange Indians lounging here gave a helpful
fact. The Klickatats,* so the Sound Indians name generally
the Yakimahs and other ultramontane tribes, had just
pelled by curiosity alone are hardly justified in risking the lives of the
guides. It is somewhat remarkable that a large proportion of those
who have made the ascent have been persons of unsound mind."
Many curious superstitions worthy of the Middle Ages centered
about the great peaks of the Alps until comparatively recent times.
To the dw^eller in the Swiss valleys, the high plateaus were inhabited
by rock-eating chamois, and their lakes had the marvelous property
of swallowing up those who fell asleep on their banks. Before the
modern era of mountain-climbing, the natives living at the feet of the
peaks believed them to be inhabited by goblins and afrits, who would
visit destruction upon all that might attempt to invade the heights.
Visitors to Lucerne are familiar with the legend that connects the moun-
tain Pilatus with the name of Pontius Pilate, whose unhappy spirit is
said to dwell upon the summit. In his first efforts to scale the Matter-
horn, Whymper had to overcome not only the difficulties of a virgin
peak, but the terror and superstition of his guides. The natives of the
Val Tournanche, he found, were convinced that on the summit of the
Matterhorn was a ruined city, the abode of the Wandering Jew and the
spirits of the damned. — Whymper: Scrambles amongst the Alps, Ch. IV.
When Stevens and Van Trump reached the snow-line on their ascent
of Tacoma in 1870, their Indian guide, Sluiskin, refused to accompany
them farther, because he feared the anger of the mountain deity; and
when they dechned to heed his warnings, he spent the night in chant-
ing a weird dirge in anticipation of their fate, and parted with them
in the morning, convinced that they would never return. When they
reappeared the next day, after a night on the summit, he could not easily
be persuaded that they were real men, and not some new kind of klale
tamanous, black magic.
*"The Yakimas, including outlying bands, were over 3,900 strong,
and occupied the large region between the Columbia and the Cascades,
with their principal abodes in the Yakima Valley. One band, the Pa-
louses, lived on the Palouse River, on the north side of the Snake and
east of the Columbia, next the Nez Perce country. Large bands of the
Yakimas had crossed the Cascades and were pressing on the feebler
races on the west, by whom they were appropriately termed 'Klik-i-tats,'
or robbers." — Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, by Hazard Stevens, II., 22.
The other great family of the upper Columbia basin was the Sa-
haptin. This included the Cayuses, Walla Wallas, Nez Perces, and Flat-
heads. Snowden characterizes these tribes as "among the brightest and
most powerful of the native people."
o
OS a
O g
>^
'^ I
^-^
•51 03
Oh ^
^^ .9
<1 S
WHXJLGE. 43
arrived at Nisqually, on their annual trading-trip. Horses
and a guide I could surely get from them for crossing the
Cascades into their country. Here I heard first the mighty
name of Owhhigh, a chief of the Klickatats, their noblest
horse-thief, their Diomed. He was at Nisqually, with his tail
on, — his tail of bare-legged highlanders, — buying blankets
and sundries, with skins, furs, and stolen steeds.
Squally, euphonized to Nisqually, is six or seven miles
from Steilacoom. We sped along near the shore, just
away from the dense droop of the water-wooing arbor-vitae
pyramids.
"How now, my crew? Why this sudden check? Why
this agitated panic? What, Dookeryawk! Are ye paralyzed
by Tamanoiis, by demoniacal influence?"
"By fear are we paralyzed, kind protector," responded
the Klalam. "Foes to us always are the Squallyamish.
But more cruel foes are the mountain horsemen. We dare
not advance. Conoway quash nesika; cowards all are we."
"Fear naught, my cowards. The retinue of my high
mightiness is safe, and shall be honored. Ye shall not be
maltreated, nor even punished by me for your misdeeds.
Have a mighty heart in your breasts, and onward."
Panic over, we paddled lustily, and soon landed at a
high bluff, — the port of Nisqually. We hauled up the Bu-
centaur, grateful to the talisman shells along its gunwale,
that they had guarded us against Bugaboo. I looked
my last, for that time, upon the sturdy tides of Whulge,
and led the way under the oaks toward the Fort.
Incised Design on Stone Dish. From Priest Rapids.
IV.
OWHHIGH.
It was harsh penance to a bootless man to tramp the
natural macadam of minced trap-rock on the plateau
above the Sound. The little pebbles of the adust volcanic
pavement cut my moccasined feet like unboiled peas of
pilgrimage. I marched along under the oaks as stately
as frequent limping permitted. My motley retinue followed
me humbly, bearing "ikta," my traps, and their own plun-
der. Their demeanor was crushed and cringing, greatly
changed since the truculent scene over the captured lumoti,
which I still kept as a trophy, hung at my waist to balance
my pistol.
After a walk of a mile, with my body-guard of shabby
S'Klalam aristocrats, I entered the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany's fort of Nisqually. Disrepute draggled after me, but
my character was already established in a previous visit.
I had left Dr. Tolmie, the factor, at Vancouver Island;
Mr. H., his substitute, received me hospitably at the
postern.* Nisqually is a palisaded enclosure, two hun-
dred feet square. Bartizan towers protect its corners. Within
are blockhouses for goods and furs, and one-story cottages
for residence.
*Dr. William Fraser Tolmie had come to this country from Edin-
burgh in 1833, as a surgeon for the Hudson's Bay Company. He be-
caTie a trader, and was for many years the Company's chief factor at
Fort Nisqually. Soon after the discovery of gold on the Fraser River
in 1857, he removed to Victoria, where he continued in charge of the Com-
pany's affairs until 1870. He was succeeded at Nisqually by Edward
Huggins, an Englishman, who came to the coast in 1850, and who con-
tinued as chief factor until the United States took over the Company's
property in 1869.
OWHHIGH.
46
Indian leaguers have of yore beset this fort. Indians
have lifted Indians up toward the fifteenth and topmost
foot of the fir palisades. Shots from the loopholes of the
bartizans dropped the assailants, and left them lying on
the natural macadam without. Whereupon the survivors
retired, and consulted about fire; but that fatal foe was
DR. WILLIAM FRASER TOLMIE.
Hudson's Bay Company's Factor In Charge at Fort Nlsqually.
also defeated by the death of every incendiary as he ap-
proached.
To visit such a place is to recall and illustrate all our
early New-England history. Our forefathers fled, in King
Philip's time, to just such refuges. Personal contact with
a similar state of facts makes their forgotten perils real.
In that recent antiquity, pioneers exposed to the indiscrimi-
nate revenge of the savage flew from cabin and clearing
to stockades far less defensible than this. Better its inse-
46 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
cure shelter for wife and child than the terror of a forest
forever seeming aglare with cruel eyes, — where the forester
could never banish the curdling consciousness of an unseen
presence, watching until the assassin moment came; where
the silence might hear other sounds than the hum of insects
or the music of birds, — might hear the scoffing yell of
Indians, contemptuous victors over the race that scorned
them. What wonder that the agonies of such suspense
stirred up the settlers to cowardly slaughter of every savage,
friend or foe? A frightened man becomes a barbarian
and a brute. Fear is a miserable agent of civilization. We
can hardly now connect ourselves with that period. No
longer, when twigs crackle in the forest, do we shrink lest
the parting leaves may reveal a new-comer, with whom
we must race for life. Larceny is disgusting, burglary is
unpleasant, arson is undesirable, murder is one of the foul
arts; Indians were adepts in all of these trades at once.
Any reminiscence of a condition from which we have happily
escaped is agreeable. This palisade fort was a monument
of a past age to me. It made me two hundred years old at
once.
A monument, but not a cenotaph; on the contrary, it
was full of bustling life. Rusty Indians, in all degrees of
frowziness of person and costume, were trading at the shop
for the three 6's c Indian desire, — blankets, beads, and
'baccy, — representatifves of need, vanity, and luxury. The
Klickatats had indeed arrived. To-morrow Owhhigh and
the grandees were to come in from their camp to buy and
sell. All the squaws purchasing to-day were hags beyond
the age of coquetry in costume, yet they were buying beads
and hanging them in hideous contrast about their baggy,
wrinkled necks, and then glowering for admiration with
dusky eyes. These were valued customers, since they
knew the tariff, and never haggled, but paid cash or its
equivalent, otter, beaver, and skunk skins, and similar
treasures. The pretty girls would come afterward, as
OWHHIGH.
47
money failed, and try to make their winsome smiles a
substitute for funds.
In contrast to these unpleasant objects, a very handsome
and gentlemanly young brave entered just after me, and
came forward as I was greeting Mr. H. He was tall and
loungingly graceful, and so fair that there must have been
silver in the copper of his blood. This rather supercilious
EDWARD HUGGINS: Last Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at
Fort NIsQually; the "Mr. H." of Chapter IV.
personage was, he told me, of Owhhigh's band, not by
nation but by adoption. He was a Spokan from the Upper
Columbia, a volunteer among the Klickatats, perhaps
because their method of filibusterism was attractive, per-
haps because there was a vendetta for him at home. He
wore a semi-civilized costume, — coat of black from some
far-away slop-shop of Britain, fringed leggins of buckskin
from the lodge of a Klickatat tailoress. A broad-beaded
48 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
band crossed his breast, like the ribbon of an order of nobil-
ity. The incongruity in his costume was redeemed by his
cool, dignified bearing. He was an Adonis of Nature,
not a rubicund Adonis of the D'Orsay type. While we talked,
he kept a cavalier's advantage, not dismounting from his
fiery little saddleless black.
Him, by Mr. H.'s advice, I prayed to be my ambassador
to the great Owhhigh. Would that dignitary permit me
an interview to-morrow, and purvey me horses and a guide
for my dash through his realm? My Spokan Adonis, with
the self-possessed courtesy of a high-bred Indian, accepted
the office of negotiator, and ventured to promise that
Owhhigh would speed me. But in case Adonis should
prove faithless, or Owhhigh indifferent, Mr. H. despatched
a messenger at once for one of the Company's voyageurs,
now a quiet colonist, who could resume the rover, and guide
me, if other guidance failed, anywhere in the Northwest.
I now conducted the Duke and my party to the shop,
and served out to them one two-and-a-half-point blanket
apiece, and one to Olyman for the Bucentaur, accompanying
the boon with a lecture on the evils of intemperance and the
duty of faithfulness. They seemed quite pleased now that
they had not butchered and scalped me, and expressed
the friendliest sentiments, perhaps with a view to a liberal
"potlatch" of trinkets. They also besought permission to
encamp in the fort, lest pillage should befall them. It was
growing dark, and the different parties of Indians admitted
within the palisades were grouped, gypsy-like, about their
cooking-fires. Some of these unbrotherly siwashes cast
wolf's-eyes upon my Klalams, now an enviable and plunder-
able squad. These latter, wealthy and well-blanketed,
skulked away into a corner, and when I saw them last, by
their fire-light, the Duke, more like a degraded ecclesiastic
than ever, was haranguing his family, while Jenny Lind
sat at his feet, and bent upon him untruthful eyes. At morn
they were not to be seen; the ducal pair, Olyman and the
OWHHIGH.
49
fishy, all had vanished. A few unconsidered trifles, such
as a gun, a blanket, and a basket of kamas-roots, property
of the unbrotherly, had vanished with them. Unconsidered
trifles will stumble against the shins of Indians, stealing
away at night.
As these representatives of Klalam civilization now
make final exit from my narrative, I must give them a
proper "teapot." They may be taken as types of the worse
OOLONEL MICHAEL T. SIMMONS : Appointed by Gov. Stevens In
1853 as Indian Agent for the Puget Sound Tribes.
Famous as "the Daniel Boone of the Territory."
character of the coast Indians, — jolly brutes, with the bad
and the good traits of savages, and much harmed by the
besettings of civilized temptations.
I cannot omit from the Duke of York's teapot facts
within my own observation, — that he was drunken, idle,
insolent, and treacherous, — nor the hearsay fact that he
has since been beguiled into murders; but I must notice
also his apologies of race, circumstance, the bad influence of
50 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Pikes by land and profane tars by sea, and governmental
neglect, a logical result of slavery.*
Mr. H. had had great success in converting the brown
dust of a dry swamp without the fort into a garden of suc-
culent vegetables. As we were inspecting the cabbages and
onions next morning, we heard a resonance of hoofs over
the trap pavement. A noise of galloping sounded among
the oaks. Presently a wild dash of Indian cavaliers burst
into sight. Their equipm.ent might not have borne inspection:
few things will, here below, except such as rose-leaves and
the cheeks of a high-bred child. Prejudice might have called
their steeds scrubby mustangs; prejudice might have used
the word tag-rag as descriptive of the fly-away effect of a
troop all a-flutter with ribbons, fur-tails, deerskin fringes,
trailing lariats, and whirling whip-thongs. It was a very
irregular and somewhat ragamuffin brigade. But the best
hussars of the Christendom that sustains itself by means
of hussars are tawdry and clumsy to a critical eye, and
*It is only fair to the memory of this famous siwash character to
say that other contemporaries give him much better "teapots" than
does Winthrop. Thus Elwood Evans (History of the Pacific Northwest)
says: "Cheetsamahoin, who is usually styled the Duke of York, ap-
pears to have been hereditary chief of the Clallams. He was an able,
faithful ruler, and highly esteemed by the whites. As early as 1854
he was officially appointed head chief of his tribe by Governor Stevens
through the agent, Michael T. Simmons. He held this office and per-
formed its duties with vigor and fidelity until, in 1870, he was found to
be growing too old, and by Agent Eells was at that time constituted
honorary chief. He was a good, faithful man, and doubtless saved many
lives by his honest adherence to our government. He died a few years
ago at a great age, and was followed to his grave by a great concourse
of people of both the white and Indian races."
James G. Swan tells of the Duke's visit to him in San Francisco:
"This chief, whose name was Chetzamokha, and who is known by
the whites as the Duke of York, was very urgent to have me visit his
people. Subsequently, on his return home he sent me a present of a
beautiful canoe," etc. — Swan: The NorthwestCoast, 17.
Costello tells of seeing the Duke in 1869, and speaks of him and his
tribesmen as "the noble old Indian with a large retinue of followers." —
Costello: The Sitvash, 100.
Winthrop, in his journal on August 22, gives a third form of the Duke's
Indian name, — "Chitsmash." I have not been able to find any evi-
dence of truth in the rumors which Winthrop heard, charging the Duke
and his brother, "King George," with the murder of whites.
OWHHIGH. 61
certainly not so picturesque as these Klickatats, stampeding
toward us from under the gray mossy oaks.
They came, deployed in the open woods, now hidden
in a hollow, now rising a crest, all at full gallop, loud over
the baked soil, — a fantastic cavalcade. They swept about
the angle of the fort, and we, following, found them grouped
near the open postern, waiting for permission to enter.
Some were dismounted; some were dashing up and down
on their shaggy nags, — a band of picturesque marauders
on a peaceful foray.
Owhhigh and his aides-de-camp stood a little apart,
Spokan Adonis among them. At a sign from Mr. H.,
they followed us within the fort, and entered the factor's
cottage. Much ceremony is observed by the Hudson's Bay
Company with the Indians. Discipline must be preserved.
Dignity tells. Indians, having it, appreciate it. Owhhigh
alone was given a seat opposite us. His counsellors stood
around him, while three or four less potent members of his
suite peered gravely over their shoulders. The palaver
began.
Owhhigh's braves were gorgeous with frippery, and
each wore a beaded order. The Murats of the world make
splendid fighting-cocks of themselves with martial feathers;
the Napoleons wear gray surtouts. Owhhigh was in stern
simplicity of Indian garb. On ordinary occasions of council
with whites, he would courteously or ambitiously have
adopted their costume; now, as he was master of the situation
and grantee of favors, he appeared in his own proper style.
He wore a handsome buckskin shirt, heavily epauletted and
trimmed along the seams with fringe, and leggins and
moccasins of the same. For want of Tyrian dye, these
robes were regalized by a daubing of red clay. A circlet
of otter fur served him for coronet. He was a man of bulk
and stature, a chieftainly personage, a fine old Roman,
cast in bronze, and modernized with a fresh glazing of ver-
milion over his antiquated duskiness of hue. And certainly
62
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
no Roman senator, with adjuncts of whity-brown toga,
curule chair, and patrician ancestry, seated to wait his
doom from the Gauls, ever had an air of more impassive
dignity than this head horse-thief of the Klickatats.
In an interview with a royal personage, his own language
should be used. But we, children of an embryo civilization,
are trained in the inutilities of tongues dead as Julius Csesar,
never in the living idioms of our native princes. I was
not, therefore, voluble in Klickatat and Yakimah. Chinook
jargon, however, the French of Northwestern diplomatic
OW-HI: A Chief of the Yakimas.
life, I had mastered. Owhhigh called upon one of his "young
men" to interpret his speeches into Chinook. The inter-
preter stepped forward, and stood expectant, — a youth
fraternally like my Spokan, but with a sprinkle more of
intelligence, and a sparkle less of beauty.
My suit, already known, was now formally stated to
the chief. I wanted to buy three quadrupeds, and hire
one biped guide for a trip across the Cascade Mountains,
and on to the Dalles of the Columbia. The distance was
OWHHIGH. 53
about two hundred miles, and I had seven days to effect it.
Could it be done?
"Yes," replied Owhhigh; and then — his bronze face
remaining perfectly calm and Rhadamanthine — he began,
with most expressive pantomime, an oration, describing
my route across the mountains. His talk went on in sway-
ing monotone, rising and falling with the subject, while
with vigorous gesture he pictured the changeful journey.
The interpreter saw that I comprehended, and did not
interfere. Occasionally, when I was posed, I turned to
him, and he aided me with some Chinook word, or a sput-
tered phrase of concentrated meaning. Meanwhile the circle
of counsellors murmured approval, and grunted coincidence
of opinion.
My way was to lead, so said the emphatic recital of
Owhhigh, first through an open forest, sprinkled with lakes,
and opening into great prairies. By and by the denser
forest of firs would meet me, and giant columnar stems,
parting, leave a narrow vista, where I could penetrate into
the gloom. The dash of a rapid, shallow, white river, the
Puyallop, where was a salmon-fishery, would cross my trail.
Then I must climb through mightier woods and thicker
thickets, where great bulks of fallen trees lay, and barri-
caded the path ; must follow up a turbulent river, the
S'Kamish, crossing it often, at fords where my horses could
hardly bear up against the current. Ever and anon, like a
glimpse of blue through a storm, this rough way would be
enlivened by a prairie, with beds of fern for my repose, and
long grass for my tiring beasts, — grass long as macaroni, so
he measured it with outstretched hands. Now the difficul-
ties were to come. He depicted the craggy side of a great
mountain, — horses scrambling up stoutly, riders grasping
the mane and balancing carefully lest a misstep should send
horse and man over a precipice. The summit gained, here
again were luxurious tarrying-places, oases of prairie, and
perhaps, in some sheltered nook, a bank of last winter's snow.
64 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Here there must be a long nooning, that the horses, tied up
the night before in the forest; and browsing wearily on bitter
twigs, might recruit. Then came the steep descent, and so,
pressing on, I should arrive for my third night's camp
at a prairie, low down on the eastern slope of the mountains,
where a mighty hunter, the late Sowee, once dwelt. Up
before dawn next morning, — continued Owhhigh's vivid tale,
vivid in gesture, and droning ever in delivery, — up at the
peep of day, for this was a long march and a harsh one,
and striking soon a clear river flowing east, the Nachchese,
I was to follow it. The river grew, and went tearing down
a terrible gorge; through this my path led, sometimes in
the bed of the stream, sometimes, when precipices drew
too close and the gulf too profound, I must climb, and trace
a perilous course along the brink far above, where I might
bend over and see the water roaring a thousand feet below.
At last the valley would broaden, and groves of pine appear.
Then my horses, if not too way-worn, could gallop over
the immense swells of a rolling prairie-land. Here I would
encounter some of the people of Owhhigh. A sharp turn
to the right would lead me across a mass of wild, bare hills,
into the valley of another stream, the Atinam, where was
a mission and men in long robes who prayed at a shrine.
By this time my horses would be exhausted; I should take
fresh ones, if possible, from the priests' band, and riding
hard across a varied region of hill, prairie, and bulky moun-
tains thick with pines, and then long levels where Skloo, a
brother-chieftain, ranged, I would arrive, after two days
from the mission, at a rugged space of hills, and, climbing
there, find myself overlooking the vast valley of the Colum-
bia. Barracks and tents in sight. Scamper down the moun-
tain. Fire a gun at river's bank. Indians hear, cross in
canoe, ferry me and swim my horses. All safely done
in six crowded days. So said Owhhigh.
This description was given with wonderful vivacity and
verity. Owhhigh as a pantomimist would have commanded
OWHHIGH. 65
brilliant success on any stage. Would that there were more
like him in this wordy world.
He promised also a guide, his son, now at the camp,
and as to my horses, I might choose from the cavalcade.
We went out to make selection, — all the Klickatats, except
Owhhigh, Adonis, and the interpreter, following in bow-
legged silence. These three were vocal, and of better model
than their fellows. No Indian wished to sell his best horse;
each his second-best, at the price of the best. Their backs
were in shocking condition. Pads and pack-saddles had
galled them so that it was painful to a humane being to
mount; but I felt that any one of them, however maltreated,
would better in my service. I should ride him hard, but
care for him tenderly. Indians have too much respect
for "pasaiooks," blanketeers, Caucasians, to endeavor to
cajole us. They suppose that, in a horse-trade, we know
what we want. No jockeying was attempted; there were
the nags, I might prove them, and buy or not, without
solicitation.
The hard terrace without the fort served us for race-
course. We galloped the wiry nags up and down, while
the owners waited in an emotionless group, calm as gamblers.
Should any one sell a horse, he would not only pocket the
price, but be spurred to new thefts from tribes hostile or
friendly to fill the vacancy; yet all were too proud to exhibit
eagerness, or puff their property.
At last, from the least bad I chose first for my pack
animal a strawberry-roan cob, a "chunk of a horse," a quad-
ruped with the legs of an elephant, the head of a hippopota-
mus, and a peculiar gait; — he trod most emphatically, as
if he were striving to go through the world's crust at every
step. This habit suggested the name he at once received.
I called him Antipodes, in honor of the region he was aiming
at, — a name of ill omen, suggesting a spot where I often
wished him afterwards. My second choice, the mount for
my guide, was Antipodes repeated, with slight improve-
66 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
ments of form and manner. Gubbins I dubbed him, appro-
priately, with a first accolade, — accolade often repeated,
during our acquaintance, with less mildness. Hard horses
were Antipodes and Gubbins, — hard trotters, hard-
mouthed, hard-hided brutes. Each was delivered to me
with a hair rope twisted for bridle about his lower lip,
sawing it raw.
And now the most important decision remained to be
made. It was nothing to me that a misty phantom, my
guide, should be jolted over the passes of Tacoma on a
Gubbins or an Antipodes, but my own seat, should it be
upon Rosinante or Bucephalus, upon an agile caracoler
or a lubberly plodder? Step forward, then, cool and care-
less Klickatat, from thy lair of dirty blanket, with that
black pony of thine. The black was satisfactory. His
ribs, indeed, were far too visible, and there were concavities
where there should have been the convex fullness of well-
conditioned muscle, but he had a plucky, wiry look, and his
eye showed spirit without spite. His lope was as elastic
as the bounding of a wind-sped cloud over a rough mountain-
side. His other paces were neat and vigorous. I bought
him at more dollars than either of his comrades of clumsier
shape and duller hue. Indians do not love then* horses
well enough to name them. My new purchase I baptized
Klale. Klale in Chinook jargon is Black, — and thus do man-
kind, putting commonplace into foreign tongues or into big
words of their own, fancy that they make it uncommonplace
and original.
There are several requisites for travel. First, a world
and a region of world to traverse; second, a traveller; third,
means of conveyance, legs human or other, barks, carts,
enchanted carpets, and the like; fourth, guidance by man
personal, or man impersonal acting by roads, guide-boards,
maps, and itineraries; fifth, multifarious wherewithals. The
first two requisites seem to be indispensable in the human
notion of travel, and existed in my case. The third I had
OWHHIGH. 57
provided; my stud was complete. A guide was promised;
after an interview with Owhhigh I could give credence to
his unseen son, and believe that the fourth requisite of my
journey was also ready. I must now arrange my miscellane-
ous outfit. For this purpose the resources of Fort Nisqually
were infinite. Mr. H. approached the dusty warehouses;
he wielded the wand of an enchanter, and forth from dim
corners came a pack-saddle for Antipodes, a pad-saddle for
Gubbins, and great hide packs for my traps. Forth from
the shelves of the shop came paraphernaha, — tin pot, tin
pan, tin cups, and the needful luxuries of tea and sugar.
My pork and hardtack had been already provided at Steila-
coom, and Mr. H. added to them what I deemed half a
dozen gnarled lignum- vitae roots. Experimental whittling
proved these to be cured ox-tongues, a precious accession.
My list was complete.
I was lodged in a small cabin adjoining the factor's
cottage. All my sundries had been piled here for packing,
and I was standing, somewhat mazed, in the centre of a
group of tin pots, gnarled tongues, powder-horns, papers
of tea, blankets, bread-bags, bridles, spurs, and toggery,
when in walked Owhhigh, followed by several of his suite.
Owhhigh seated himself on the floor, with an air of con-
descension, and for some time regarded my preparations
in grave silence. Mr. H. had told me that his parade of an
interpreter during the council was only to make an im-
pression. Some men regard an assumption of ignorance as
lofty. Now, however, Owhhigh, dropping in unceremo-
niously, laid aside his sham dignity with a purpose. We
had before agreed upon the terms of payment for my guide.
The ancient horse-thief sat like a Pacha, smoking an in-
glorious dhudeen, and at last, glancing at certain articles
of raiment of mine, thus familiarly, in Chinook, broke
silence.
Owhhigh. "Halo she collocks nika tenas; no breeches
hath my son" (the guide).
58 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
I. (In an Indianesque tone of some surprise, but great
indifference). "Ah hagh!"
Oivhhigh. *Te halo shirt; and no shirt."
I. (Assenting, with equal indifference). "Ah hagh!"
Owhhigh smokes, and is silent, and Spokan Adonis
fugues in, "Pe wake yaka shoes; and no shoes hath he."
Another aide-de-camp takes up the strain. "Yahwah
mitlite shoes, closche copa Owhhigh tenas; there are shoes
(pointing to a pair of mine) good for the son of Owhhigh."
/. "Stick shoes ocook, — wake closche copa siwash;
hard shoes (not moccasins) those, — not good for Indian."
Owhhigh. "Hyas tyee mika, — hin mitlite ikta, — halo
ikta mitlite copa nika tenas, — mika tikky hin potlatch;
great chief thou, — with thee plenty traps abide, — no traps
hath my son, — thou \v\\t give him abundance."
/. "Pe hyas tyee Owhhigh, — conoway ikta mitlite-pe
hin yaka potlatch copa liticum; and a great chief is Owhhigh,
— all kinds of property are his, and many presents does he
make to his people."
Profound silence followed these mutual hints. Owhhigh
smoked in thoughtful whiffs, and the pipe went round.
The choir bore their failure stoically. They had done their
best that their comrade might be arrayed at my expense,
and if I did not choose to throw in a livery, I must bear the
shame and the unsavoriness if he were frowzy. At last,
to please Owhhigh, and requite him for the entertainment
of his oratory, I promised that, if his son were faithful, I
would give him a generous premium, possibly the very
shirt and other articles they had admu'ed. Whereupon,
after more unwordy whiffs and ineffectual hints that they
too were needy, Owhhigh and his braves lounged off, the
gloomy bow-legged ones, who had not spoken, bringing up
the rear. I soon had everything in order, tongues, tea, and
tin properly stowed, and was ready to be off.
Experienced campaigners attempt no more than a start
and a league or two the first day of a long march. To
OWHHIGH. 59
burst the ties that bind us to civilization is an epoch of itself.
The first camp of an expedition must not be beyond re-
clamation of forgotten things. Starts, too, will often be
false starts. Raw men and raw horses and mules will con-
dense into a muddle, or explode into a centrifugal stampede,
a "blazing star," as packers name it. Then the pack-horse
with the flour bolts and makes paste of his burden, up to
his spine in a neighboring pool. The powder mule lies down
in the ashes of a cooking fire. The pork mule, in greasy
gallop, trails fatness over the plain. In a thorny thicket,
a few white shreds reveal where the tent mule tore through.
Another beast flies madly, while after him clink all the can-
nikins, battering themselves shapeless upon his flanks.
It is chaos, and demands hours perhaps of patience to make
order again.
Such experience in a minor degree might befall even
my little party of three horses and two men. I therefore,
for better speed, resolved to disentangle myself this evening
and have a clear field to-morrow. Recalcitrant Antipodes,
therefore, suffered compulsion, and was packed with his
complex burdens. Leaving him and Gubbins with Owhhigh
to follow and be disciplined, Mr. H. and I galloped on under
the oaks, over the trap-rock, toward the Klickatat camp.
Klale, with ungalling saddle, and a merciful rider of nine
stone weight, loped on gayly.
The Klickatats were encamped on a prairie near the
house of a settler, five miles from the fort. Just without the
house was a group of them gambling. Presently Owhhigh
followed Mr. H. and me into the farmer's kitchen, bringing
forward for introduction his son, my guide. He was one
of the gambling group. I inspected him narrowly. My
speed, my success, my safety, depended upon his good
faith. Owhhigh bore no very high character, — why should
son be honester than father? To an Indian the temptation
to play foul by a possessor of horses, guns, blankets, and
traps was enormous.
60 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
My future comrade was a tallish stripling of twenty,
dusky-hued and low-browed. A mat of long, careless, sheen-
less black hair fell almost to his shoulders. Dull black
were his eyes, not veined with agate-like play of color, as
are the eyes of the sympathetic and impressionable. His
chief physiognomical characteristic was a downward look,
like the brown study of a detected pickpocket, inquiring
with himself whether villany pays; his chief personal and
seemingly permanent characteristic was squalor. Squalid
was his hickory shirt, squalid his buckskin leggins, long
widowed of their fringe. Yet it was not a mean, but a proud
uncleanliness, like that of a fakir, or a voluntarily unwashed
hermit. He flaunted his dirtiness in the face of civilization,
claiming respect for it, as merely a different theory of the
toilette. I cannot say that this new actor in my drama
looked trustworthy, but there was a certain rascally charm
in his rather insolent dignity, and an exciting mystery in his
undecipherable phiz. I saw that there was no danger of
our becoming friends. There existed an antagonism in
our natures which might lead to defiance and hostility, or
possibly terminate in mutual respect.
Loolowcan was his name. I took him for better or for
worse, without questions.
Owhhigh fully vouched for him, — but who would vouch
for the voucher? Who could satisfy me that the horse-
thieving morality of papa might not result in scalp-thieving
principles in the youth? At least, he knew the way unerringly.
My path was theirs, of constant transit from inland to sea-
side. As to his conduct, Owhhigh gave him an impressive
harangue, stretching forth his arm in its fringed sleeve, and
gesturing solemnly. This paternal admonition was, for my
comprehension, expressed in Chinook jargon, doubly ludi-
crous with Owhhigh's sham stateliness of rhetoric. His
final injunctions to young hopeful may be condensed as
follows: —
"Great chief go to Dalles. Want to go fast. Six days.
AMONG THE DOUGLAS FIRS.
'The trail took us speedily into a forest-temple. Wherever I ro<le into the
vista, the dark-purple trunks drew together, like a circuit
of palisades, and closed after."
OWHHIGH. 61
Good pay. S'pose want fresh horses other side mountains, —
you get 'em. Get everything. Look sharp. No fear bad
Indian at Dalles; great chief not let 'em beat you. Be good
boy! Good bye!"
Owhhigh presented me, as a parting gift, his whip, which
I had admired, a neat baton with a long hide lash and loop
of otter fur for the wrist. I could by its aid modify, without
altering, the system of education already pursued with my
horses. Homeric studies had taught me that the gifts of
heroes should be reciprocal. I therefore, for lack of more
significant token, prayed Owhhigh to accept a piece of silver.
We shook hands elaborately and parted. He was hanged
or shot last summer in the late Indian wars of that region.*
I regret his martyrdom, and hope that in his present sphere
his skill as a horse-thief is better directed.
I had also adieux to offer to Mr. H., and thanks for his
kind energy in forwarding me. From him, as from all the
gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Northwest,
I had received the most genuine hospitality, hearty enter-
tainment, legendary and culinary.
And now for my long ride across the country! Here,
Loolowcan, is Gubbins, thy steed, — drive thou Antipodes,
clumsiest of cobs. I have mounted Klale, — let us gallop
eastward.
Eastward I galloped with what eager joy! I flung my-
self again alone upon the torrent of adventure, with a lurking
hope that I might prove new sensations of danger, new
tests of manhood in its confident youth. I was going home-
ward across the breadth of the land, and with the excite-
ment of this large thought there came a slight reactionary
sinking of heart, and a dread lest I had exhausted onward
life, and now, turning back from its foremost verge, should
*In September, 1856, Owhi, then a prisoner, and Lieut. Morgan,
who were riding together, became separated from Col. Wright's com-
mand, and the treacherous old warrior made a dash for liberty. A shot
from Morgan's revolver brought him to the ground, and a bullet from a
soldier's rifle ended his life.
62 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
find myself dwindling into dull conservatism, and want of
prophetic faith. I feared that I was retreating from the
future into the past. Yet if one but knew it, his retreats
are often his wisest and bravest advances.
I had, however, little time for meditation, morbid or
healthy. Something always happens, in the go and the gallop
of travel, demanding quick, instinctive action. Antipodes
was in this case the agent to make me know my place. Anti-
podes, pointing his nose eastward toward his native valleys,
had pounded along the trail for a couple of miles over the
hillocks of a stony prairie, and on his back rattled my packs,
for solace or annoyance, according to his own views. At
a fork of the trail, Loolowcan urged Gubbins to the front,
to indicate the route. Right-about went Antipodes. Back
toward Squally bolted that stiff-legged steed, — stiff-legged
no more, but far too limber, — and louder on his back rattled
my pots and pans, a merry sound, could I have listened
with no thought of the pottage and pancakes that depended
upon the safety of my tin-ware. Still I could be amused
at his grotesque gallop, for he had not discomfited me, and
I could chuckle at the thought of another sound, when he
was overtaken, and when upon a strawberry-roan surface
fell the whip, the Owhhigh gift, now swinging at my wrist
by its loop of otter-skin, for greater momentum of stroke.
Clattering over the paved prairie we hied, the defaulter a
little in advance and artfully dodging, — Loolowcan and I
close upon him. Still more artfully at last he made show
of finding the trail, and went pounding along, as if no trait-
orous stampede had happened. A total failure was this
crafty sham, this too late repentance and acknowledgment
of defeat. Vengeance will not thus be baffled. Men discover
with bitterness that nature continues to use the scourge
long after they have reformed, until relapse becomes im-
possible by the habit of virtue. So Antipodes experienced.
Pendulum whips do not swing for nothing, and he never
LOWLAND CEDARS ALONG THE WHITE RIVER.
OWHHIGH. 63
again attempted absolute revolt, but grumblingly acknowl-
edged his duty to his master.
This was an evening of August, in a climate where sum-
mer is never scorching nor blasting. We breathe air as a
matter of course, unobservant usually of how fair a draught
it is. But to-night the chalice of nature was brimming with
a golden haze, which touched the lips with luxurious winy
flavor.
So inhaling delicate gray-gold puffs of indolent summer-
evening air, and much tranquillized by such beverage,
mild yet rich, I rode on, now under the low oaks, now over
a ripe prairie, and now beside a lake fresh, pure, and
feminine. And whenever a vista opened eastward, Ta-
coma appeared above the low-lying mist of the distance.
"Pohkely, spose mika tikky, nesika mitlite copa Comcomli
house; to-night, if you please, we stop at Comcomli's
house," said Loolowcan the taciturn.
Night was at hand, and where was the house? It is
not wise to put off choice of camping-ground till dark;
foresight is as needful to a campaigner as to any other
mortal. But presently, in a pretty little prairie, we reached
the spot where a certain Montgomery, wedded to a squaw,
had squatted, and he should be our host. His name, too
articulate for Indian lips, they had softened to Comcomli.
A similar corruption befell the name of the Scotticized chief
of the Chinooks, whom Astor's people found at Astoria,
and whom Mr. Irving has given to history.*
Mr. Comcomli was absent, but his comely "mild-eyed,
melancholy" squaw received us hospitably. Her Squally-
amish proportions were oddly involved in limp robes of
calico, such as her sisters from Pike County wear. She gave
us a supper of fried pork, bread, and tea. We encamped
upon her floor, and were somewhat trodden under foot by
little half-breed Comcomlis, patrolling about during the
night-watches.
*lTving: Astoria, Chapter VIII.
64 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Loolowcan here began to show the white feather. His
heart sank when he contemplated the long leagues of the
trail. He wanted to return. He was solitary, — homesick
for the congenial society of other youths with matted hair,
dusky skins, paint-daubed cheeks, low brows, and dis-
tinguished frowziness of apparel. He wanted to squat
by camp-fires, and mutter guttural gibberish to such as
these. The old, undying feud of blackguard against gentle-
man seemed in danger of pronouncing itself. Besides, he
feared hostile siwashes at the Dalles of the Columbia. In
his superstitious soul of a savage he dreaded, or pretended
to dread, some terrible magical influence in the gloomy
forests of the mountains. Of evil omen to me, and worse
than any demon spell in the craggy dells of the Cascades,
was this vacillation of my guide. However, I argued some-
what, and somewhat wheedled and bullied the doubter.
Loolowcan was harder to keep in line than Antipodes.
One may tame Bucephalus, but several new elements of
character are to be considered when the attempt is made
to manage Pagan savages.
At last my guide seemed to waver over to the side of
good faith, with a dishonest air and a pretense of wishing
to oblige. Shaken confidence hardly returns, and from hour
to hour, as the little Comcomlis pranced over my person,
and trampled my upturned nose a temporary aquiline, I
awoke, and studied the dark spot where my dusky comrade
lay. Each time I satisfied myself that he had not flitted.
Nor did he. When morning came, his heart grew bigger.
Difficulties portentous in the ghostly obscure of night van-
ished with cock-crowing. He contemplated his fair propor-
tions, and felt that new clothes would become them. He
rose, stalked about, and longed for the dignified drapery
of a new blanket. How the other low-browed and squalid,
from whom he had been selected for his knowledge as a
linguist and his talents as a guide, — how they would scoff,
and call him Kallapooya, meanest of Indians, if he sneaked
OWHHIGH.
65
back to camp bootless! He turned to me, and saw me a
civilized man, in garb and guise to be envied. So for a
time treachery was argued out of the heart of Loolowcan
the frowzy.
Tulalip Mat-maker, Camano Island.
V.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES.
To have started with dawn is a proud and exhilarating
recollection all the day long. The most godlike imperson-
ality men know is the sun. To him the body should pay its
matinal devotions, its ardent, worshipful greetings, when
he comes, the joy of the world; then is the soul elated to
loftier energies, and nerved to sustain its own visions of
glories transcending the spheres where the sun reigns sub-
lime. Tame and inarticulate is the harmony of a day that
has not known the delicious preludes of dawn. For the sun,
the godlike, does not come hastily blundering in upon the
scene. Nor does he bounce forth upon the arena of his action,
like a circus clown. Much beautiful labor of love is done by
earth and sky, preparing a pageant where their Lord shall
enter. Slowly, like the growth of any feeling grand, deep,
masterful, and abiding, nature's power of comprehending
the coming blessing develops. First, up in the colorless
ranges of night there is a feeling of quiver and life, broader
than the narrow twinkle of stars, — a tender lucency, not
light, but rather a sense of the departing of darkness. Then
a gray glimmer, like the sheen of filed silver, trembles up-
ward from the black horizon. Gray deepens to violet.
Clouds flush and blaze. The sky grows azure. The pageant
thickens. Beams dart up. The world shines golden. The
sun comes forth to cheer, to bless, to vivify.
For other reasons more obviously practical, needs must
that campaigners stir with dawn, and start with sunrise.
No daylight is long enough for its possible work, as no life
WHITE RIVER.
View from the State Road designed to reach the northeast entrance of
Rainier National Park.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 67
is long enough for its possible development in wisdom and
love. In the beautiful, fresh hours of early day vigorous
influences are about. The sun is doing his uphill work
easily, climbing without a thought of toil to the breathing-
spot of high noon. Every flower of the world is boldly
open; there is no languid droop in any stem. Blades of
grass have tossed lightly off each its burden of a dew-drop,
and now stand upright and alert. Man rises from recum-
bency taller by fractions of an inch than when he sank to
repose, with a brain leagues higher up in the regions of
ability, — leagues above doubt and depression; and a man
on a march, with long wildness of mountain and plain to
overpass, is urged by necessity to convert power into achieve-
ment.
Up, then, at earliest of light, I sprang from the ground.
I roused Loolowcan, and found him in healthier and braver
mood, and ready to lead on. While, after one sympathetic
gaze at Aurora, I made up my packs, my Klickatat unteth-
ered the horses from spots where all night they had champed
the succulent grasses. This control of tethering was nec-
essary on separating my steeds from their late comrades.
Indian nags, like Indian youths, are gregarious, and had
my ponies escaped, I should probably have seen them
never more. Even my graceful Adonis, the Spokan, would
not have hesitated to seclude a stray Antipodes, gallop-
ing back to the herd, and innocently to offer me another
and a sorrier, to be bought with fresh moneys.
The trail took us speedily into a forest- temple. Long
years of labor by artists the most unconscious of their skill
had been given to modelling these columnar firs.* Unlike
*The typical tree of the North Pacific Slope is the "Douglas fir,"
sometimes called "Douglas spruce," "Oregon pine," etc., but, curiously
enough, properly neither fir, spruce, nor pine, but, according to the bot-
anists, false hemlock, Pseudotsuga taxifolia. This tree alone has done
more for the Northwest than any other source of wealth, furnishing,
as Sudworth says, "the finest and largest saw timber of any native trees,
if not of any trees in the world."
"Douglas fir recalls by its name one of the heroes of science, David
68 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
the pillars of human architecture, chipped and chiselled in
bustling, dusty quarries, and hoisted to their site by sweat
of brow and creak of pulley, these rose to fairest proportion
by the life that was in them, and blossomed into foliated
capitals three hundred feet overhead.
Riding steadily on, I found no thinning of this mighty
array, no change in the monotony of this monstrous vege-
tation. These giants with their rough plate-armor were
masters here; one of human stature was unmeaning and in-
capable. With an axe, a man of muscle might succeed in
smiting off a flake or a chip; but his slight fibres seemed
naught to battle, with any chance of victory, with the time-
hardened sinews of these Goliaths. It grew somewhat
dreary to follow down the vistas of this ungentle woodland,
passing forever between rows of rough-hewn pillars, and
never penetrating to any shrine where sunshine entered
and dwelt, and garlands grew for the gods of the forest.
Wherever I rode into the sombre vista, and turned by chance
to trace the trail behind me, the dark-purple trunks drew
together, like a circuit of palisades, and closed after, crowd-
ing me forward down the narrow inevitable way, as ugly
sins, co-operating only to evolve an uglier remorse, forbid
the soul to turn back to purity, and crowd it, shrinking,
on into blacker falseness to itself.
Douglas, a Scotch naturalist who explored these forests nearly ninety
years ago, and discovered not only this particular giant of the woods,
but also the great sugar pine and many other fine trees and plants.
As a pioneer botanist, searching the forest, Douglas presented a sur-
prising spectacle to the Indians, 'The Man of Grass' they called him.***
The splendid conifer which men have called after him is one of the kings
of all treeland. The most abundant species of the Northwest, it is also,
commercially, the most important. Sometimes reaching a height of
more than 250 feet, it grows in remarkably close stands, and covers
vast areas with valuable timber that will keep the multiplying mills of
Oregon and Washington sawing for generations. In the dense shade of
the forests, it raises a straight and stalwart trunk, clear of limb for a
hundred feet or more. On the older trees, its deeply furrowed bark is
often a foot thick. Trees of eight feet diameter are at least three hun-
dred years old, and rare ones, much larger, have been cut showing an
age of more than five centuries." — From "The Forests," by H. D.
Langille, in Williams: The Guardians of the Columbia.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 69
Before my courage was quelled by a superstitious dread
that from this austere wood was no escape, I came upon a
river, cleaving the darkness with a broad belt of sunshine.
A river signifies much on the earth. It signifies something to
mix with proper drinkables; it signifies navigation, in birch-
canoe, seventy-four, floating palace, dug-out, or lumber ark;
it signifies motion, less transitory than the tremble of leaves,
and shadows. This particular river, the Puyallop, had
another distinct significance to me, — it was certain to supply
Indian Canoo on the Puyallup River.
provisions, fish, salmon. As I expected, some fishing In-
dians were here to sell me their silver beauty, a noble fellow
who this morning had tasted the pickle of Whulge, and had
the cosmopolitan look of a fish but now from ocean palace
and grot, where he was a welcome guest and a regretted
absentee. It was truly to be deplored that he could never
reappear in those Neptunian realms with tales of wild adven-
ture; yet if to this most brilliant of fish his hour of destiny
had come, how much better than feeding foul Indians it
was to belong to me, who would treat his proportions with
respect, feel the exquisiteness of his coloring, grill him deli-
cately, and eat him daintily!
70 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Potatoes, also, I bought of the Indians, and bagged
them till my bags were knobby withal, — potatoes with skins
of smooth and refined texture, like the cheeks of a brunette,
and like them showing fair rosiness through the transparent
brown. For these peaceful products I paid in munitions
of war. Four charges of powder and shot were deemed by
the Nestor of the siwash family a liberal, even a lavishly
bounteous price, for twoscore of tubers and a fifteen-pound
salmon; and in two corners of the flap of his sole inner and
outer garment that tranquil sage tied up his hazardous
property. Such barter dignifies marketing. Usually what
a man pays for his dinner does not interest the race; but
here I was giving destruction for provender, death for life.
Perhaps Nestor shot the next traveller with my ammunition,
and the juices of that salmon were really my brother
Yankee's blood. Avaunt, horrid thought! and may it be
that the powder and the shot went for killing porcupines,
or that their treasurer stumbled in the stream, and drowned
his deadly stores!
Well satisfied with my new possessions, I said adieu
to the monotonous mumblers of Puyallop, — a singularly
fishy old gentleman, his wife an oleaginous hag, an emotion-
less youth of the Loolowcan type, and a flat-faced young
damsel with a circle of vermilion on each broad cheek and
a red blanket for all raiment. I waded the milky stream,
scuffled across its pebbly bed, and plunged again among
the phalanxes of firs. These opened a narrow trail, wide
enough to wind rapidly along, and my little cortege dashed
on deeper into the wilderness. I had not yet entirely
escaped from civilization, so much as Yankee pioneers
carry with them, namely, blue blankets and the smell of
fried pork. In a prairie about noon to-day I saw a smoke,
near that smoke a tent, and at that smoke two men in ex-
soldier garb. Frying pork were these two braves, as at
most habitations, up and down and athwart this conti-
nent, cooking braves or their wives are doing three times
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 71
a day, incensing dawn, noon, and sunset. These two had
taken this pretty prairie as their "claim," hoping to
become the vanguard of colonization. They became its
forlorn hope. The point of civilization's entering wedge
into barbarism is easily knocked off. These squatters
were knocked off, as some of the earliest victims of the
Indian war three summers after my visit. It is odd how
much more interest I take in these two settlers since I heard
that they were scalped. More fair prairies strung them-
selves along the trail, possibly less fair in seeming to me
then, could I have known that murder would soon dis-
figure them; that savages, and perhaps among them the
low-browed Loolowcan, would lurk behind the purple trunks
of these colossal firs, watching not in vain for the safe
moment to slay. For so it was, and the war in that terri-
tory began three years after, by massacres in these outlying
spots.
I was now to be greeted by a nearer vision of an old
love. A great bliss, or a sublime object, or a giant aspiration
of our souls, lifts first upon our horizon, and swelling fills
our sphere, and stoops forward with winsome conde-
scension. And taking our clew, we approach through the
labyrinths. Glimpses are never wanting to sustain us
lest we faint and fail along the lacerating ways. Such a
glimpse I was now to have of Tacoma. I had long been
obstructedly nearing it, first in the leaky Bucentaur, pro-
pelled over strong-flowing Whulge by Klalams, drunken,
crapulous, unsteady, timid, — such agents progress finds;
next by alliance of Owhhigh, the horse-thief, and aid
from the Hudson's Bay Company; then between the
files of veteran evergreens in plate-armor, tempered purple
by the fiery sun, and across prairies where might have hung
an ominous mist of blood. Now suddenly, as Klale the
untiring disentangled us from the black forest, and galloped
out upon a little prairie, delighted to comb his fetlocks in
the long yellow grass, I beheld Tacoma at hand, still un-
72
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
dwarfed by any underlif t of lower ridges, and only its snows
above the pines. Over the pines, the snow peak against
the sky presented the quiet fraternal tricolor of nature, who
always, where there is default of uppermost peaks to be
white with clouds fallen in the form of snow, brings the
clouds themselves, so changefuUy
fair that we hardly wish them
more sublimely permanent, and
heaps them above the green against
the blue. Here, then, against the
unapproachable glory of an Ore-
gon summer sky stood Tacoma,
less dreamy than when I floated
over its shadow, but not less di-
vine, — no divine thing dwindles
as one with sparks of divineness
in his mind approaches.
Yet I could not dally here to
watch Tacoma bloom at sunset
against a violet sky. Alas that
life with an object cannot linger
among its own sweet episodes!
My camp was farther on, but the
revolutionary member of the party,
Antipodes, hinted that we would
do wisely to set up our tabernacle
here. His view of such a hint was
to bolt off where grass grew high-
est, and standing there interpose a
mobile battery of heels between his flanks and their casti-
gators. This plan failed; a horse cannot balance on his
fore legs and take hasty bites of long, luxurious fodder,
while he brandishes his hind legs in the air. Some sweeter
morsel will divert his mind from self-defense; his assailants
will get within his guard. Penance follows, and Antipodes
must again hammer elephantine along the trail.
Carved Wood Tamanoiis and
Wand, from near Bremerton.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 73
What now? What is this strange object in the utterly
lonely woods, — a furry object hanging on a bush by our
faint and obstructed trail? A cap of fox-skin, fantastic
with tails. And what, Loolowcan the mysterious, means
this tailful head-gear, hung carefully, as if a signal? "It
is," replied Loolowcan, depositing it upon his capless mop of
hair, "my brother's cap, and he must be hereabouts; he
informs me of his neighborhood, and will meet us presently."
"Son of Owhhigh, what doth thy brother skulking along
our trail?" "How should I know, my chief? Indian
come, Indian go ; he somewhere, he nowhere. Perhaps my
brother go to mountains, see Tamanoiis, — want to be big
medicine."*
Presently, appearing from nowhere, there stood in the
trail a little, shabby, capless Indian, armed with a bow and
arrows, — a personage not at all like the pompous, white-
cravatted, typical big-medicine man of civilization, armed
with gold-headed cane. Where this M. D. had been
prowling, or from what lair he discovered our approach,
or by what dodging he evaded us along the circuits of the
trail, was a mystery of which he offered no explanation.
The presence of this disciple of Tamanoiis, this tyro magician,
this culler of simples, this amateur spy, or whatever else
he might be, was unaccountable. He was the counter-
*Among the tribes of the Northwest, Tamanoiis, or Tamahnawas,
had a great variety of meanings; indeed, it was a name for almost every-
thing that seemed mysterious or magical to the Indian. It was the
Great Spirit, Tyee Saghalie, or the Devil, Tyee Klale, — literally,
Black Magic, or Bad Medicine. Further, it was the particular demon
of places and the familiar guardian spirit of men and their undertakings.
Just as the devout Russian sets up an ikon in his home or at the head of
a village street, so the superstitious siwash set up a tamanoiis in his
hut of shakes or on the shore of his favorite fishing grounds. He feared
and worshipped the Tamanoiis of all nature, seen in the great phenomena
of the mountains, rivers, winds and seasons; and he trusted and paid
tribute to his own private tamanoiis, often represented to his mind by
an animal or bird. Tamanoiis, as magic, was an art practiced by the
medicine men for healing the sick; and by the tribes as a whole, or by
secret cults among them, to invoke a good season, or success in war,
or the cessation of epidemics.
74 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
part of Loolowcan, but evidently an inferior spirit
to that youth of promise. He offered me his hand,
not without Indian courtesy, and he and his compatriot,
if not brother, plunged together into a splutter of confi-
dential talk.
The Doctor, for he did not introduce himself by name,
trotted along by the side of the ambling Gubbins, and
soon, just before sunset, we emerged upon a little circle
of ferny prairie, our camp, already known to me by the
description of Owhhigh. The White River, the S'Kamish,
flowed hard by, behind a belt of luxuriant arbor-vitae.
With the Doctor's aid, we took down pot and pan, blanket
and bread-bag, from the galled back of the much-enduring
Antipodes, and gave to him and his two comrades full
license to bury themselves among the tall, fragrant ferns,
and nibble, without stooping, top bits from the gigantic
grass. It was a perfect spot for a bivouac, a fairy ring of
ferns beneath the tall, dark shelter of the firs. Tacoma
was near, an invisible guardian, hidden by the forest.
Beside us the rushing river sounded lulling music, making
rest sweeter by its contrast of tireless toil. And thus
under favorable auspices we set ourselves to prepare for
the great event of supper, — the Doctor slipping quietly into
the position of a welcome guest without invitation.
I lifted the salmon to view. Loolowcan's murky brow
expanded. A look became decipherable upon that mysteri-
ous phiz, and that look meant gluttony. The delicate
substance of my aristocratic fish was presently to be
devoured by frowzy Klickatat. At least, pair of bush-
boys, you shall have cleanlier ideas of cookery than here-
tofore in your gypsy life, and be taught that civihzation
in me, its representative for want of a better, does not
disdain accepting the captaincy of a kitchen battery.
First, then, my marmitons, clear ye a space carefully of
herbage, and trample down the ferns about, lest the flame
of our fire show affinity to this natural hay, and our fair
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 75
paddock become a charred and desolate waste. We will
have salmon in three courses on this festive occasion, when
I, for the first time, entertain two young Klickatats of
distinction. Do thou, Loolowcan, seek by the river-side
tenacious twigs of alder and maple, wherewith to construct
an upright gridiron. One blushing half of that swimmer
of the Puyallop shall stand and toast on this slight scaffold-
ing. Portions from the other half shall be fried in this
pan, and other portions, from the thicker part, shall be
neatly wrapped in green leaves, and baked beneath the
ashes.
So it was done, and well done. The colors that are
encased within a salmon, awaiting fire that they may bloom,
came forth artistically. On the toasted surface brightened
warm yellows, and ruddy orange; and delicate pinkness,
softened with downy gray, suffused the separating flakes.
Potatoes, too, roasted beneath aromatic ashes by the
side of roasting blocks of salmon, — potatoes hardened their
crusts against too ardent heat, that slowly ripeness might
penetrate to their heart of hearts. Unworthy the cook
that does not feel the poetry of his trade!
The two Klickatats, whether brothers or fellow-clans-
men, feasted enormously. Rasher after rasher of the fried,
block after block of the roasted, flake after flake of the
toasted salmon vanished. I should have supposed that the
Doctor was suffering with a bulimy, after short commons
in his worship of Tamanoiis, the mountain demon, had not
the appetite of Loolowcan, although well fed at three
meals in my service, been equal or greater. Before they
were quite gorged, I made them a pot of tea, well boDed
and sticky with sugar, and then retired to my dhudeen.
The summer evening air enfolded me sweetly, and down
from the cliffs and snowy mounds of Tacoma a cool breeze
fell like the spray of a cascade.
After their banquet, the Indians were in merry mood,
and fell to chaffing one another. With me Loolowcan was
76 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
taciturn. I could not tell whether he was dull, sulky, or
suspicious. When I smote him with the tempered steel
of a keen query, meaning to elicit sparks of information
on Indian topics, no illumination came. He acted judi-
ciously his part, and talked little. Nor did he bore me with
hints, as bystanders do in Christendom, but believed that
I knew also my part. With his comrade he was communi-
cative and jolly, even to uproariousness. They laughed
sunset out and twilight in, finding entertainment in every-
thing that was or that happened, — in their raggedness, in
the holes in their moccasins, in their overstuffed proportions
after dinner, in the little skirmishes of the horses, when a
grasshopper chirped or a cricket sang, when either of them
found a sequence of blackberries or pricked himself with a
thorn, — in every fact of our little world these children of
nature found wonderment and fun. They laughed them-
selves sleepy, and then dropped into slumber in the ferny
covert.
As night drew on, heaven overhead, seen as from the
bottom of a well, was so starry clear and intelligible, and
the circuit of forest so dreamy mysterious by contrast, that
I found restful delight, better than sleep, in studying the
clearness above the mystery. But twilight drifted away
after the sun, and darkness blackened my green blankets.
I mummied myself in their folds, and rolled in among the
tall, elastic, fragrant ferns.
My last vision, as sleep came upon me, was the eyes of
Loolowcan staring at me, and glowing serpent-like. At
midnight, when I stirred, the same look watched me by
the dim light of our embers. And when gray dawn drew
over our bivouac, and my blankets from black to green
began to turn, the same dusky, unvariegated eyeballs were
inspecting me still. As to the little medicine-man, he had
no responsibility at present; a pleasant episode had befallen
him, and he made the most of it, sleeping unwatchfully.
Seediness of a morning is not the meed of him who has
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES.
77
slept near Tacoma with naught but a green blanket and
miles of elastic atmosphere between him and the stars.
When I woke, sleep fell from me suddenly, as a lowly dis-
guise falls from a prince in a pantomime. I sprang up,
myself, fresh, clear-eyed, and with never a regretful yawn.
Nothing was astir in nature save the
river, rushing nigh at hand, and rousing
me to my day's career by its tale of
travel and urgency.
It was a joy to behold three horses
so well fed as my stud appeared. Klale
looked toward me and whinnied grate-
fully for the juicy grasses and ferny bed
of his sheltered paddock, and also for
the remembrance of a new sensation he
had had the day before, — he had carried
a biped through a day of travel, and
the biped had not massacred him with
his whip. Klale thought better and
more hopefully of humanity. Tougher
Gubbins, who, with Loolowcan on his
back, had had no such experience, sung
no paeans, but stood doltishly awaiting
a continuance of the inevitable discom-
forts of life.
After breakfast, the Doctor hinted
that he liked my cheer and my society,
and would gladly volunteer to accom-
pany me if I would mount him upon
Antipodes. I pointed out to him that
it would be weak to follow with us along flowery paths
of pleasure, when stem virtue called him to the moun-
tain-tops; that Tamanoiis would not pardon backsliding.
I suggested that I was prepared for the appetite of only
one Klickatat gourmand, and that my tacit bargain with
Antipodes did not include his carrying an eater as well
Nisqually Carved Wood
Figure, made by Luke,
a follower of the cele-
brated Leschl.
78 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
as provisions. The youth received my refusal impassively;
to ask for everything, and never be disappointed at getting
nothing, is Indian manners. We left him standing among
the ferns, gazing vacantly upon the world, and devouring
a present of hardtack I had given him, — he was ridding
himself at once of that memorial of civilization, that, with
bow and arrows in hand, he might relapse into barbarism,
in pathless wilds along the flanks of Tacoma.
Soon the trail took a dip in the river, — a morning bath
in. S'Kamish.* Rapid, turbulent, and deep was the
S'Kamish, white with powder of the boulders it had been
churning above, and so turbid that boulders here were
invisible. We must ford with our noses pointing up stream,
least the urgent water, bearing against the broadsides of
our unsteady horses, should dowse, if not drown us. Klale,
floundering sometimes, but always recovering himself , took
me over stoutly. My moccasins and scarlet leggins were
wet, but I had not become dazed in the whirr and fallen,
as it is easy to do. Lubberly Antipodes flinched. He had
some stupid theory that the spot we had chosen, just at
the break above of a rapids, was a less commodious ford
than the smooth whirlpools below. He turned aside from
honest roughness to deluding smoothness. He stepped
into the treacherous pool, and the waters washed over him.
There was bread in the bags he bore. In an instant he
scrambled out, trying to look meritorious, as dolts do when
they have done doltishly and yet escaped. And there
was pulp in the bags he bore. Pulp of hardtack was now
oozing through the seams. I was possessor of two bag
puddings. My cakes were dough. Downright and
desiccating may be the sunshine of Oregon August, but
pilot-bread converted into wet sponge resists a sunbeam as
a cotton-bale resists a cannon-ball. Only a few inner
layers of the bread were untouched; as to the outer strata,
mouldiness pervaded them. Yet some one profited by this
♦The White River.
TTTNCTION OF THE WHITE AND GREENWATKK K1VKK>
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 79
disaster; Loolowcan henceforth had mouldy biscuit at dis-
cretion. His discretion would not have rejected even a
fungous article. To him my damp and crumbling crackers
were a delicacy, the better for their earthy fragrance and
partial fermentation.
We struck the trail again after this slight misadventure,
and went on through forests nobler and denser than those
of the dry levels near Whulge. The same S'Kamish floods
that spoiled my farinaceous stores nourished to greater
growth the mighty vegetables of this valley. The arbor-
vitae here gained grander arborescence and fresher vitality.
This shrub of our gardens in the Middle States, and gnarled
tree of the Northeast, becomes in the Northwest a giant
pyramid, with rich plates of foliage drooping massively
about a massive trunk. Its full, juicy verdure, sweeping
to the ground, is a relief after the monotony of the stark
stems of fir forests.* There was no lack of luxuriant under-
growth along these lowlands by the river. The narrow trail
plunged into thickets impenetrable but for its aid. Wherever
ancient trunks had fallen, there they lay; some in old decay
had become green, mossy mounds, the long graves of
prostrate giants, so carefully draped with their velvet
*The western red cedar, Thuja plicata, here distinguished from
Thuja occidentalis, the dwarf white cedar or arbor-vitse of eastern lawns,
is one of the most interesting members of our Northwestern forest.
Winthrop's account closely fits the younger trees. Unless in very crowded
stands, which are rare and of small extent, — the Thnjae are good mix-
ers, and not addicted to clannishness,- — they retain their long, graceful
branches of gold-green foliage till their trunks gain a diameter of fifteen
or twenty inches. Then, in the struggle for sunlight, the tree drops its
lower limbs, and its clean stalk towers eighty or a hundred feet to the
first branch. The deeply fluted, conical butts of patriarchal cedars are
sometimes fifteen or twenty feet in diameter; their stumps show nearly
a thousand annua! rings.
The red cedar is easily recognized, not only by its "giant pyramid"
of "rich plates of foliage," but also by its tapering trunk and thin and fi-
brous cinnamon-brown bark. Its light, soft but exceedingly durable
wood makes it important for timber. A frequent sight in these forests
is a fallen cedar which has lain in damp ground for half a century or
more, still sound at core, but with a stalwart young hemlock or
other tree rooted in its rotting surface. Both the fallen tree and its
sturdy parasite are often logged for the mills.
80 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
covering that all sense of ruin was gone. And some, that
fell from uprightness but a few seasons ago, showed still
their purple bark deepening in hue and dotted with tufts
of moss; or where a crack had opened and revealed their
inner structure rotting slowly away, there was such warm
coloring as nature loves to shed, that even decay may not
be unlovely, and the powdery wood, fractured into flaky
cubes, showed browns deep as the tones of old Flemish
pictures, or changeful agate-like crimsons and solid yellows.
Not always had the ancient stem fallen to lie prone and
hidden by younger growths, whose life was sucked from
the corse of their ancestor. Sometimes, as the antiquated
arbor-vitse, worn away at its base, swayed, bent, and
went crashing downward, it had been arrested among the
close ranks of upstart trunks, and hung there still, with
long gray moss floating from it, like the torn banners in
a baronial chapel, — hung there until its heart should rot
and crumble, and then, its shell of bark breaking, it should
give way, and shower down in scales and dust.
In this northern forest there was no feverish appre-
hension, such as we feel in a jungle of the tropics, that
every breath may be poison, — that centipede in boot and
scorpion in pocket, mere external perils, will be far less
fatal than the inhaling of dense miasms, stirred from villain-
ous ambushes beneath mounds of flowery verdure. Here
no black and yellow serpent defended the way, lifting above
its ugly coil a mobile head, with jaws that quiver and fangs
that play. It was a forest without poison, — without mi-
asma, and without venom.
It was a forest just not impassable for a train like mine,
and the trail was but a faint indication of a way, suggesting
nothing except to the trained eye of an Indian. Into the
pleached thickets Klale could plunge and crash through,
while his cavalier fought against buffeting branches, and
bent to saddle-horn to avoid the fate of Absalom. But
when new-fallen trunks of the sylvan giants, or great
THE " SIWASH HOOIHUT."
"The trail took us speedily into a forest-temple. Long
years of labor by artists the most unconscious of their
skill had been given to modeUing these columnar firs.
Unlike the pillars of human architecture, chipped and
chiselled in bustling, dusty quarries, and hoisted to
their site by sweat of brow and creak of pulley, these
rose to fairest proportions by the life that was in them,
and blossomed into filiated capitals three hundred
feet overhead."
—Chapter V.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 81
mossy mounds, built barricades across the path, tall as
the quadruped whose duty it was to leap over them — how
in such case Klale the sprightly? how here Antipodes the
flounderer? how Gubbins, stiff in the joints?
Thus, by act answered Klale, — thus: by a leap, by a
scramble, by a jerking plunge, by a somerset; like a cat,
like a squirrel, like a monkey, like an acrobat, like a mus-
tang. To overpass these obstacles is my business; be it
yours to pass with me. You must prove to me, a nag of
the Klickatats, that Boston strangers are as sticky as
siwashes. Centaurs have somewhat gone out. I have
been a party and an actor when the mustang sprang lightly
over the barricade, and his rider stayed upon the other
side supine, and gazing still where he had just seen a dis-
appearance of horse-heels.
Not wishing to lose the respect of so near a comrade as
my horse, I did not allow our union to be dissolved. We
clung together like voluntary Siamese twins, dashing be-
tween fir-trunks, where my nigh leg or my off leg must whisk
away to avoid amputation, thrusting ourselves beneath the
aromatic denseness of the drooping arbor-\itae, smothered
together in punk when a moss mound gave way and we
sank down into the dusty grave of a buried monarch of
his dell, or caught and balanced half-way over as we essayed
to leap the broad back of a fir fifteen feet in the girth.
Whether Klale, in our frantic scrambles, became a biped,
gesticulating and clutching the air with two hoofed arms, —
or whether a monopod, alighted on his nose and lifting on
high a quintette of terminations, four legs and a tail, — still
Klale and I remained inseparable.
Assuredly the world has no path worse than that, —
not even South American muds or damaged corduroys in
tropic swamps. But men must pay their footing by labor,
and we urged on, with horses educated to their task, often
fording the S'Kamish, and careless now of wetting, clam-
bering up ridges black with sunless woods, and penetrating
82 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
steadily on through imperviousness. Indian trails aim
at the open hillsides and avoid the thickset valleys; but in
this most primeval of forests the obstacles on the rugged
buttresses of the Cascade chain were impracticable as the
dense growth below.
"Ancoti nesika nanitch Boston hooihut; presently we
see the Boston road," said Loolowcan. A glad sight
whenever it comes, should "Boston road" here imply neat
macadam, well-kept sidewalks, and files of pretty cottages,
behind screens of disciplined shrubbery. I had heard
indefinitely that a party of "Boston" men — for so all
Am.ericans are called in the Chinook jargon — were out
from the settlements of Whulge, viewing, or possibly open-
ing, a way across the Cascades, that emigrants of this
summer might find their way into Washington Territory
direct, leaving the great overland caravan route near the
junction of the two forks of the Columbia. Such an enter-
prise was an epoch in progress. It was the first effort of an
infant community to assert its individuality and emancipate
itself from the tutelage of Oregon.*
Very soon the Boston hooihut became apparent. An
Indian's trail came into competition \v'ith a civilized man's
rude beginnings of a road. Wood-choppers had passed
through the forest, hke a tornado, making a broad belt of
confusion. Trim Boston neighborhoods would have
scoffed at this rough-and-tumble cleft of the wild wood,
and declined being responsible for its title. And yet two
centuries before this tramp of mine, my progenitors were
cutting just such paths near Boston, and then Canonicus,
Chickatabot, and Passaconomy, sagamores of that region,
were regarding the work very much as Owhhigh, Skloo, and
Kamaiakan, the "tyees" hereabouts, might contrast this
path with theirs. At present this triumvirate of chieftainly
si washes would have rightly deemed the Boston road far
*For an account of the "Citizens' Road," later known as the "Mili-
tary Road," see Appendix B.
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 83
inferior to their own. So the unenlightened generally deem,
when they inspect the destruction that precedes recon-
struction. This was a transition period. In the Cascades,
Klickatat institutions were toppling, Boston notions coming
in. It was the fulness of time. Owhhigh and his piratical
band, slaves of Time and Space, might go dodging with
lazy detours about downcast trunks, about tangles of shrubs
and brambles, about zones of morass; but Boston clans were
now, in the latter day, on tht march, intending to be
masters of Time and Space, and straightforwardness was
to be the law of motion here.
It was a transition state of things on the Boston hooihut,
with all the incommodities of that condition. The baiTi-
cades of destructive disorder were in place, not yet displaced
by constructive order. Passage by this road of the future
was monstrous hard.
There is really no such thing as a conservative. Joshua is
the only one on record who ever accomplished anything,
and he only kept things quiet for one day. We must either
move forward with Hope and Faith, or backward to decay
and death of the soul. But though no man, not even
himself, has any real faith in a conservative, for this one
occasion I was compelled to violate the law of my nature, —
to identify myself with conservatism, and take the ancient
trail instead of the modern highway. Stiff as the obstacles
in the trail might be, the obstacles of the road were still
stiffer; stumps were in it, fresh cut and upstanding with
sharp or splintered edges; felled trunks were in it, with
wedge-shaped butts and untrimmed branches, forming
impregnable abattis. One might enter those green bowers
as a lobster enters the pot; extrication was another and a
tougher task. Every inch of the surface was planted with
laming caltrops, and the saplings and briers that once gi^ew
there elastic were now thrown together, a bristling hedge.
A belt of forest had been unmade and nothing made.
Patriotic sympathy did indeed influence me to stumble
84 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
a little way along this shaggy waste. I launched my
train into this complexity, floundered awhile in one
of its unbridged bogs, and wrestled in its thorny labyrinths,
until so much of my patience as was not bemired was
flagellated to death by scorpion scourges of briers. I trod
these mazes until even Klale showed signs of disgust, and
Antipodes, ungainly plodder, could only be propelled by
steady discipline of thwacks. Then I gave up my attempt
to be a consistent radical. I shook off the shavings and
splinters of a pioneer chaos, and fell back into primeval ways.
In the siwash hooihut there was nothing to be expected,
and therefore no acrid pang of disappointment pierced
my prophetic soul when I found that path no better than
it should be. Pride fired those dusky tunnels, the eyes of
Loolowcan, when we alighted again upon his national
road. The Boston hooihut was a failure, a miserable
muddle. Loolowcan leaped Gubbins over the first barricade,
and, pointing where Antipodes trotted to the sound of
rattling packs along the serpentine way, said calmly, and
without too ungenerous scorn, "Closche ocook; beautiful
this."
Though I had abandoned their undone road, I was
cheered to have met fresh traces of my countrymen. Their
tree surgery was skilful. No clumsy, tremulous hand had
done butchery here with haggling axe. The chopping was
handiwork of artists, men worthy to be regicide headsmxen
of forest monarchs. By their cleavage light first shone
into this gloaming; the selfish grandeurs of this incognito
earth were opened to-day. I flung myself forward two
centuries, and thanked these pioneers in the persons of
posterity dwelling peacefully in this noble region. He who
strikes the first blow merits all thanks. May my descendants
be as grateful to these Boston men as I am now to the
Boston men of two centuries ago. And may they remember
ancestral perils and difficulties kindly, as I now recall how
godly Puritans once brandished ruder axes and bill-hooks,
1 ri t"
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 85
opening paths of future peace on the shores of Massa-
chusetts.
Our ascent was steady along the gorge of the S'Kamish,
ever in this same dense forest. We had, however, escaped
from the monotony of the bare fir-trunks. Columns, even
such as those gracefullest relics of Olympian Jove's temple
by the Cephissus, would weary were they planted in ranks
for leagues. The magnificent pyramids of arbor- vitse filled
the wood with sheen from their bright, varnished leafage.
It was an untenanted, silent forest, but silence here in this
sunshiny morning I found not awful, hardly even solemn.
Solitude became to me personal, and pregnant with possible
emanations, as if I were a faithful pagan in those early days
when gods were seen of men, and when, under Grecian
skies, Pan and the Naiads whispered their secrets to the
lover of Nature.
There was rough vigor in these scenes, which banished
the half -formed dread that forest loneliness and silence with-
out a buzz or a song, and dim vistas where sunlight falls in
ghostly shapes, and leaves shivering as if a sprite had passed,
may inspire. Pan here would have come in the form of a
rough, jolly giant, typifying the big, beneficent forces of
Nature in her rugged moods. Instead of dreading such a
comrade, his presence seemed a fitting culmination to the
influences of the spot, and, yielding to a wild exhilaration, I
roused the stillness with appealing shouts.
"Mika wah wah copa Tamanoiis? you talk with de-
mons?" inquired Loolowcan with something of mysterious
awe in his tone.
I called unto the gods of the forest, but none answered.
No sound came back to me save some chance shots of echo
where my voice struck a gray, sinewy cedar-trunk, that
rang again, or the gentle murmur of solitude disturbed
deep in the grove, as the circles of agitated air vibrated
again to calmness. No answer from Pan or Pan's unruly
rout, — no sound from Satjr, Nymph, or Faun,— though
86 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
I shouted and sang ever so loudly to them upon my way.
Through this broad belt of woodland, utterly lifeless and
lonely, I rode steadily, never dallying. In the early after-
noon I came upon a little bushy level near the S'Kamish.
We whisked along the bends of the trail, when, suddenly
whisking, I pounced upon a biped, — a man, — a Caucasian
man,— a Celtic soldier,— a wayworn U. S. Fourth Infantry
sergeant, — a meditative smoker, apart from the little army
encamped within hail.
I followed him toward the tent of his fellows. They
were not revelling in the mad indulgence of camp-life. Nor
were their prancing steeds champing angry bits and neighing
defiance at the foe. Few of those steeds were in marching,
much less in prancing order. If they champed their iron
bits, it was because they had no other nutriment to nibble
at in that adust halting-place. As to camp revelry, the
American army has revelled but once, — in the Halls of the
Montezumas, — a very moderate allowance of revelry for a
space of threescore and ten years. Since that time they
have fortunately escaped the ugly business of butchery,
antecedent to revelry. Their better duty has been to act
as the educated pioneers and protectors of Western progress.
Such was the office of this detachment. They were
of Capt. McClellan's expedition for flushing a Pacific Rail-
road in the brakes and bosks and tangled forests of the
Cascades. I, taking casual glimpses through intricacy, had
flushed or scared up only an unfledged Boston hooihut.
Their success had been no greater, and while the main
body continued the hunt, this smaller party was on commis-
sariat service, going across to Squally and Steflacoom for
other bags of pork and hardtack, lest dinnerlessness should
befall the Hunters of Railroads, and there should be aching
voids among them that no tightening of belt-buckles could
relieve.
I found an old acquaintance, Lieut. H., in command of
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES.
87
these foragers.* Three months before we had descended
the terrace where Columbia Barracks behold the magnifi-
cent sweeps of the Columbia, and, far beyond, across a
realm of forest, Mt. Hood, sublime pyramid of snows, — we
had strolled down together to the river-bank to take our
stirrup-cup with Governor Ogden, kindliest of hosts, at the
Hudson's Bay Company's post of Fort Vancouver. Now,
after wanderings hither and yon, we suddenly confronted
BRIG. GEN. HENRY C. HODGES. U. S. A.
The "Lieut. H." of Chapter V.
each other in the wilderness, and exchanged hearty greet-
ings. I was the enviable man, with my compact party and
horses in tolerable condition. He officered a squadron of
Rosinantes, a very wayworn set, and the obstacles on the
trail that I could lightly skip over he must painfully be-
leaguer. He informed me that the road-makers were at
work somewhere this side of the summit of the Pass. I
might overtake them before night.
While we sympathized and gossiped, Loolowcan slunk
forward to say, "Sia-a-ah mitlite ocook tipsoo, car nesika
*For Gen. Hodges's reminescences of Winthrop, see Appendix C.
88 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
moosum; far, far is that grass spot where we sleep; — pe
wake siah chaco pohkely; and not far comes night."
So I turned from the tents of the busy camp, busy even
in repose. H. walked with me to the S'Kamish to show me
the ford. If from the scanty relics of his stores he could
not offer hospitality, he would give me a fact from his
experience of crossing the river, so that I need not dip
involuntarily in the deeps, and swallow cold comfort. On
the bank some whittlers of his squad had amused them-
selves with whittling down a taper fir-tree, a slender wand,
three hundred feet in length from where its butt lay among
the chips, to the tip of its pompon, where it had fallen across
the stream.
H. looked suspiciously upon the low-browed and frowzy
Loolowcan, and doubted the safety and certainty of journey-
ing with such a guide in such a region,— as, indeed, I did
myself. I forded unducked in the ripples, turned to wave
him adieu, and blotted myself out of his sphere behind the
sky-scraper firs. We met next in the foyer of the opera,
between acts of Tra^'iata.
Loneliness no longer lay heavy in the woods. It was
shattered and trampled out where that little army had
marched. Presently in their trail a ghostly object appeared,
— not a ghost, but something tending fast toward the
ghostly state; a poor, wasted, dreary white horse, standing
in the trail, abandoned, too stiff to fall, too weaiy to stir.
Every winged phlebotomizer of the Oregon woods seemed
to have hastened hither to blacken that pale horse, soon to be
Death's, and, though he trembled feebly, he had not power
to scatter the nipping insects vAih. a convulsive shake. I
approached, and whisked away his tormentors by the aid
of a maple-bush. They fought me for a while, but finding
me resolute, confident in their long-enduring patience, they
retired with a loud and angry buzz. I could find no morsel
of refreshment for him in the bitter woods. At mouldy
hardtack he shook a despairing head. In fact, it was too
a giant
FORESTS OF THE CASCADES. 89
late. There comes a time to horses when they cannot
prance with the prancers, or plod with the plodders, or trail
weary hoofs after the march of their comrades. Yet it was
more chivalric for this worn-out estray to die here in the
aromatic forest, than to lose life in the vile ooze of a Broad-
way.
Poor, lean mustang, victim of progress! Nothing to
do but let him die, since I could not bring myself to a merci-
ful assassination. So I went on disconsolate after the sight
of suffering, until my own difficulties along that savage
trail compelled my thought away from dwelling on another's
pain.
Potlatcb House of the Skokomish Indians, at Inati, on Hood's Canal.
VI.
BOSTON TILICUM
Night was now coming, — twilight, dearest and tenderest
of all the beautiful changes of circling day was upon us. But
twilight, the period of repose, and night, of restful slumbers,
are not welcome to campaigners, unless a camp, with water,
fodder, and fuel, the three requisites of a camp, are provided.
We saw our day waning without having revealed to us a
spot where these three were coincident. Fuel, indeed,
there was anywhere without stint, and water might be found
without much searching. But in this primeval wood there
were no beds of verdant herbage where Klale and his
companions might solace themselves for clambering and
plunging and leaping all day. Verdancy enough there was
under foot, but it was the green velvet of earthy moss. In
some dusty, pebbly openings where the river overflows in
spring, the horses had had a noon nibble at spears of gi'ass,
juiceless, scanty, and unattractive. My trio of hungry
horses flagged sadly.
It v/as darkening fast when we reached an open spot
where Loolowcan had hoped to find gi^ass. Arid starvation
alone was visible. Even such wiry attempts at verdure
as the stagnant blood of this petty desert had been able to
force up through its harsh pores were long ago shaved away
by drought. The last nibbles had been taken to-day by
the sorry steeds of the exploring party.
There was nothing for it but to go on. Whither? To
the next crossing of the river, where the horses might make
"BOSTON TILICUM." 91
what they could out of water, and entertain themselves
with browsing at alder and maple.
We hurried on, for it was now dark. The Boston hooihut
suddenly came charging out of the gloaming, and crossed
the trail. Misunderstanding the advice of my taciturn
and monosyllabic guide, I left the Indian way, and followed
the white man's. Presently it ended, but the trees were
blazed where it should pass. Blazes were but faint signals
of guidance by twilight. Dimmer grew the woods. Stars
were visible overhead, and the black circles of the forest
shut off the last gleams of the west. Every obstacle of fallen
tree, bramble, and quagmire now loomed large and for-
midable. And then in the darkness, now fully possessor
of the woods, the blazes suddenly disappeared, went out,
and ceased, like a deluding will-o'-the-wisp. Here was a
crisis. Had the hooihut actually given out here in an
invisible blaze, high up a stump? Road that dared so much
and did so much, were its energies effete, its purpose broken
down? And the pioneers, had they shrunk away from
leadership of civilization, and slunk homeward?
However that might be, we were at present lost. Ride
thou on, Loolowcan, and see if Somewhere is hereabouts;
we cannot make a night of it in Nowhere.
Loolowcan dashed Gubbins at darkness; it opened and
closed upon him. For a moment I could hear him crashing
through the wood; then there was silence. I was quite
alone.
Prying into silence for sight or sound, I discerned a
rumble, as if of water over a pebbly path. I fastened
Klale and Antipodes, as beacons of return, and, laying hold
of the pleasant noise of flowing, went with it. Somewhere
was actually in my near neighborhood. Sound guided me
to sight. Suddenly behind the fu'-trunks I caught the gleam
of fire. At the same moment, Loolowcan, cautiously stealing
back, encountered me.
"Hin pasaiooks copa pu'e, nika nanitch-pose wake siks;
92 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
many blanketeers, by a fire, I behold," he whispered, "per-
haps not friends."
"Conoway pasaiooks siks copa pasaiooks; all blanketeers
friends to blanketeers," I boldly asseverated without regard
to history; "wake quash, — ocook Boston tilicum, mamook
hooihut; fear not, — these are Boston folk, road-makers."
I led the way confidently toward their beacon-fire.
Friends or not, the pasaiooks were better company than
black tree-trunks. The flame, at first but a cloudy glimmer,
then a flicker, now gave broad and welcome light. It could
not conquer darkness with its bold illumination, for dark-
ness is large and strong; but it showed a path out of it. As
we worked our way slowly forward, the great trees closed
dimly after us, — giants attending out of their domain intrud-
ers very willing to be thus sped into realms of better omen.
Beating through a flagellant thicket, we emerged upon
the bank of my rumbling stream. Across it a great camp-
fire blazed. A belt of reflected crimson lay upon the clear
water. Every ripple and breaker of the hostile element
tore at this shadow of light, riving it into rags and streamers,
and drowning them away down the dell. Still the shattered
girdle was there undestroyed, lashing every coming gush
of waves, and smiting the stream as if to open a pathway
for us, new-comers forth from the darksome wood.
A score of men were grouped about the fire. Several
had sprung up alert at the crashing of our approach. Others
reposed untroubled. Others tended viands odoriferous and
fizzing. Others stirred the flame. Around, the forest rose,
black as Erebus, and the men moved in the glare against
the gloom like pitmen in the blackest of coal-mines.
I must not dally on the brink, half hid in the obscure
thicket, lest the alert ones below should suspect an ambush,
and point toward me open-mouthed rifles from their stack
near at hand. I was enough out of the woods to halloo,
as I did heartily. Klale sprang forward at shout and spur.
Antipodes obeyed a comprehensible hint from the whip
WINTHROP GLACIER.
Kortheast slope of Mt. Rainier — Tacoma. Named in
honor of Theodore Winthrop.
"The blue haze so wavered and trembled into sunlight,
and sunbeams shot glimmering over snowy brinks so
like a constant avalanche, that I m.ight doubt whether
this movement and waver and glimmer, this blending
of mist with noontide, were not a drifting smoke and
cloud of yellow sulphurous vapor floating over some
slowly chilling crater far down in the red crevices."
—Chapter VII.
"BOSTON TILICUM." 93
of Loolowcan. We dashed down into the crimson pathway,
and across among the astonished road-makers, — astonished
at the sudden ahghting down from Nowhere of a pair of
cavaliers, pasaiook and siwash. What meant this incursion
of a strange couple? I became at once the centre of a red-
flannel-shirted circle. The recumbents stood on end. The
cooks let their frying-pans bubble over, while, in response
to looks of expectation, I hung out my handbill, and told
the society my brief and simple tale. I was not running
away from any fact in my history. A harmless person,
asking no favors, with plenty of pork and spongy biscuit
in his bags, — only going home across the continent, if may
be, and glad, gentlemen pioneers, of this unexpected
pleasure.
My quality thus announced, the boss of the road-makers,
without any dissenting voice, offered me the freedom of
their fireside. He called for the fatted pork, that I might
be entertained right republicanly. Every cook proclaimed
supper ready. I followed my representative host to the
windward side of the greenwood pyre, lest smoke wafting
toward my eyes should compel me to disfigure the banquet
with lachrymose countenance.
Fronting the coals, and basking in their embrowning
beams, were certain diminutive targets, well known to me
as defensive armor against darts of cruel hunger, — cakes
of unleavened bread, hight flapjacks in the vernacular, con-
fected of flour and the saline juices of fire-ripened pork,
and kneaded well with drops of the living stream. Baked
then in frying-pan, they stood now, each nodding forward,
and resting its edge upon a planted twig, toasting crustily
till crunching-time should come. And now to every man
his target! Let supper assail us! No dastards with trencher
are we.
In such a Platonic republic as this, a man found his place
according to his powers. The cooks were no base scullions;
they were brethren, whom conscious ability, sustained by
94
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
universal suffrage, had endowed with the frying-pan. Each
man's target flapjack served him for platter and edible-
table. Coffee, also, for beverage, the fraternal cooks set
before us in infrangible tin pots, — coffee ripened in its red
husk by Brazilian suns thousands of leagues away, that we,
in cool northern forests, might feel the restorative power
of its concentrated sunshine, feeding vitality with fresh fuel.
But for my graminivorous steeds, gallopers all day long
EDWARD JAY ALLEN;
Leader of the Road Builders.
in rough, unflinching steeple-chase, what had nature done
here in the way of provender? Alas! little or naught. This
camp of plenty for me was a starvation camp for them.
Water, indeed, was turned on liberally; water was flowing
in full sluices from the neighbor snows of Tacoma; but more
than water was their need, while they feverishly browsed
on maple-leaves, to imbitter away their appetites. Only
a modicum of my soaked and fungous hardtack could be
spared to each. They turned upon me melancholy, re-
"BOSTON TILICUM." 96
proachful looks; they suffered, and I could only suffer
sympathetically. Poor preparation this for toil ahead! But
fat prairies also are ahead; have patience, empty mustangs!
My hosts were a stalwart gang. I had truly divined
them from their cleavage on the hooihut. It was but play
to any one of these to whittle down a cedar five feet in diam-
eter. In the m^orning, this compact knot of comrades would
explode into a mitraille of men wielding keen axes, and down
would go the dumb, stolid files of the forest. Their talk
was as muscular as their arms. When these laughed, as
only men fresh and hearty and in the open air can laugh,
the world became mainly grotesque; it seemed at once a
comic thing to live, — a subject for chuckling, that we were
bipeds, with noses, — a thing to roar at, that we had all met
there from the wide world, to hobnob by a frolicsome fire
with tin pots of coffee, and partake of crisped bacon and
toasted doughboys in ridiculous abundance. Easy laughter
infected the atmosphere. Echoes ceased to be pensive, and
became jocose. A rattling humor pervaded the forest, and
Green River rippled with noise of fantastic jollity.* Civ-
ilization and its dilettante diners-out sneer when Clodpole
at Dives's table doubles his soup, knifes his fish, tilts his
plate into his lap, puts muscle into the crushing of his
meringue, and tosses off the warm beaker in his finger-bowl.
Camps by Tacoma sneer not at all, but candidly roar, at
parallel accidents. Gawky makes a cushion of his flapjack.
Butterfingers drops his red-hot rasher into his bosom, or lets
slip his mug of coffee into his boot drying at the fire, — a boot
henceforth saccharine. A mule, slipping his halter, steps
forward unnoticed, puts his nose into the circle, and brays
resonant. These are the jocular boons of life, and at these
the woodsmen guffaw with lusty good-nature. Coarse and
*By "Green River" Winthrop means the stream we now call Green-
water River. Governor Stevens, in his Railway Report, makes the
same error. Green River flov/s west from Stampede Pass, about ten
miles north of Naches Pass. It furnishes the water-supply of the city
of Tacoma.
96 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
rude the jokes may be, but not nasty, like the innuendoes
of pseudo-refined cockneys. If the woodsmen are guilty
of uncleanly wit, it differs from the uncleanly wit of cities
as the mud of a road differs from the sticky slime of slums.
It is a stout sensation to meet masculine, muscular
men at the brave point of a penetrating Boston hooihut, —
men who are mates, — men to whom technical culture means
naught, — men to whom myself am naught, unless I can
saddle, lasso, cook, sing, and chop; unless I am a man of
nerve and pluck, and a brother in generosity and heartiness.
It is restoration to play at cudgels of jocoseness with a
circle of friendly roughs, not one of whom ever heard the
word bore, — with pioneers, who must think and act, and
wrench their living from the closed hand of Nature.
Men who slash with axes in Oregon woods need not be
chary of fuel. They fling together boles and branch'es
enough to keep any man's domestic Lares warm for a winter.
And over this vast pyre flame takes its splendid pleasure
with corybantic dances and roaring paeans of victory.
Fire, encouraged to do its work fully, leaves no unsightly
grim corses on the field. The glow of embers wastes into
the pallor of thin ashes; and winds may clear the spot, drift-
ing away and sprinkling upon brother trees faint, filmy relics
of their departed brethren.
While fantastic flashes were still leaping up and illu-
mining the black circuit of forest, every man made his bed,
laid down his blankets in starry bivouac, and slept like
a mummy. The camp became vocal with snores; nasal
with snores of various calibre was the forest. Some in tri-
umphant tones announced that dreams of conflict and
victory were theirs; some sighed in dulcet strains that told
of lover dreams; some drew shrill whistles through cavernous
straits; some wheezed grotesquely, and gasped piteously;
and from some who lay supine, snoring up at the fretted
roof of forest, sound gushed in spasms, leaked in snorts,
bubbled in puffs, as steam gushes, leaks, and bubbles from
THE "BOSTON HOOIHUT."
Portion of the famous "Military Road" across the Naches Pass, with a grade
of thirty per cent. Down this grade the "emigrants" of territorial
days "snubbed" their wagons with chains around the trees.
"BOSTON TILICUM." 97
yawning valves in degraded steamboats. They died away
into the music of my dreams, a few moments seemed to
pass, and it was day.
As the erect lily droops when the subterranean worm
has taken a gnaw at its stalk, — as the dahlia desponds from
blossom to tuber when September frosts nip shrewdly, —
so at breakfastless morn, after supperless eve, drooped Klale,
feebly drooped Gubbins, flabbily drooped Antipodes. A
sorry sight! Starvation, coming on the heels of weariness,
was fast reducing my stud to the condition of the ghostly
estray from the exploring party. But prosperity is not
many leagues away from this adversity. Have courage,
my trio, if such a passion is possible to the unfed!
If horses were breakfastless, not so was their master.
The road-makers had insisted that I should be their guest,
partaking not only of the fu-e, air, earth, and water of their
bivouac, but of an honorable share at their feast. Hardly
had the snoring of the snorers ceased, when the frying of
the fryers began. In the pearly-gray mists of dawn, purple
shu-ts were seen busy about the kindhng pile; in the golden
haze of sunrise, cooks brandished pans over fierce coals
raked from the red-hot jaws of flame that champed their
breakfast of fir logs. Rashers, doughboys not without mo-
lasses, and coffee — a bill of fare identical with last night's
— were our morning meal; but there was absolute change
of circumstance to prevent monotony. We had daylight
instead of firelight, freshness instead of fatigue, and every
man flaunted a motto of "Up and doing!" upon his ori-
flamme, instead of trailing a drooping flag, inscribed "Done
up!"
And so adieu, gentlemen pioneers, and thanks for your
frank, manly hospitality! Adieu, "Boston tilicum," far
better types of robust Americanism than some of those
selected as its representatives by Boston of the Orient,
where is too much worship of what is, and not too much
uplifting of hopeful looks toward what ought to be!
98 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
As I started, the woodsmen gave me a salute. Down,
to echo my shout of farewell, went a fir of fifty years' stand-
ing. It cracked sharp, like the report of a howitzer, and
crashed downward, filling the woods with shattered branches.
Under cover of this first shot, I dashed at the woods. I
could ride more boldly forward into savageness, knowing
that the front ranks of my nation were following close
behind.
Yakima Stono Cooking Pots.
VIEW SOUTHWEST FROM PYRAMID PEAK,
NORTH OF NACHES PASS.
"I had been following thus for many hours the blind
path, harsh, darksome, and utterly lonely. At last, as
I stormed a ragged crest, gaining a height that over-
topped the firs, — as I looked somewhat wearily across
the solemn surges of the forest, suddenly above their
sombre green appeared Tacoma. Large and neighbor
it stood, so near that every jewel of its snow-fields
seemed to send m.e a separate ray; yet not so near but
that I could with one look take in its whole image, from
clear-cut edge to edge. All around it the dark evergreens
rose like a ruff; above them the mountain splendors
swelled statelier for the contrast."
—Chapter VII.
MOH-i 7837/: ^17
Zl-S .- ■/ Ml •> t-T'l"
VII.
TACOMA.
Up and down go the fortunes of men, now benignant,
now malignant. Ante meridiem of our lives, we are rising
characters. Our full noon comes, and we are borne with
plaudits on the shoulders of a grateful populace. Post
meridiem, we are ostracized, if not more rudely mobbed.
At twilight, we are perhaps recalled, and set on the throne
of Nestor.
Such slow changes in esteem are for men of some im-
port and of settled character. Loolowcan suffered under
a more rapidly fluctuating public opinion. At the camp
of the road-makers, he had passed through a period of
neglect, — almost of ignominy. My hosts had prejudices
against redskins; they treated the son of Owhhigh with no
consideration; and he became depressed and slinking in
manner under the influence of their ostracism. No sooner
had we disappeared from the range of Boston eyes than
Loolowcan resumed his leadership and his control. I was
very secondary now, and followed him humbly enough up
the heights we had reached. Here were all the old difficul-
ties increased, because they were no longer met on a level.
We were to climb the main ridge, — the mountain of La Tete, ♦
— abandoning the valley, assaulting the summits. And here,
*"La Tete," as the name of an elevation on the west side of the Cas-
cades, is found in many documents of the Territorial days. The name,
it is said, was given by the French-Canadian trappers of the Hudson's
Bay Company, because of a crag on the summit shaped like a human
head. This mountain, however, appears on no topographical survey
or other authentic map, and its location is somewhat in dispute among
the surviving pioneers. Captain Wilkes, members of whose party crossed
100 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
as Owhhigh had prophesied in his harangue at Nisqually,
the horse's mane must be firmly grasped by the cUmber.
Poor, panting, weary nags! may it be true, the promise of
Loolowcan, that not far away is abundant fodder! But
where can aught, save firs with ostrich digestion, grow on
these rough, forest-clad shoulders?
So I clambered on till near noon.
I had been following thus for many hours the blind
the range in 1842, gives the height of La TSte by barometer as 2,798
feet. {Wilkes: U. S. Exploring Expedition, IV., 422). This low ele-
vation would place it well down on the west slope. Governor Stevens,
in his Pacfic Railway Report, says it is near the junction of the White
and Green (Greenwater) rivers. This is indefinite; peaks in that region
are almost as thick as huckleberry bushes on a mountain burn. Several
of my informants assign it, more exactly, to the north side of the White,
about a mile west of Greenwater.
It is certain, however, that Winthrop's "La Tete" was something
else. He had no time for a detour, and climbed no elevation which his
forced march across the range did not require him to climb. The text
shows that his inspiring view of "Tacoma" was had from an eminence
on the line of his trip, not off it; and very shortly before he reached his
noonday camp in the glacial meadows at the top of the Pass. The old
Indian trail, as well as the track of the "Military Road," leaves the Green-
water several miles west of the Pass, and leads up the steep chine of a
ridge between deep canyons cut by feeders of that stream. It is the sum-
mit of this ridge to which Winthrop gives a name he had doubtless heard
the night before among the road builders. This summit is now densely
covered by young forest, largely grown since Winthrop's time. A much
greater elevation, with still wider outlook,^ Pyramid Peak, on the
north side of Naches Pass, — was climbed to obtain some of the photo-
graphs reproduced in this volume.
In the '50s, "La Tete" was a well-known landmark on the route
across the Cascades. Like other mountain districts, its sides were burnt
from time to time by the Indians, who thus held their favorite berry
fields against the encroachment of the forest. Not far away, within
the fork of the two rivers, is a small salal-covered flat, treeless then and
now, and known as "Bear Prairie." As the densely forested western
slope of the Cascades offered scant pasture for horses and cattle. Gov-
ernor Stevens, in order to aid the new settlers who were expected to
use this route in completing their long trek to Puget Sound, asked
the second territorial legislature to make a small appropriation for sowing
Bear Prairie and the sides of La Tete with grass seed. The very simplicity
of his humane recommendation provoked a bray from that familiar nui-
sance, the would-be wit of the legislature, and defeated the suggestion.
"Governor Stevens," shouted this statesman, who knew more about the
plans of Providence than about commonwealth-building, — "Governor
Stevens needn't try to make grass grow where God Almighty did not
make it grow!" — Stevens, I., 446.
TACOMA. 101
path, harsh, darksome, and utterly lonely, urging on with
no outlook, encountering no landmark, — at last, as I stormed
a ragged crest, gaining a height that overtopped the firs,
and, halting there for panting moments, glanced to see if
I had achieved mastery as well as position, — as I looked
somewhat wearily and drearily across the solemn surges of
forest, suddenly above their sombre green appeai'ed Tacoma.
Large and neighbor it stood, so near that every jewel of
its snow-fields seemed to send me a separate ray; yet not
so near but that I could with one look take in its whole
image, from clear-cut edge to edge.
All around it the dark evergreens rose like a ruff; above
them the mountain splendors swelled statelier for the con-
trast. Simlight of noon was so refulgent upon the crown,
and lay so thick and dazzling in nooks and chasms, that
the eye sought repose of gentler lights, and found it in
shadowed nooks and clefts, where, sunlight entering not,
delicate mist, an emanation from the blue sky, had fallen,
and lay sheltered and tremulous, a mild substitute for the
stronger glory. The blue haze so wavered and trembled
into sunlight, and sunbeams shot glimmering over snowy
brinks so like a constant avalanche, that I might doubt
whether this movement and waver and glimmer, this blend-
ing of mist with noontide flame, were not a drifting smoke
and cloud of yellow sulphurous vapor floating over some
slowly chilling crater far down in the red crevices.*
*It was the afternoon of Saturday, August 27, when Winthrop
beheld this scene, one of the noblest mountain spectacles in the world.
See his Journal entry for that day, page 283, and note.
As he looked southwest from the edge of Naches Pass, he saw directly
facing him, twenty miles away, the great ice-stream that has since,
and for many years now, been named by local usage "Winthrop Glacier."
Immediately west of it is Carbon Glacier, lying deep in its cirque. On
the east is White or "Emmons" Glacier, feeding the East, or main, fork
of White River, the vast canyon of which yawned below as our author
looked across the soHdly forested ridges to the dominating white heights.
Winthrop's viewpoint was at the same angle, though lower, than that
from which, just sixty years later, Mr. Linsley obtained his splendid
photographs, reproduced among the illustrations of this volume.
102 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE
But if the giant fires had ever burned under that cold
summit, they had long since gone out. The dome that
swelled up passionately had crusted over and then fallen
in upon itself, not vigorous enough with internal life to
bear up in smooth proportion. Where it broke into ruin
was no doubt a desolate waste, stern, craggy, and riven,
but such drear results of Titanic convulsion the gentle
snows hid from view.
No foot of man had ever trampled those pure snows.
It was a virginal mountain, distant from the possibility
of human approach and human inquisitiveness as a marble
goddess is from human loves. Yet there was nothing un-
sympathetic in its isolation, or despotic in its distant majesty.
But this serene loftiness was no home for any deity of those
that men create. Only the thought of eternal peace arose
from this heaven-upbearing monument like incense, and,
overflowing, filled the world with deep and holy calm.
Wherever the mountain turned its cheek toward the
sun, many fair and smiling dimples appeared, and along
soft curves of snow, lines of shadow drew tracery, fair as
the blue veins on a child's temple. Without the infinite
sweetness and charm of this kindly changefulness of form
and color, there might have been oppressive awe in the
presence of this transcendent glory against the solemn blue
of noon. Grace played over the surface of majesty, as a
drift of rose-leaves wavers in the air before a summer
shower, or as a wreath of rosy mist flits before the grandeur
of a storm. Loveliness was sprinkled like a boon of blos-
soms upon sublimity.
Our lives forever demand and need visual images that
can be symbols to us of the grandeur or the sweetness of
repose. There are some faces that arise dreamy in our
memories, and look us into calmness in our frantic moods.
Fair and happy is a life that need not call upon its vague
memorial dreams for such attuning influence, but can turn
to a present reality, and ask tranquillity at the shrine of
()\ ElilA)()KlS(. -NACIIES PASS.
View southeast from Pyramid Peak, siiowing the Naches Canyon and Valley
stretching away to the great Yakima Valley.
S%!*^S^-'^"-'^MM
ONEKLOOKINC: NACllES PASS.
View south from Pyramid Peak, a tiiousand feet above tiie Pass and six tliousand
above sea level. Three miles away, near the center of the Pass,
are seen the glacial meadows described by Winthrop.
TACOMA. 103
a household goddess. The noble works of nature, and
mountains most of all,
"have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence."
And, studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there
passed from it and entered into my being, to dwell there
evermore by the side of many such, a thought and an image
of solemn beauty, which I could thenceforth evoke when-
ever in the world I must have peace or die. For such emo-
tion years of pilgrimage were worthily spent. If mortal can
gain the thoughts of immortality, is not his earthly destiny
achieved? For, when we have so studied the visible poem,
and so fixed it deep in the very substance of our minds,
there is forever with us not merely a perpetual possession
of delight, but a watchful monitor that will not let our
thoughts be long unfit for the pure companionship of beauty.
For whenever a man is false to the light that is in him, and
accepts meaner joys, or chooses the easy indulgence that
meaner passions give, then every fair landscape in all his
horizon dims, and all its grandeurs fade and dwindle away,
the glory vanishes, and he looks, like one lost, upon his world,
late so lovely and sinless.
While I was studying Tacoma, and learning its fine
lesson, it in turn might contemplate its own image far away
on the waters of Whulge, where streams from its own
snows, gushing seaward to buffet in the boundless deep,
might rejoice in a last look at their parent ere they swept
out of Puyallop Bay. Other large privilege of view it had.
It could see what I could not, — Tacoma the Less, Mt.
Adams, meritorious but clumsy; it could reflect sunbeams
gracefully across a breadth of forest to St. Helens, the vestal
virgin, who still kept her flame kindled, and proved her
watchfulness ever and anon. Continuing its panoramic
studies, Tacoma could trace the chasm of the Columbia
by silver circles here and there, — could see every peak,
104 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
chimney, or unopened vent, from Kulshan to Shasta Butte.
The Blue Mountains eastward were within its scope, and
westward the faint-blue levels of the Pacific. Another
region, worthy of any mountain's beholding, Tacoma sees,
somewhat vague and dim m distance: it sees the sweet
Arcadian valley of the Willamette, charming with meadow,
park, and grove. In no older world where men have, in
all their happiest moods, recreated themselves for generations
in taming earth to orderly beauty, have they achieved a
fau'er garden than Nature's simple labor of love has made
there, giving to rough pioneers the blessings and the possible
education of refined and finished landscape, in the presence
of landscape strong, savage, and m.ajestic.
All this Tacom-a beholds, as I can but briefly hint; and
as one who is a seer himself becomes a tower of light and
illumination to the world, so Tacoma, so every brother seer
of his among the lofty snow-peaks, stands to educate, by his
inevitable presence, every dweller thereabouts. Our race
has never yet come into contact with great mountains as
companions of daily life, nor felt that daily development of
the finer and more comprehensive senses which these signal
facts of nature compel. That is an influence of the future.
The Oregon people, in a climate where being is bliss, — where
every breath is a draught of vivid life, — these Oregon people,
carrying to a new and grander New England of the West a
fuller growth of the American Idea, under whose teaching
the man of lowest ambitions must still have some little in-
desti-uctible respect for himself, and the brute of most
tyrannical aspirations some little respect for others; carry-
ing there a religion two centuries farther on than the crude
and cruel Hebraism of the Puritans; carrying the civilization
of history where it will not suffer by the example of Europe, —
with such material, that Western society, when it crystallizes,
will elaborate new systems of thought and life. It is un-
philosophical to suppose that a strong race, developing
TACOMA.
105
under the best, largest, and calmest conditions of nature,
will not achieve a destiny.
Up to Tacoma, or into some such solitude of nature,
imaginative men must go, as Moses went up to Sinai, that
the divine afflatus may stir within them. The siwashes
appreciate, according to their capacity, the inspiration of
lonely grandeur, and go upon the mountains, starving and
alone, that they may become seers, enchanters, magicians, di-
viners, — what in conventional lingo is
called "big medicine." For though the
Indians here have not peopled these
thrones of their world with the creatures
of an anthropomorphic mythology, they
yet deem them the abode of Tamanoiis.
Tamanoiis is a vague and half -personified
type of the unknown, of the mysterious
forces of nature; and there is also an in-
definite multitude of undefined emana-
tions, each one a tamanoiis with a small
t, which are busy and impish in com-
plicating existence, or equally active and
spritely in unravelling it. Each Indian of
this region patronizes his own personal
tamanoiis, as men of the more eastern
tribes keep a private manito, and as Soc-
rates kept a daimon. To supply this want,
Tamanoiis with a big T undergoes an ava-
tar, and incarnates himself into a salmon, a beaver, a clam,
or into some inanimate object, such as a canoe, a paddle,
a fir-tree, a flint, or into some elemental essence, as fire,
water, sun, mist; and tamanoiis thus individualized becomes
the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of every siwash, con-
scious that otherwise he might stray and be lost in the
unknown realms of Tamanoiis.
Hamitchou, a frowzy ancient of the Squallyamish, told
Carved Stone Image
from the lowor Co-
lumbia Valley.
106 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
to Dr. Tolmie and me, at Nisqually, a legend of Tamanous
and Tacoma, which, being interpreted, runs as follows: —
HAMITCHOU'S LEGEND.
"Avarice, Boston tyee," quoth Hamitchou, studying
me with dusky eyes, "is a mighty passion. Now, be it
known unto thee that we Indians anciently used not metals
nor the money of you blanketeers. Our circulating medium
was shells, — wampum you would name it. Of all wampum,
the most precious is Hiaqua. Hiaqua comes from the far
north. It is a small, perforated shell, not unlike a very
opaque quill toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut
square at both ends. We string it in many strands, and hang
it around the neck of one we love, — namely, each man his
own neck. We also buy with it what our hearts desire.
He who has most hiaqua is best and wisest and happiest
of all the northern Haida and of all the people of Whulge.
The mountain horsemen value it; and braves of the terrible
Blackfeet have been known, in the good old days, to come
over and offer a horse or a wife for a bunch of fifty hiaqua.
"Now, once upon a time there dwelt where this fort of
Nisqually now stands a wise old man of the Squallyamish.
He was a great fisherman and a great hunter; and the wiser
he grew, much the wiser he thought himself. When he
had grown very wise, he used to stay apart from every
other siwash. Companionable salmon-boilings round a
common pot had no charms for him. 'Feasting was waste-
ful,' he said, 'and revellers would come to want.' And when
they verified his prophecy, and were full of hunger and empty
of salmon, he came out of his hermitage, and had salmon
to sell.
"Hiaqua was the pay he always demanded; and as he
was a very wise old man, and knew all the tideways of
Whulge, and all the enticing ripples and placid spots of
repose in every river where fish might dash or delay, he
TACOMA. 107
was sure to have salmon when others wanted, and thus
bagged largely of its precious equivalent, hiaqua.
"Not only a mighty fisher was the sage, but a mighty
hunter; and elk, the greatest animal of the woods, was the
game he loved. Well had he studied every trail where
elk leave the print of their hoofs, and where, tossing their
heads, they bend the tender t\vigs. Well had he searched
through the broad forest, and found the long-haired prairies
where elk feed luxuriously; and there, from behind palisade
fir-trees, he had launched the fatal arrow. Sometimes, also,
he lay beside a pool of sweetest water, revealed to him by
gemmy reflections of sunshine gleaming through the woods,
until at noon the elk came down, to find death awaiting
him as he stooped and drank. Or beside the same fountain
the old man watched at night, drowsily starting at every
crackling branch, until, when the moon was high, and her
illumination declared the pearly water, elk dashed forth
incautious into the glade, and met their midnight destiny.
"Elk-meat, too, he sold to his tribe. This brought him
pelf, but, alas for his greed, the pelf came slowly. Waters
and woods were rich in game. All the Squallyamish were
hunters and fishers, though none so skilled as he. They
were rarely in absolute want, and, when they came to him
for supplies, they were far too poor in hiaqua.
"So the old man thought deeply, and communed with
his wisdom, and, while he waited for fish or beast, he took
advice within himself from his demon, — he talked with
Tamanotis. And always the question was, 'How may I
put hiaqua in my purse?'
"Tamanoiis never revealed to him that far to the north,
beyond the waters of Whulge, are tribes with their under
lip pierced with a fishbone, among whom hiaqua is plenty
as salmon-berries are in the woods what time in mid-summer
salmon fin it along the reaches of Whulge.
"But the more Tamanoiis did not reveal to him these
mysteries of nature, the more he kept dreamily prying into
108 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
his own mind, endeavoring to devise some scheme by which
he might discover a treasure-trove of the beloved shell.
His life seemed wasted in the patient, frugal industry,
which only brought slow, meagre gains. He wanted the
splendid elation of vast wealth and the excitement of sud-
den wealth. His own peculiar tamanoiis was the elk. Elk
was also his totem, the cognizance of his freemasonrj'- with
those of his own family, and their family friends in other
tribes. Elk, therefore, were every way identified with his
life; and he hunted them farther and farther up through
the forests on the flanks of Tacoma, hoping that some day
Eiaqua, the Wampum, or Shell Money, of the Northwest Tribes.
his tamanoiis would speak in the dying groan of one of them,
and gasp out the secret of the mines of hiaqua, his heart's
desire.
"Tacoma was so white and glittering, that it seemed to
stare at him very terribly and mockingly, and to know his
shameful avarice, and how it led him to take from starving
women their cherished lip and nose jewels of hiaqua, and to
give them in return only tough scraps of dried elk-meat and
salmon. When men are shabby, mean, and grasping, they
feel reproached for their grovelling lives by the unearthliness
of nature's beautiful objects, and they hate flowers, and
sunsets, mountains, and the quiet stars of heaven.
"Nevertheless," continued Hamitchou, "this wise old
TACOMA. 109
fool of my legend went on stalking elk along the sides of
Tacoma, ever dreaming of wealth. And at last, as he was
hunting near the snows one day, one very clear and beauti-
ful day of late summer, when sunlight was magically dis-
closing far distances, and making all nature supernaturally
visible and proximate, Tamanoiis began to work in the soul
of the miser.
" 'Are you brave,' whispered Tamanoiis in the strange,
ringing, dull, silent thunder-tones of a demon voice. 'Dare
you go to the caves where my treasures are hid?'
" 'I dare,' said the miser.
"He did not know that his lips had syllabled a reply.
He did not even hear his own words. But all the place
had become suddenly vocal with echoes. The great rock
against which he leaned crashed forth, 'I dare.' Then all
along through the forest, dashing from tree to tree and lost
at last among the murmuring of breeze-shaken leaves,
went careering his answer, taken up and repeated scornfully,
'I dare.' And after a silence, while the daring one trembled
and would gladly have ventured to shout, for the companion-
ship of his own voice, there came across from the vast snow
wall of Tacoma a tone like the muffled, threatening plunge
of an avalanche into a chasm, 'I dare.'
" 'You dare,' said Tamanoiis, enveloping him with a
dread sense of an unseen, supernatural presence; 'you pray
for wealth of hiaqua. Listen!'
"This injunction was hardly needed; the miser was
listening with dull eyes kindled and starting. He was
listening with every rusty hair separating from its unkempt-
mattedness, and outstanding upright, a caricature of an
aureole.
" 'Listen,' said Tamanoiis, in the noonday hush. And
then Tamanoiis vouchsafed at last the great secret of the
hiaqua mines, while in terror near to death the miser heard,
and every word of guidance toward the hidden treasure
of the mountains seared itself into his soul ineffaceably.
110 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
"Silence came again more terrible now than the voice
of Tamanoiis, — silence under the shadow of the great
cliff, — silence deepening down the forest vistas, — silence
filling the void up to the snows of Tacoma. All life
and motion seemed paralyzed. At last Skai-ki, the Blue-
Jay, the wise bird, foe to magic, sang cheerily over-
head. Her song seemed to refresh again the honest laws of
nature. The buzz of life stirred everywhere again, and the
inspired miser rose and hastened home to prepare for his
work.
"When Tamanoiis has put a great thought in a man's
brain, has whispered him a great discovery within his power,
or hinted at a great crime, that spiteful demon does not
likewise suggest the means of accomplishment.
"The miser, therefore, must call upon his own skill to
devise proper tools, and upon his own judgment to fix
upon the most fitting time for carrying out his quest. Send-
ing his squaw out to the kam.as prairie, under pretense that
now was the season for her to gather their winter store
of that sickish-sweet esculent root, and that she might not
have her squaw's curiosity aroused by seeing him at strange
work, he began his preparations. He took a pair of enor-
mous elk-horns, and fashioned from each horn a two-pronged
pick or spade, by removing all the antlers except the two
topmost. He packed a good supply of kippered salmon,
and filled his pouch with kinni-kinnick for smoking in his
black stone pipe. With his bow and arrows and his tv/o
elk-horn picks wrapped in buckskin hung at his back, he
started just before sunset, as if for a long hunt. His old,
faithful, maltreated, blanketless, vermilionless squaw, re-
turning with baskets full of kamas, saw him disappearing
moodily down the trail.
"All that night, all the day following, he moved on
noiselessly by paths he knew. He hastened on, unnoticing
outward objects, as one with a controlling purpose hastens.
Elk and deer, bounding through the trees, passed him, but
MOIXTAIX MEADOW IX THE XACHES PASS.
the distance, on the north side of the Pass, is seen Pyramid Peak.
TACOMA. Ill
he tarried not. At night he camped just below the snows
of Tacoma. He was weary, weary, and chill night-airs
blowing down from the summit almost froze him. He dared
not take his fire-sticks, and, placing one perpendicular upon
a little hollow on the flat side of the other, twirl the upright
stick rapidly between his palms until the charred spot
kindled and lighted his 'tipsoo,' his dry, tindery wool of
inner bark. A fire, gleaming high upon the mountain-side,
might be a beacon to draw thither any night-wandering
savage to watch in ambush, and learn the path toward the
mines of hiaqua. So he drowsed chilly and fireless, awakened
often by dread sounds of crashing and rumbling among
the chasms of Tacoma. He desponded bitterly, almost
ready to abandon his quest, almost doubting whether he
had in truth received a revelation, whether his interview
with Tamanoiis had not been a dream, and finally whether
all the hiaqua in the world was worth this toil and anxiety.
Fortunate is the sage who at such a point turns back and
buys his experience without worse befalling him.
"Past midnight he suddenly was startled from his
drowse, and sat bolt upright in terror. A light! Was there
another searcher in the forest, and a bolder than he? That
flame just glimmering over the tree-tops, was it a camp-fire
of friend or foe? Had Tamanoiis been revealing to another
the great secret? No, smiled the miser, his eyes fairly
open, and discovering that the new light was the moon.
He had been waiting for her illumination on paths hereto-
fore untrodden by mortal. She did not show her full, round,
jolly face, but turned it askance as if she hardly liked to
be implicated in this night's transactions.
"However, it was light he wanted, not sympathy, and
he started up at once to climb over the dim snows. The
surface was packed by the night's frost, and his moccasins
gave him firm hold; yet he travelled but slowly, and could
not always save himself from a glissade backwards, and a
bruise upon some projecting knob or crag. Sometimes,
112 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
upright fronts of ice diverted him for long circuits, or a
broken wall of cold cliff arose, which he must surmount
painfully. Once or twice he stuck fast in a crevice, and hardly
drew himself out by placing his bundle of picks across the
crack. As he plodded and floundered thus deviously and
toilsomely upward, at last the wasted moon gan pale over-
head, and under foot the snow grew rosy with coming
dawn. The dim world about the mountain's base displayed
something of its vast detail. He could see, more positively
than by moonlight, the far-reaching arteries of mist marking
the organism of Whulge beneath; and what had been but a
black chaos now resolved itself into the Alpine forest whence
he had come.
"But he troubled himself little with staring about;
up he looked, for the summit was at hand. To win that
summit was wellnigh the attainment of his hopes, if Tama-
noiis were true; and that, with the flush of morning ardor
upon him, he could not doubt. There, in a spot Tama-
noiis had revealed to him, was hiaqua, — hiaqua that should
make him the richest and greatest of all the Squallyamish.
"The chill before sunrise was upon him as he reached the
last curve of the dome. Sunrise and he struck the summit
together. Together sunrise and he looked over the glacis.
They saw within a great hollow all covered with the whitest
of snow, save at the centre, where a black lake lay deep
in a well of purple rock.
"At the eastern end of this lake was a small, irregular
plain of snow, marked by three stones like monuments.
Toward these the miser sprang rapidly, with full sunshine
streaming after him over the snows.
"The first monument he examined with keen looks.
It was tall as a giant man, and its top was fashioned into
the grotesque likeness of a salmon's head. He turned
from this to inspect the second. It was of similar height,
but bore at its apex an object in shape like the regular
flame of a torch. As he approached, he presently discovered
TACOMA. 113
that this was an image of the kamas-bulb in stone. These
two semblances of prime necessities of Indian life delayed
him but an instant, and he hastened on to the third mon-
ument, which stood apart on a perfect level. The third
stone was capped by something he almost feared to behold,
lest it should prove other than his hopes. Every word of
Tamanoiis had thus far proved veritable; but might there
not be a bitter deceit at the last? The miser trembled.
"Yes, Tamanoiis was trustworthy. The third monu-
ment was as the old man anticipated. Tt was a stone elk's-
head, such as it appears in earliest summer, when the antlers
are sprouting lustily under their rough jacket of velvet.
"You remember, Boston tyee," continued Hamitchou,
"that Elk was the old man's tamanoiis, the incarnation for
him of the universal Tamanoiis. He therefore was right
joyous at this good omen of protection; and his heart grew
big and swollen with hope, as the black salmon-berry swells
in a swamp in June. He threw down his Mkta'; every impedi-
ment he laid down upon the snow; and, unwrapping his
two picks of elk-horn, he took the stoutest, and began to
dig in the frozen snow at the foot of the elk-head monument.
"No sooner had he struck the first blow than he heard
behind him a sudden puff, such as a seal makes when it
comes to the surface to breathe. Turning round much
startled, he saw a huge otter just clambering up over the
edge of the lake. The otter paused, and struck on the snow
with his tail, whereupon another otter and another appeared,
until, following their leader in slow and solemn file, were
twelve other otters, marching toward the miser. The
twelve approached, and drew up in a circle around him.
Each was twice as large as any otter ever seen. Their
chief was four times as large as the most gigantic otter
ever seen in the regions of Whulge, and certainly was as
great as a seal. When the twelve were arranged, their
leader skipped to the top of the elk-head stone, and sat
114 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
there between the horns. Then the whole thirteen gave a
mighty puff in chorus.
"The hunter of hiaqua was for a moment abashed at
his uninvited ring of spectators. But he had seen otter
before, and bagged them. These he could not waste time
to shoot, even if a phalanx so numerous were not formidable.
Besides, they might be tamanotis. He took to his pick,
and began digging stoutly.
"He soon made way in the snow, and came to solid
rock beneath. At every thirteenth stroke of his pick, the
fugleman otter tapped with his tail on the monument.
Then the choir of lesser otters tapped together with theirs
on the snow. This caudal action produced a dull, muffled
sound, as if there were a vast hollow below.
"Digging with all his force, by and by the seeker for
treasure began to tire, and laid down his elk-horn spade
to wipe the sweat from his brow. Straightway the fugle-
man otter turned, and, swinging his tail, gave the weary
man a mighty thump on the shoulder; and the whole band,
imitating, turned, and, backing inward, smote him with
centripetal tails, until he resumed his labors, much bruised.
"The rock lay first in plates, then in scales. These it
was easy to remove. Presently, however, as the miser
pried carelessly at a larger mass, he broke his elk-horn tool.
Fugleman otter leaped down, and, seizing the supplemental
pick between his teeth, mouthed it over to the digger. Then
the amphibious monster took in the same manner the broken
pick, and bore it round the circle of his suite, who inspected
it gravely with puffs.
"These strange, magical proceedings disconcerted and
somewhat baffled the miser; but he plucked up heart, for
the prize was priceless, and worked on more cautiously
with his second pick. At last its blows and the regular
thumps of the otters' tails called forth a sound hollower
and hollower. His circle of spectators narrowed so that
TACOMA. 115
he could feel their panting breath as they bent curiously
over the little pit he had dug.
"The crisis was evidently at hand.
"He lifted each scale of rock more delicately. Finally
he raised a scale so thin that it cracked into flakes as he
turned it over. Beneath was a large square cavity.
"It was filled to the brim with hiaqua.
"He was a millionaire.
"The otters recognized him as the favorite of Tamanoiis,
and retired to a respectful distance.
"For some moments he gazed on his treasure, taking
thought of his future proud grandeur among the dwellers
by Whulge. He plunged his arm deep as he could go;
there was still nothing but the precious shells. He smiled
to himself in triumph; he had wrung the secret from Tama-
noiis. Then, as he withdrew his arm, the rattle of the hiaqua
recalled him to the present. He saw that noon was long
past, and he must proceed to reduce his property to possession.
"The hiaqua was strung upon long, stout sinews of elk,
in bunches of fifty shells on each side. Four of these he
wound about his waist; three he hung across each shoulder;
five he took in each hand; — twenty strings of pure white
hiaqua, every shell large, smooth, unbroken, beautiful.
He could carry no more; hardly even with this could he
stagger along. He put down his burden for a moment,
while he covered up the seemingly untouched wealth of
the deposit carefully with the scale stones, and brushed
snow over the whole.
"The miser never dreamed of gratitude, never thought
to hang a string from the buried treasure about the salmon
and kamas tamanoiis stones, and two strings around the
elk's head; no, all must be his own, all he could carry now,
and the rest for the future.
"He turned, and began his climb toward the crater's
edge. At once the otters, with a mighty puff in concert,
took up their line of procession, and, plunging into the
116 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
black lake, began to beat the water with theu- tails.
"The miser could hear the sound of splashing water
as he struggled upward through the snow, now melting and
yielding. It was a long hour of harsh toil and much back-
sliding before he reached the rim, and turned to take one
more view of this valley of good fortune.
"As he looked, a thick mist began to rise from the lake
centre, where the otters were splashing. Under the mist
grew a cylinder of black cloud, utterly hiding the water.
"Terrible are storms in the mountains; but in this
looming mass was a terror more dread than any hurricane
of ruin ever bore within its wild vortexes. Tamanoiis was
in that black cylinder, and as it strode forward, chasing
in the very path of the miser, he shuddered, for his wealth
and his life were in danger.
"However, it might be but a common storm. Sunlight
was bright as ever overhead in heaven, and all the lovely
world below lay dreamily fair, in that afternoon of summer,
at the feet of the rich man, who now was hastening to be
its king. He stepped from the crater edge and began his
descent.
"Instantly the storm overtook him. He was thrown
down by its first assault, flung over a rough bank of iciness,
and lay at the foot torn and bleeding, but clinging still to
his precious burden. Each hand still held its five strings of
hiaqua. In each hand he bore a nation's ransom. He
staggered to his feet against the blast. Utter night was
around him, — night as if daylight had forever perished,
had never come into being from chaos. The roaring of the
storm had also deafened and bewildered him with its wild
uproar.
"Present in every crash and thunder of the gale was a
growing undertone, which the miser well knew to be the
voice of Tamanoiis. A deadly shuddering shook him. Here-
tofore that potent Unseen had been his friend and guide;
there had been awe, but no terror, in his words. Now
TACOMA. 117
the voice of Tatnanoiis was inarticulate, but the miser
could divine in that sound an unspeakable threat of WTath
and vengeance. Floating upon this undertone were sharper
tamanoiis voices, shouting and screaming always sneeringly,
'Ha ha, hiaqua! — ha, ha, ha!'
"Whenever the miser essayed to move and continue
his descent, a whirlwind caught him, and with much ado
tossed him hither and thither, leaving him at last flung
and imprisoned in a pinching crevice, or buried to the eyes
in a snow-drift, or bedded upside down on a shaggy boulder,
or gnawed by lacerating lava jaws. Sharp torture the old
man was encountering, but he held fast to his hiaqua.
"The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded
with perdition; the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish;
the laughter more appalling; and the miser more and more
exhausted with vain buffeting. He determined to propitiate
exasperated Tamanoiis with a sacrifice. He threw into the
black cylinder storm his left-handful, five strings of precious
hiaqua."
"Somewhat long-winded is thy legend, Hamitchou,
Great Medicine Man of the Squallyamish," quoth I. "Why
didn't the old fool drop his wampum, — shell out, as one
might say, — and make tracks?"
"Well, well!" continued Hamitchou; "when the miser
had thrown away his first handful of hiaqua, there was a
momentary lull in elemental war, and he heard the otters
puffing around him invisible. Then the storm renewed,
blacker, louder, harsher, crueller than before, and over
the dread undertone of the voice of Tamanoiis, tamanoiis
voices again screamed, 'Ha, ha, ha, hiaqua!' and it seemed
as if tamanoiis hands, or the paws of the demon otters,
clutched at the miser's right-handful and tore at his shoulder
and waist belts.
"So, while darkness and tempest still buffeted the
hapless old man, and thrust him away from his path, and
while the roaring was wickeder than the roars of tens and
118 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
tens of tens of bears when ahungered they pounce upon a
plain of kamas, gradually wounded and terrified, he flung
away string after string of hiaqua, gaining never any notice
of such sacrifice, except an instant's lull of the cyclone
and a puff from the invisible otters.
"The last string he clung to long, and before he threw
it to be caught and whirled after its fellows, he tore off a
single bunch of fifty shells. But upon this, too, the storm
laid its clutches. In the final desperate struggle the old
man was wounded so sternly that, when he had given up
his last relic of the mighty treasure, when he had thrown
into the formless chaos, instinct with Tamanoiis, his last
propitiatory offering, he sank and became insensible.
"It seemed a long slumber to him, but at last he awoke.
The jagged moon was just paling overhead, and he heard
Skai-ki, the Blue-Jay, foe to magic, singing welcome to
sunrise. It was the very spot whence he started at morning.
"He was hungry, and felt for his bag of kamas and a
pouch of smoke-leaves. There, indeed, by his side were
the elk-sinew strings of the bag, and the black stone pipe-
bowl, — but no bag, no kamas, no kinni-kinnick. The whole
spot was thick with kamas plants, strangely out of place
on the mountain-side, and overhead grew a large arbutus-
tree, with glistening leaves, ripe for smoking. The old
man found his hard-wood fire-sticks safe under the herbage,
and soon twirled a light, and, nurturing it in dry grass,
kindled a cheery fire. He plucked up kamas, set it to roast,
and laid a store of the arbutus-leaves to dry on a flat stone.
"After he had made a hearty breakfast on the chestnut-
like kamas-bulbs, and, smoking the thoughtful pipe, was
reflecting on the events of yesterday, he became aware of
an odd change in his condition. He was not bruised and
wounded from head to foot, as he expected, but very stiff
only, and as he stirred, his joints creaked like the creak of
a lazy paddle upon the rim of a canoe. Skai-ki, the Blue-
Jay, was singularly familiar with him, hopping from her
TACOMA. 119
perch in the arbutus, and alighting on his head. As he
put his hand to dislodge her, he touched his scratching-
stick of bone, and attempted to pass it, as usual, through
his hair. The hair was matted and interlaced into a net-
work reaching fully two ells down his back. Tamanous,'
thought the old man.
"Chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was
calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have
lost their charms for him. Tacoma, shining like gold and
silver and precious stones of gayest lustre, seemed a benign
comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful
and satisfying. He thought he had never awakened to a
fresher morning. He was a young man again, except for
that unusual stiffness and unmelodious creaking in his
joints. He felt no apprehension of any presence of a deputy
tamanoiis, sent by Tamanous to do malignities upon him
in the lonely wood. Great Nature had a kindly aspect,
and made its divinity perceived only by the sweet notes of
birds and the hum of forest life, and by a joy that clothed
his being. And now he found in his heart a sympathy for
man, and a longing to meet his old acquaintances down
by the shores of Whulge.
"He rose, and started on the downward way, smiling,
and sometimes laughing heartily at the strange croaking,
moaning, cracking, and rasping of his joints. But soon
motion set the lubricating valves at work, and the sockets
grew slippery again. He marched rapidly, hastening out of
loneliness into society. The world of wood, glade, and stream
seemed to him strangely altered. Old colossal trees, firs
behind which he had hidden when on the hunt, cedars
under whose drooping shade he had lurked, were down,
and lay athwart his path, transformed into immense mossy
mounds, like barrows of giants, over which he must clamber
warily, lest he sink and be half stifled in the dust of rotten
wood. Had Tamanous been widely at work in that event-
120 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
ful night? — or had the spiritual change the old man felt
affected his views of the outer world?
"Travelling downward, he advanced rapidly, and just
before sunset came to the prairies where his lodge should
be. Everything had seemed to him so totally altered that
he tarried a moment in the edge of the woods to take an
observation before approaching his home. There was a
lodge, indeed, in the old spot, but a newer and far hand-
somer one than he had left on the fourth evening before.
"A very decrepit old squaw, ablaze mth vermilion and
decked uith countless strings of hiaqua and costly beads,
was seated on the ground near the door, tending a kettle
of salmon, whose blue and fragrant steam mingled pleasantly
with the golden haze of sunset. She resembled his own
squaw in countenance, as an ancient smoked salmon is
like a newly-dried salmon. If she was indeed his spouse,
she was many years older than when he saw her last, and
much better dressed than the respectable lady had ever
been during his miserly days.
"He drew near quietly. The bedizened dame was
crooning a chant, very dolorous, — like this:
" 'My old man has gone, gone, gone, —
My old man to Tacoma has gone
To hunt the elk, he went long ago.
WTien will he come down, down, down,
Down to the salmon-pot and me?'
" 'He has come from Tacoma down, down, down, —
Down to the salmon-pot and thee,'
shouted the reformed miser, rushing forward to supper
and his faithful wife."
"And how did Penelope explain the mystery?" I asked.
"If you mean the old lady," replied Hamitchou, "she
was my gi-andmother, and I'd thank you not to call names.
She told my grandfather that he had been gone many
years; — she could not tell how many, having dropped her
tally-stick in the fire by accident that very day. She also
told him how, in despite of the entreaties of many a chief
INDIAN BASKETS.
The two in the upper row are Skokomish twined wal-
lets; those below are imbricated baskets, the one on
the left being of Puyallup and the others of Klickitat
make.
TACOMA. 121
who knew her economic virtues, and prayed her to become
mistress of his household, she had remained constant to
the Absent, and forever kept the hopeful salmon-pot boil-
ing for his return. She had distracted her mind from the
bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic herbs,
and had thus acquired a genteel competence. The excellent
dame then exhibited with great complacency her gains,
most of which she had put in the portable and secure form
TA-WITS-POO.
"She resembled his own squaw as an ancient smoked salmon is lilse a
newly-dried salmon.
of personal ornament, making herself a resplendent magazine
of valuable frippery.
"Little cared the repentant sage for such things. But
he was rejoiced to be again at home and at peace, and near
his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure, buried in a place
of security. These, however, he no longer over-esteemed
and hoarded. He imparted whatever he possessed, material
treasures or stores of wisdom and experience, freely to all
the land. Every dweller by Whulge came to him for advice
how to chase the elk, how to troll or spear the salmon, and
122 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
how to propitiate Tamanoiis. He became the Great Medi-
cine Man of the siwashes, a benefactor to his tribe and his
race.
"Within a year after he came down from his long nap
on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father, was born to
him. The sage lived many years, beloved and revered, and
on his deathbed, long before the Boston tilicum or any
blanketeers were seen in the regions of Whulge, he told
this history to my father, as a lesson and a warning. My
father, dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no son;
I grow old, and lest this wisdom perish from the earth,
and Tamanoiis be again obliged to interpose against avarice,
I tell the tale to thee, Boston tyee. Mayest thou and thy
nation not disdain this lesson of an earlier age, but profit
by it and be wise."
So far Hamitchou recounted his legend without the
palisades of Fort Nisqually, and motioning, in expressive
pantomime, at the close, that he was dry with big talk,
and would gladly wet his whistle.
A Siwash Cradle.
VIII.
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN.
I had not long, that noon of August, from the top of
La Tete, to study Tacoma, scene of Hamitchou's wild
legend. Humanity forbade dalliance. While I fed my soul
with sublimity, Klale and his comrades were wretched with
starvation. But the summit of the pass is near. A few
struggles more, Klale the plucky, and thy empty sides
shall echo less drum-like. Up stoutly, my steeds; up a
steep but little less than perpendicular, paw over these
last trunks of the barricades in our trail, and ye have wonl
So it was. The angle of our ascent suddenly broke
down from ninety to fifteen, then to nothing. We had
reached the plateau. Here were the first prairies. Nibble
in these, my nags, for a few refreshing moments, and then
on to superlative dinners in lovelier spots just beyond.
Let no one, exaggerating the joys of campaigning, with
Horace's Militia potior est, deem that there is no compen-
sating pang among them. Is it a pleasant thing, traveller
only in dreams, envier of the voyager in reality, to urge
tired, reluctant, and unfed mustangs up a mountain pass,
even for their own good? In such a case a man, the human-
est and gentlest, must adopt the manners of a brute. He
must ply the whip, and that cruelly; otherwise, no go. At
first, as he smites, he winces, for he has struck his own
sensibilities; by and by he hardens himself, and thrashes
without a tremor. When the cortege arrives at an edible
prairie, gastronomic satisfaction will put Lethean freshness
in the battered hide of every horse.
124 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
We presently turned just aside from the trail into an
episode of beautiful prairie, one of a succession along the
plateau at the crest of the range. At this height of about
five thousand feet, the snows remain until June.* In this
fair, oval, forest-circled prairie of my nooning, the grass
was long and succulent, as if it grew in the bed of a drained
lake. The horses, undressed, were allowed to plunge and
wallow in the deep herbage. Only horse heads soon could
be seen, moving about like their brother hippopotami,
swimming in sedges.
To me it was luxury enough not to be a whip for a time.
Over and above this, I had the charm of a quiet nooning
on a bank of emerald turf, by a spring, at the edge of a
clump of evergreens. I took my luncheon of cold salt
pork and doughy biscuit by a well of brightest water. I
called in no proxy of tin cup to aid me in saluting this
sparkling creature, but stooped and kissed the spring.
When I had rendered my first homage thus to the goddess
of the fountain, Mg]e herself, perhaps, fairest of Naiads,
I drank thirstily of the medium in which she dwelt. A
bubbling dash of water leaped up and splashed my visage
as I withdrew. Why so, sweet fountain, which I may name
Hippocrene, since hoofs of Klale have caused me thy dis-
covery? Is this a rebuff? If there ever was lover who
little merited such treatment it is I. "Not so, appreciative
stranger," came up in other bubbling gushes the responsive
voice of Nature through sweet vibrations of the melodious
fount. "Never a Nymph of mine will thrust thee back.
This sudden leap of water was a movement of sympathy,
and a gentle emotion of hospitality. The Naiad there was
offering thee her treasure liberally, and saying that, drink
as thou wilt, I, her mother Nature, have commanded my
winds and sun to distil thee fresh supplies, and my craggy
crevices are filtering it in the store-houses, that it may be
*The bench-mark placed by the Government Survey gives the altitude
of Naches Pass as 4,988 feet.
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 125
offered to every welcome guest, pure and cool as airs of
dawn. Stoop down," continued the voice, "thirsty way-
farer, and kiss again my daughter of the fountain, nor be
abashed if she meets thee half-way. She knows that a
true lover will never scorn his love's delicate advances."
In response to such invitation, and the more for my
thirsty slices of pork, I lapped the aerated tipple in its
goblet, whose stem reaches deep into the bubble labora-
tories. I lapped, — an excellent test of pluck in the days of
Gideon, son of Barak; — and why? For many reasons, but
among them for this; — he who lying prone can with stout
muscular gullet swallow water, will be also able to swallow
back into position his heart, when in moments of tremor
it leaps into his throat.
When I had lapped plenteously, I lay and let the breeze-
shaken shadows smooth me into smiling mood, while my
sympathies overflowed to enjoy with my horses their din-
ner. They fed like school-boys home for Thanksgiving,
in haste lest the present banquet, too good to be true, prove
Barmecide. A feast of colossal grasses placed itself at the
lips of the breakfastless stud. They champed as their na-
ture was; — Klale like a hungry gentleman, — Gubbins like a
hungry clodhopper, — Antipodes Hke a lubberly oaf. They
were laying in, according to the Hudson's Bay Company's
rule, supply at this meal for five days; without such power,
neither man nor horse is fit to tramp the Northwest.
I lay on the beautiful verdant bank, plucking now dex-
trously and now sinistrously of strawberries, that summer,
climbing late to these snowy heights, had just ripened.
Medical men command us to swallow twice a day one bitter
pill confectioned of all disgust. Nature doses us, by no
means against our will, with many sweet boluses of delight,
berries compacted of acidulated, sugary spiciness. Nature,
tenderest of leeches, — no bolus of hers is pleasanter medica-
ment than her ruddy strawberries. She shaped them like
Minie-balls, that they might traverse unerringly to the
126 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
cell of most dulcet digestion. Over their glistening sur-
face she peppered little golden dots to act as obstacles lest
they should glide too fleetly over the surfaces of taste, and
also gently to rasp them into keener sensitiveness. Mongers
of pestled poisons may punch their pills in malodorous mor-
tars, roll them in floury palms, pack them in pink boxes,
and send them forth to distress a world of patients; — but
Nature, who if she even feels one's pulse does it by a gentle
pressure of atmosphere, — Nature, knowing that her chil-
dren in their travels always need lively tonics, tells wind,
sun, and dew, servitors of hers, clean and fine of touch, to
manipulate gay strawberries, and dispose them attractively
on fair green terraces, shaded at parching noon. Of these
lovely fabrics of pithy pulpiness, no limit to the dose, if the
invalid does as Nature intended, and plucks for himself,
with fingers rosy and fragrant. I plucked of them, as far
as I could reach on either side of me, and then lay drowsily
reposing on my couch at the summit of the Cascade Pass,
under the shade of a fir, which, outstanding from the forest,
had changed its columnar structure into a pyramidal, and
had branches all along its stalwart trunk, instead of a mere
tuft at the top.
In this shade I should have known the tree which gave
it, without looking up, — not because the sharp little spicular
leaves of the fir, miniatures of that sword Rome used to
open the world, its oyster, would drop and plunge them-
selves into my eyes, or would insert their blades down my
back and scarify, — but because there is an influence and
sentiment in umbrages, and under every tree its own atmos-
phere. Elms refine and have a graceful elegiac effect upon
those they shelter. Oaks drop robustness. Mimosas will
presently make a sensitive-plant of him who hangs his ham-
mock beneath their shade. Cocoa-palms will infect him
with such tropical indolence that he will not stir until frowzy
monkeys climb the tree and pelt him away to the next
one. The shade of pine-trees, as any one can prove by a
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 127
journey in Maine, makes those who undergo it wiry, keen,
trenchant, inexhaustible, and tough.
When I had felt the influence of my fir shelter, on the edge
of the wayside prairie, long enough, I became of course keen
as a blade. I sprang up and called to Loolowcan, in a
resinous voice, "Mamook chaco cuitan; make come horse."
Loolowcan, in more genial mood than I had known him,
drove the trio out from the long grass. They came forth
not without backward hankerings, but far happier quad-
rupeds than when they climbed the pass at noon. It was a
pleasure now to compress with the knees Klale, transformed
from an empty barrel with protuberant hoops, into a full
and elastic cylinder, smooth as the boiler of a locomotive.
"Loolowcan, my lad, my experienced guide, cur nesika
moosum; where sleep we?" said L
"Copa Sowee house, — kicuali. Sowee, olyman tyee, —
memloose. Sia-a-a-h mitlite; — At Sowee's camp, — below.
Sowee, oldman chief, — dead. It is far, far away," replied
the son of Owhhigh.
Far is near, distance is annihilated this brilliant day of
summer, for us recreated with Hippocrene, strawberries, shade
of fir, and tall snow-fed grass. Down the mxountain range
seems nothing after our long laborious up; "the half is more
than the whole." "Lead on, Loolowcan, intelligent brave,
toward the residence of the late Sowee."
More fair prairies linked themselves along the trail.
From these alpine pastures the future will draw butter and
cheese, pasturing migratory cattle there, when summer
dries the scanty grass upon the macadamized prairies of
Whulge. It is well to remind ourselves sometimes that the
world is not wholly squatted over. The plateau soon began
to ebb toward the downward slope. Descent was like as-
cent, a way shaggy and abrupt. Again the Boston hooihut
intruded. My friends, the woodsmen, had constructed an
elaborate inclined plane of very knobby corduroy down, the
steepest steep. Klale sniffed at this novel road, and
128 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
turned up his nose at it. He was competent to protect that
feature against all the perils of stumble and fall on trails
he had been educated to travel, but dreaded grinding it on
the rough bark of this unaccustomed highway. Slow-footed
oxen, leaning inward and sustaining each other, like two
roisterers unsteady after wassail, might clumsily toil up
such a road as this, hauling up stout, white-cotton-roofed
wagons, filled with the babies and Lares of emigrants; but
quick-footed ponies, descending and carrying light loads
of a wild Indian and an untamed blanketeer, chose rather
to whisk along the aboriginal paths.*
As we came to the irregular terraces after the first pitch,
and scampered on gayly, I by and by heard a welcome whiz,
and a dusky grouse {Tetrao ohscurus) lifted himself out of
the trail into the lower branches of a giant fir. I had lugged
my double-barrel thus far, a futile burden, unless when it
served a minatory purpose among the drunken Klalams.
Now it became an animated machine, and uttered a sharp
exclamation of relief after long patient silence. Down came
tetrao, — down he came with satisfactory thud, signifying
pounds of something not pork for supper. We bagged him
joyously and dashed on.
"Kopet," whispered Loolowcan turning, with a hushing
gesture, "hin kullakullie nika nanitch; — halt, plenty birds
I see." He was so eager that from under his low brows
and unkempt hair his dusky eyes glared like the eyes of wild
beast, studying his prey from a shadowy lair.
Dismounting, I stole forward with assassin intent, and
birds, grouse, five noble ones I saw, engaged in fattening
their bodies for human solace and support. I sent a shot
among them. There was a flutter among the choir, — one
fluttered not. At the sound of my right barrel one bird
fell without rising; another rose and fell at a hint from the
sinister tube. The surviving trio were distracted by m.ortal
terror. They flew no farther than a dwarf tree hard by. I
*For the history of this road, see Appendix B.
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 129
drew my revolver, thinking that there might not be time to
load, and fired in a hurry at the lowermost.
"Hyas tamanoiis!" whispered Loolowcan, when no bird
fell or flew, — "big magic," it seemed to the superstitious
youth. Often when sportsmen miss, they claim that their
gun is bewitched, and avail themselves of the sure silver
bullet.
A second ball, passing with keener aim through the bar-
rel, attained its mark. Grouse third shook off his mortal
remains, and sped to heaven. The two others, contrary to
rule, for I had shot the lower, fled, cowardly carrying their
heavy bodies to die of cold, starvation, or old age. "The
good die first," — ay, Wordsworth! among birds this is
verity; for the good are the fat, who, because of their
avoirdupois, lag in flight, or alight upon lower branches and
are easiest shot.
Loolowcan bagged my three trophies and added them
to the first. Henceforth the thought of a grouse supper
became a fixed idea with me. I dwelt upon it with even
morbid appetite. I rehearsed, in prophetic mood, the scene
of plucking, the scene of roasting, that happy festal scene of
eating. So immersed did I become in gastronomic revery,
that I did not mind my lookout, as I dashed after Loolowcan,
fearless and agile cavalier. A thrust awoke me to a sense
of passing objects, a very fierce, lance-like thrust, full at my
life. A wrecking snag of harsh dead wood that projected
up in the trail struck me, and tore me half off my horse,
leaving me jerked, scratched, disjointed, and shuddering.
Pachydermatous leggins of buckskin, at cost of their own
unity, had saved me from impalement. Some such warning
is always preparing for the careless.
I soon had an opportunity to propitiate Nemesis by a
humane action. A monstrous trunk lay across the trail.
Loolowcan, reckless steeple-chaser, put his horse at it, full
speed. Gubbins, instead of going over neatly, or scrambling
over cat-like, reared rampant and shied back, volte-face.
130 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
I rode forward to see what fresh interference of Tamanoiis
was here, — nothing tamanoiis but an unexpected sorry ob-
ject of a horse. A wretched castaway, probably abandoned
by the exploring party, or astray from them, essaying to
leap the tree, had fallen back beneath the trunk and
branches, and lay there entangled and perfectly helpless. We
struggled to release him. In vain. At last a thought struck
me. We seized the poor beast by his tail, fortunately a
tenacious member, and, heaving vigorously, towed him out
of prison.
He tottered forlornly to his feet, looking about him like
one risen from the dead. "How now. Caudal?" said I,
baptizing him by the name of the part that saved his life;
"canst thou follow toward fodder?" He debated the ques-
tion with himself awhile. Solitary confinement of indefinite
length, in a cramped posture, had given the poor skeleton
time to consider that safety from starvation is worth one
effort more. He found that there was still a modicum of
life and its energy within his baggy hide. My horses seemed
to impart to him some of their electricity, and he staggered
on droopingly. Lucky Caudal, if life is worth having, that
on that day, of all days, I should have arrived to rescue
him. Strange deliverances for body and soul come to the
dying. Fate sends unlooked-for succor, when horses or men
despair.
Luckily for Caudal, the weak-kneed and utterly dejected,
Sowee's prairie was near, — near was the prairie of Sowee..
mighty hunter of deer and elk, terror of bears. There at
weird night Sowee's ghost was often seen to stalk. Dyspep-
tics from feather-beds behold ghosts, and are terrified, but
night-walkers are but bugbears to men who have ridden from
dawn to dusk of a long summer's day over an Indian trail
in the mountains. I felt no fear that any incubus in the
shape of a brassy-hued Indian chief would sit upon my
breast that night, and murder wholesome sleep.
Nightfall was tumbling down from the zenith before we
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 131
reached camp. The sweet glimmers of twilight were ousted
from the forest, sternly as mercy is thrust from a darkening
heart. Night is really only beautiful so far as it is not night,
— that is, for its stars, which are sources of resolute
daylight in other spheres, and for its moon, which is day-
light's memory, realized, softened, and refined.
Night, however, had not drawn the pall of brief death
over the world so thick but that I could see enough to respect
the taste of the late Sowee. When he voted himself this farm,
and became seized of it in the days of unwritten agrarian
laws, and before patents were in vogue, he proved his
intelligent right to suffrage and seizure. Here in admirable
quality were the three first requisites of a home in the wilder-
ness, water, wood, and grass. A musical rustle, as we gal-
loped through, proved the long grass. All around was the
unshorn forest. There were columnar firs making the Sowee
house a hypasthral temple on a grand scale.
There had been here a lodge. A few saplings of its frame-
work still stood, but Sowee had moved elsewhere not long
ago. Wake siah memloose, — not long dead was the
builder, and viator might camp here unquestioned.
Caudal had followed us in inane, irresponsible way. Pa-
tient now he stood, apparently waiting for farther commands
from his preservers. We unpacked and unsaddled the other
animals. They knew their business, namely, to bolt instantly
for their pasture. Then a busy uproar of nipping and crunch-
ing was heard. Poor Caudal could not take the hint. We
were obliged to drive that bony estray with blows out to
the supper-field, where he stood aghast at the appetites
of his new comrades. Repose and good example, however,
soon had their effect, and eight equine jaws instead of six
made play in the herbage.
"Alki mika mamook pire, pe nesika klatawah copa klap
tsuk; now light thou a fire, and we will go to find water,"
said Loolowcan. I struck fire, — fire smote tinder, — tinder
sent the flame on, until a pyre from the world's free wood-pile
132 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
was kindled. This boon of fire, — what wonder that men de-
vised a Prometheus greatest of demigods as its discoverer?
Mortals, shrinking from the responsibility of a high destiny
and dreading to know how divine the Divine would have
them, always imagine an avatar of some one not lower than
a half-god when a gift of great price comes to the world.
And fire is a very priceless and beautiful boon, — not, as
most know it, in imprisonment, barred with iron, or in sooty
chimneys, or in mad revolt of conflagration, but as it
grows in a flashing pyramid out in camp in the free woods,
with eager air hurrying in on every side to feed its glory.
In the gloom I strike metal of steel against metallic flint.
From this union a child is born. I receive the young spark
tenderly in warm "tipsoo," in a soft woolly nest of bark
or grass tinder. Swaddled in this he thrives. He smiles;
he chuckles; he laughs; he dances about, does my agile nurs-
ling. He will soon wear out his first infantile garb, so I
cover him up in shelter. I feed him with digestible viands,
according to his years. I give him presently stouter fare,
and offer exhilarating morsels of fatness. All these the
hearty youth assimilates, and grows healthily. And now
I educate him to manliness, training him on great joints,
shoulders, and marrowy portions. He becomes erelong a
power and a friend able to requite me generously for my
care. He aids me in preparing my feast, and we feast to-
gether. Afterward we talk, — Flame and I, — we think to-
gether strong and passionate thoughts of purpose and
achievement. These emotions of manhood die away, and
we share pensive memories of happiness missed, or dis-
dained, or feebly grasped and torn away; regrets cover
these like embers, and slowly over dead fieriness comes a
robe of ashy gray.
Fire in the forest is light, heat, and cheer. When ours
was nurtured to the self-sustaining point, we searched to
find where the sage Sowee kept his potables. Carefully
covered up in sedges was a slender supply of water, worth
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 133
concealing from vulgar dabblers. Its diamond drops were
hidden away so thoroughly that we must mine for them by
torchlight. I held a flaring torch, while Loolowcan lay in
wait for the trickle, and captured it in a tin pot. How wild
he looked, that youth so frowzy by daylight, as, stooping
under the tall sedges, he clutched those priceless sparkles!
Upon the carte du jour at Restaurant Sowee was written
Grouse. "How shall we have them?" said I, cook and con-
vive, to Loolowcan, marmiton and convive. "One of
these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since gridiron
is not," responded I to myself, after meditation. "Two
shall be spitted, and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want
us before breakfast to-morrow, the fourth shall go upon
the carte de dejeuner."
"0 Pork! what a creature thou art!" continued I, in
monologue, cutting neat slices of that viand with my bowie-
knife, and laying them fraternally, three in a bed, in the
frying-pan. "Blessed be Moses! who forbade thee to the
Jews, whereby we, of freer dispensations, heirs of all the
ages, inherit also pigs more numerous and bacon cheaper.
Pork! what could campaigners do without thy fatness,
thy leanness, thy saltness, thy portableness?"
Here Loolowcan presented me the three birds plucked
featherless as Plato's man. The two roasters we planted
carefully on spits before a sultry spot of the fire. From a
horizontal stick, supported on forked stakes, we suspended
by a twig over each roaster an automatic baster, an in-
verted cone of pork, ordained to yield its spicy juices to
the wooing flame, and drip bedewing on each bosom be-
neath. The roasters ripened deliberately, while keen and
quick fire told upon the fryer, the first course of our feast.
Meanwhile I brewed a pot of tea, blessing Confucius for
that restorative weed, as I had blessed Moses for his absti-
nence from porkers.
Need I say that the grouse were admirable, that every-
thing was delicious, and the Confucian weed first chop?
134
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Even a scouse of mouldy biscuit met the approval of Loolow-
can. Feasts cooked under the greenwood tree, and eaten
by their cooks after a triumphant day of progress, are
sweeter than the conventional banquets of languid Christen-
dom. After we had paid our duty to the brisk fryer and the
rotund roaster grouse, nothing remained but bones to pro-
pitiate Sowee, should he find short commons
in Elysium, and wander back to his lodge,
seeking what he might devour.
All along the journey I had been quietly
probing the nature of Loolowcan, my most
intimate associate thus far among the un-
alloyed copper-skins. Chinook jargon was
indeed but a blunt probe, yet perhaps deli-
cate enough to follow up such rough bits of
conglomerate as served him for ideas. An
inductive philosopher, tracing the laws of
developing human thought in corpore vili of
a frowzy savage, finds his work simple, —
the nuggets are on the surface. Those tough
pebbles known to some metaphysicians as
innate ideas can be studied in Loolowcan in
their process of formation out of instincts.
Number One is the prize number in
Loolowcan's lottery of life. He thinks of
that number; he dreams of it alone. When
he lies down to sleep, he plots what he will
do in the morning with his prize and his
possession; when he wakes, he at once pro-
ceeds to execute his plots. Loolowcan knows that there
are powers out of himself; rights out of himself he does
not comprehend, or even conceive. I have thus far been
very indulgent to him, and treated him republicanly, mind-
ful of the heavy mesne profits for the occupation of a con-
tinent, and the uncounted arrears of blood-money owed by
my race to his; yet I find no trace of gratitude in my an-
Costumed Figure
Carved from a
Deer's Antler.
F o und i n a
Child's Grave
near Tampico.
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN. 135
alysis of his character. He seems to be composed, selfish-
ness, five hundred parts; nil admirari coolness, five hundred
parts; — a well-balanced character, and perhaps one not
likely to excite enthusiasm in others. I am a steward to
him; I purvey him also a horse; when we reach the Dalles,
I am to pay him for his services; but he is bound to me
by no tie of comrade-ry. He has caution more highly
developed than any quadruped I have met, and will
not offend me lest I should resign my stewardship, retract
Gubbins, refuse payment, discharge my guide, and fight
through the woods, where he sees I am no stranger, alone-
He certainly merits a "teapot" for his ability in guidance.
He has memory and observation unerring; not once in all
our intricate journey have I found him at fault in any fact
of space or time. He knows "each lane and every alley
green" here, accurately as Comus knew his "wild wood."
Moral conceptions exist only in a very limited degree
for this type of his race. Of God he knows somewhat less
than the theologians; that is, he is in the primary condition
of uninquisitive ignorance, not in the secondary, of inquisi-
tive muddle. He has the advantage of no elaborate sys-
tem of human inventions to unlearn. He has no distinct
fetichism. None of the North American Indians have, in
the accurate sense of the term; their nomad life and tough
struggle with instructive Nature in her roughness save them
from such elaborate fetichism as may exist in more indolent
climes and countries.
Loolowcan has his tamanoiis. It is Talipus, the Wolf,
a "hyas skookoom tamanoiis, a very mighty demon," he
informs me. He does not worship it; that would interfere
with his devotions to his real deity. Number One. It, in
return, does him little service. If he met Talipus, object
of his superstition, on a fair morning, he would think it a
good omen; if on a sulky morning, he might be somewhat de-
pressed, but would not on that account turn back, as a
Roman brave would have done on meeting the matinal wolf.
136 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
In fact, he keeps Talipus, his tamanous, as a kind of ideal
hobby, very much as a savage civilized man entertains a
pet bulldog or a tame bear, a link between himself and the
rude, dangerous forces of nature. Loolowcan has either
chosen his protector according to the law of likeness, or,
choosing it by chance, has become assimilated to its char-
acteristics. A wolfish youth is the protege of Talipus, an
unfaithful, sinister, cannibal-looking son of a horse-thief.
Wolfish likewise is his appetite; when he asks me for more
dinner, and this without stint or decorum he does, he glares
as if, grouse failing, pork and hardtack gone, he could call
to Talipus to send in a pack of wolves incarnate, and pounce
with them upon me. A pleasant companion this for lamb-
like me to lie down beside in the den of the late Sowee. Yet
I do presently, after supper and a pipe, and a little jargon-
ing in Chinook with my Wolf, roll into my blankets, and
sleep vigorously, lulled by the gratifying noise of my grami-
nivorous horses cramming themselves with material for
leagues of lope to-morrow.
No shade of Sowee came to my slumbers with warnings
against the wolf in guise of a Klickatat brave. I had no
ghostly incubus to shake off, but sprang up recreate in body
and soul. Life is vivid when it thus awakes. To be is to do.
And to-day much is to be done. Long leagues away, be-
yond a gorge of difficulty, is the open rolling hill country,
and again far beyond are the lodges of the people of
Owhhigh. "To-day," said Loolowcan, "we must go copa
nika ilihee, to my home, to Weenas."
Forlorn Caudal is hardly yet a frisky quadruped. Yet
he is of better cheer, perhaps up to the family-nag degree
of vivacity. As to the others, they have waxed fat, and
kick. Klale, the Humorous, kicks playfully, elongating his
legs in preparatory gymnastics. Gubbins, the average
horse, kicks calmly at his saddler, merely as a protest. An-
tipodes, the spiteful blunderer, kicks in a revolutionary
manner, rolls under his pack-saddle, and will not budge
SOWEE HOUSE.— LOOLOWCAN.
137
without maltreatment. Ill-educated Antipodes views man-
kind only as excoriators of his back, and general flagellants.
Klickatats kept him raw in flesh and temper; under me his
physical condition improves; his character is not yet affected.
Before sunrise we quitted the house of Sowee.
Yakima Sculptured and Inlaid Stone Pipe.
IX.
VIA MALA.
I was now to enter the world east of the Cascades, emerg-
ing from the dense forest of the mountain-side. Pacific
winds sailing inland leave most of their moisture on the
western slopes of the range. Few of the cloudy battalions
that sweep across the sea, and come, not like an invading
horde of ravagers, but like an army of generous allies, — few
of these pass over the ramparts, and pour their wealth into
the landward valleys. The giant trees, fattened in their
cells by plenteous draughts of water, are no longer found.
The land is arid. Slopes and levels of ancient volcanic rock
are no longer fertilized by the secular deposit of forests,
showering down year by year upon the earth liberal interest
for the capital it has lent.
Through this drier and airier region we now hastened.
An arrowy river, clear and cold, became our companion.
Where it might, the trail followed the Nachchese valley,
a rough rift often, and hardly meriting the gentle name of
valley. Precipices, stiff, uncrumbling precipices, are to be
found there, if any one is ambitious to batter his brains.
Cleft front on the right bank answers to cleft front on the
left, — fronts cloven when the earth's crust, cooling here-
abouts, snapped, and the monsters of the period heard the
rumble and roar of the earthquake, their crack of doom.
Sombre basalt walls in the fugitive river, great, gloomy,
purple heights, sheer and desperate as suicide, rise six hun-
dred feet above the water. Above these downright mural
breaks rise vast dangerous curves of mountain-side, thous-
NACHES CANYON.
"An arrowy river, clear and cold, became our companion.
Where it m.ight, the trail followed the Naches Valley.
* * * Stiff, uncrumbling precipices are there. Cleft
front on the right bank answers to cleft front on the
left, — fronts cloven when the earth's crust, cooling
hereabouts, snapped, and the monsters of the period
heard the rumble and roar of the earthquake, their
crack of doom. Sombre basalt walls in the fugitive
river, great, gloomy, purple heights, sheer and desper-
ate as suicide, rise six hundred feet above the water."
—Chapter IX.
VIA MALA. 139
ands of feet on high, just at such angle that slide or no slide
becomes a question. A traveller, not desponding, but only-
cautious, hesitates to wake Echo, lest that sweet nymph,
stirring with the tremors of awakening, should set air vi-
brating out of its condition of quiet pressure, and the enor-
mous mountain, seizing this instant of relief, should send
down some cubic miles in an avalanche to crush the traveller.
A very desolate valley, and a harsh defile at best for a
trail to pursue. At best the way might wind among debris,
or pass over hard plates of sheeny, igneous rock, or plunge
into the chill river, or follow a belt of sand, or struggle in
swampy thickets, — this at best it did. But when worst
came, when the precipices neared each other, narrowing the
cafion pathless, and there were deep, still, sunless pools,
brimming up to the giant walls of the basin, then the trail
must desert the river, and climb many hundreds of feet
above. I must compel my horses, with no warranty against
a stumble or a fall, along overhanging verges, where one slip,
or even one ungraceful change of foot, would topple the
stumbler and his burden down to be hashed against jutting
points, and tossed fragmentary, food for fishes, in the lucid
pool below. For there were salmon there, still working up
stream, seeking the purest and safest spots for their future
families.
Now all of this was hard work, some of it dangerous.
It was well that, in the paddock of Sowee, my horses had
filled themselves with elastic grass, parent of activity and
courage. Caudal, though bearing no burden but himself,
was often tempted to despair. Society, example, and elec-
tric shocks of friendly castigation aroused him. We rode
hard along this wild gorge, down these dreary vistas, up and
down these vast barren bulks of mountain. Forlorn yellow
pines, starveling children of adversity, gnarled and scrubby,
began to appear, shabby substitutes for the prosperous firs
and cedars behind. But any gracefulness of vegetation,
any feeling of adornment, would be out of place among
140 THi: CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
those big, unrefined grandeurs. Beauty and grace, and all
conceivable delicacy of form and color, light and shade,
belong to the highest sublimities of Nature. Tacoma is as
lovely with all the minor charms, as it is divinely majestic
by the possession of the greater, and power of combining
and harmonizing the less. But there is a lower kind of sub-
limity, where the predominant effect is one merely of power,
bigness, the gigantesque and cyclopean, rude force acting
disorderly, and producing a hurly-burly almost grotesque.
Perhaps sublimity is too noble a word to apply to these re-
sults of ill-regulated frenzy; they are grand as war, not noble
as peace. Such qualities of Nature have an educational
value, as legends of giants may prepare a child to comprehend
histories of heroes. The volcanic turbulence of the region
I was now traversing might fitly train the mind to perceive
the want of scenes as vast and calmer; — Salvator Rosa is
not without significance among the teachers of Art.
No Pacific Railroad in the Nachchese Pass, — that my
coup d'ceil assured me. Even the Boston hooihut, with all
its boldness in the forest, here could do little. Trees of a
century may be felled in an hour; crags of an aeon baffle a
cycle. The Boston hooihut must worm its m.odest way in
and out the gorge, without essaying to toss down precipices
into chasms. My memory and my hasty road-book alike
fail me in artistic detail to make pictures of that morning's
Via Mala. My chief emotion was expressed in a sigh for
release. It was one of those unkindly days of summer when
sunlight seems not a smile, but a sneer. Cruel heat was re-
flected back from wall to wall of the pass, palpitating to and
fro between baked, verdureless, purple cliff on this side, and
the hot harshness of opponent purple cliff across the stream.
I breathed a sirocco-like air without pabulum, without con-
stituents of blood. I could fabricate a pale fury, an insane
nervous energy, out of this unwholesome, fiery stuff, but
no ardor, no joyousness, no doffing aside of troublous care.
I could advance, and never flinch, because needs must; but
VIA MALA. 141
it seemed a weary, futile toil, to spur my horse over the ugly
pavements of unyielding rock, up over the crumbling brown
acclivities, by perilous ways along the verge of gulfs, where
I could bend to the right from my saddle, and see the river
a thousand feet below. I felt in this unlifting atmosphere,
unwavering except where it trembled over the heated sur-
faces, no elation, as I overcame crest after crest of mountain
along the path, — no excitement, as Klale, the unerring,
galloped me down miles of break-neck declivity, — my
thundering squadron hammering with sixteen legs on the
echoing crust of this furnace-cover.
Ever, "Hyack," cried Loolowcan; "sia-a-ah mitlite
Weenas; — Speed, "cried the Frowzy; "far, far lieth Weenas."
We were now, just after noon, drawing out of the chasms
into a more open valley, when, as we wound through a thicket
of hazels near the river, Loolowcan suddenly halted, and
motioned me mysteriously.
"What now, protege of Talipus? Is it bear or Boston
man?"
"Pasaiooks, — halo cuitan; — Blanketeer, — no horse!"
said Loolowcan, with astonishment.
And there indeed was a horseless gentleman, tossing
pebbles into the Nachchese, as quietly as if he were on the
Hudson. What with little medicine Klickatats, exploring
parties, Boston hooihuters, stray Caudals, and unhorsed
loungers, the Nachchese trail was becoming quite a thorough-
fare.
The stranger proved no stranger; hardly even horseless,
for his mule, from a patch of grass in the thicket, presently
brayed welcome to my nags. The gentleman was one of
Captain McClellan's party, come up from their camp some
leagues farther down. He was waiting at this rendezvous
for the Captain, who was exploring another branch of the
river. To a patroller of crowded city avenues, it may not
seem a significant fact that a man in a solitary trail met a
man. But to me, a not unsociable being, travelling with a
142 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
half-insolent, half-indifferent, jargoning savage, down a
Via Mala of desolation, toward a realm of possibly unbroth-
erly nomads, an encounter by the wayside with a man and
a brother was a fact to enjoy and an emotion to chronicle.
But human sympathy was not dinner for my horses.
I must advance toward that unknown spot where, having
full confidence in Nature, I believed that a table would be
spread for them in the wilderness. "Nature never did de-
ceive the heart that loved her;" for a true lover becomes a
student of his mistress's character enough not to demand
impossibilities. And soon did that goddess, kindly and
faithful object of my lifelong devotion, verify my trust,
providing not only fodder for my cavalry, but a bower for
my nooning, a breeze from above to stir the dead, hot air,
and a landscape appropriate to a banquet, and not like the
cruel chasms I had passed.
In a patch of luxuriant wild-pea vines my horses had
refreshing change of diet, befitting the change of region.
No monotony of scene or action for man or beast thus far
in this journey, no stagnation of mind or body from unex-
citing diet. For me, from the moment when my vain ne-
gotiations began with King George of the Klalams, life had
been at its keenest, its readiest, its fleetest. Multitudi-
nously besprent also with beauty like a bed of pansies had
been these days of dash and charge. My finer and coarser
aesthetic faculties had been so exercised that, if an unedu-
cated traveller, I might have gone bewildered with phan-
tasmagoria. But bewilderment comes from superficialness;
type thoughts stripped of surface cloaking are compact as
diamonds.
My cam^p for present nooning was a charming little
Arcady, shady, sunny, and verdant. Two dense spruces
made pleasant twanging to the newly-risen breeze. These
were the violins of my festival orchestra with strings self-
resinous, while down the caiion roared the growing gale,
and, filling all pauses in this aerial music, the Nachchese
VIA MALA.
143
tinkled merrily, or dashed boisterously, or rattled eagerly.
"On, on with speed!" was the lesson hinted to me by wind
and water. Yet as I cooked for dinner a brace of grouse, my
morning's prey, I might have allowed myself to yield to
vainglorious dalliance. The worser half of my scamper was
behind me. "Try not the pass," people had said; "you can-
not put your space into your time," said they, hinting also
at dangers of solitary travel with one of the crafty. But I
GEN. GEOKGE B. McCLELLAN.
had taken the risk, and success was thus far with me. Let
me now beware of too much confidence. Who can say what
lurks in the heart of Loolowcan? He who persuades himself
that his difficulties are fought through, is but at threshold
of them. When he winds the horn of triumph, perhaps the
sudden ogre will appear; then woe be to the knight, if he has
taken the caps off his revolver.
Loolowcan and I were smoking our pipes of tobacco,
when the tramp of hoofs was heard along the trail, and, with
the late skipper of stones and a couple of soldiers. Captain
McClellan rode up. In vain, through the Nachchese Canon,
144 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
had the Captain searched for a Pacific Railroad. He must
search elsewhere, along Snoqualme Pass or other. Apart
from a pleasant moment of reciprocal well-wishing, the
chief result of this interview was, that I became disembar-
rassed of my treasure- trove Caudal. I seized the earliest
chance of restoring this chattel to Uncle Sam, whose initials
were branded upon his flank. No very available recruit to
my squadron of light horse was this debilitated keterrypid,
whom Good Samaritanism compelled me to humanely en-
treat. Besides, I had erred in his baptism; I had called him
Caudal, and he naturally endeavored to take his place in
the rear. If I had but thought to name him Headlong!
Rest in the shade of the spruces by the buzzing river was
so sweet, after the severity of my morning's ride, that I
hesitated for myself and for my unwilling mustangs to re-
new the journey. To pace on an ambling mule over level
greensward, like a fat papal legate travelling, in mediaeval
times, from refectory to refectory, — that seems as much as
one would wish to do on a hot afternoon of August. I shook
off such indolent thoughts, and mounted. Exertion is its
own reward. The joy in the first effort overbalances the
delight of sloth, and the joy in perpetual effort is clear
gain. And really never an ambling palfrey, slow-footed
potterer under an abbot, interfered less with his rider's
quietude than Klale, the gentle loper. We dragged ourselves
from the shade and the pea-vines, and went dashing at full
speed along the trail, no longer encumbered by fallen trunks
and hurdles of bush and brier. Merely rough, meagre, and
stony was the widening valley, and dotted over its adust
soil with yellow pines, standing apart in scraggy isolation.
At five I reached Captain McClellan's camp of two tents.
He was not yet returned from prying into some other gorge,
some purple cavernous defile for his railroad route. Loo-
lo wean's "far to Weenas" the sergeant in charge interpreted
to mean still twenty-five miles. Their own main body was
encamped in the Weenas valley. Twenty-five miles is a
VIA MALA. 146
terrible supplement, my horses, after the labors of one day;
but ye still seem fresh, thanks to the paddock of Sowee, and
the pea-vines at noon, and to-morrow who knows but ye
may be running free over the plains, while I with fresh nags
go on toward the Dalles. We may not therefore accept the
hospitality of the camp, but must on lustily down the broad
valley this windy evening of summer.
Every appogiatura of Klale's galloping fore-feet and hind-
feet seemed doubly musical to me now. I had escaped; I
was clear of the stern mountains; I was out upon the great
surging prairie-land. Before me all was open, bare, and vast.
To the south, pine woods stretched, like helmet crests, along
the tops and down to the nodding fronts of brown hills;
behind, the gloomy mass of the lower Cascades rose up, an-
ticipating sunset. Distance and dimness shut up the clefts,
and made the whole background one great wall, closing
avenues of return, and urging me forward upon my east-
ward way.
The sun had gone down behind the mountains, had
paused on the tides of Whulge, had sunk in ocean. Twi-
Hght came, and the wind grew mightier, roaring after us
like the voice of the storm that baffled the hunter of hiaqua.
The gale lifted us up over the tremendous wide rolling
bulk of grassy surges, and we swept scudding into billowy
deeps below.
In the thickening dusk I discerned an object, — not a
tree, not a rock; but a mobile black object, scuttling away
for a belt of thicket near the river.
"A bear!" I cried. "Itshoot!" echoed Loolowcan.
Nothing but grouse-shot in my double-barrel, — that I
handed to the Frowzy; six leaden peppercorns in my eight-
inch revolver, — that I kept. Now, Klale, it is whether
Itshoot or thou wilt first touch cover. Klale leaped forward
like an adult grasshopper. Bruin, hearing hoofs, lurched
on like a coal-barge in a tide bobbery. I was within thirty
feet of him when he struck the bushes. I fired. He felt it
146 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
and with a growl stopped and turned upon us. Klale swerved
from those vicious claws, so that I merely heard and felt
them rattle on my stirrup, as I fired again right into the
bear's vacant hug. Before I could check and turn my horse,
Bruin had concluded the unwelcome interview. He had dis-
appeared in the dense thicket. In vain Loolowcan and I
beat about in the dusk. The ursine dodger did not profit
by his chances of ambuscade to embrace one of us and that
chance together. He was not to be found. Perhaps I am
the slayer of a bear. One shot at thirty feet, and one across
the breadth of a handkerchief, might possibly discontinue
the days of such shaggy monster.
When we were upon the trail again, and galloping faster
under the stars, I found that I had a new comic image in
my mind. I roared with jolly laughter, recalling how that
uncouth creature had clumsily pawed at me, missing lacer-
ation by an inch. Had Klale swerved but a little less, there
would have been tragi-comedy in this farce. In place of the
buckskins torn yesterday, I wore a pair of old corduroys,
with scarlet cloth leggins; Destiny thought these did not
need to be farther incarnadined, nor my shins, much abused
along the briery trail, to be torn by any crueller thorniness
of bear's claws. There was, however, underlying too ex-
travagant fun, this sense of escape from no fun. Nature
will not allow even her grotesque creatures to be quite scof-
fed at. Bears may be laughable, but they are not ridicu-
lous. I have been contiguous to an uncaged bear in free
clutching trim but this once, and I respect him too much to
laugh at him to his face. With him I could laugh when he
is in humorous mood, but at Bruin I laugh no more.
By the time I had thus reasoned out the lesson of my
bear-fight, darkness had come. The exhilaration of night-
air revived my horses. They guided themselves bravely
along the narrow way, and bravely climbed the lift and
sway of land surges. Yet over these massive undulations
we could travel but slowly. When it might, the trail fol-
VIA MALA. 147
lowed the terrace above the Nachchese. Often wherever
the trail might choose to follow, we might not follow it in
the dark. Stony arroyos would cut it in twain, or a patch
of wild-sage bushes or a belt of hazels and alders send it
astray. Then would Loolowcan open wide his dusky eyes,
to collect every belated glimmer of twilight, and zigzag
until again he found the clew of our progress. While he
searched, Klale and Antipodes took large morsels of epicu-
rean bunch-grass, in convenient tufts, a generous mouthful
in each.
It grew harder and harder to find the permanent narrow
wake of voyagers beforetime over the great ground-swells
of this unruly oceanic scope of earth. Mariners may cut
their own. hooihut over the hilly deep by the stars. Terrene
travellers cannot thus independently reject history; they
must humble themselves to be followers where tribes have
tramped before. Even such condescension may not avail
when night is master. Loolowcan, though eager as I to
press on, finally perforce admitted that we lost our way in
the thickets and over the gravel oftener than we found it;
that the horses flagged sadly, and we must stop.
It was one of those cloudless gales, when it seems as
if the globe is whirring on so fast beneath the stars, that air
must use its mightiest force of wing lest it be left a laggard.
In moments of stillness, while the flapping of these enormous
pinions ceased, and the gale Vv'ent gliding on by impetus,
we could hear the far-away rumble of the river. Sound is
only second to sight as a guide out of darkness. The music
of a stream, singing with joy that it knows its way, is pleas-
anter guidance than the bark of village cur, who, though
he bite not because he bark, may have a brother deputed
to do that rougher mouthing. Following, then, the sound,
we presently came upon the source of sound, the Nachchese.
Sky and stars are a peaceful shelter over a bivouac; yet
when between the would-be sleeper and that friendly roof
there is a tumultuous atmosphere misbehaving itself, sleep
148 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
is torn up and whirled away in tatters. We must have some
bulwark against the level sweep of the gale; and must pay
for getting it by losing something else. Upon the bank we
could have a bed level and earthy, but wind-battered; under
the bank we could lie sheltered, but must lie on pebbles.
On pebble boulders we must make our couch, where water
at higher stages had washed away all the soft packing of
earth.
We left the horses to occupy the bank above, where they
could sup on succulent bunch-grass, firm and juicy as well-
cured hay. Much as we regretted abridging their freest
Carved Stone Club-head or Net-sinker, from Priest Rapids, Wash.
One-third natural size.
liberty of repose, we were obliged to hobble them lest they
should go with the wind down the valley, and at morn be
leagues away. If a man wishes speed, he must take precau-
tions that speed do not fly away from him. Civilization
without its appliances is weaker than barbarism.
No gastronomic facts of our camp below the Nachchese;
supper was much lower than secondary to rest. We had
been full sixteen difficult hours in the saddle. Nights of
my life, not a few, have been wretched in feather beds for
too much softness; stem hardness was to be the cause of
VIA MALA.
149
other misery here. This night cobble-stones must be my bed,
a boulder pillow for my head. My couch was uneven as a
rippled lake suddenly congealed. A being not molluscous,
but humanly bony, and muscular over bonyness, cannot for
hours beat upon pebbles unbruised. So I had a night of
weary unrest. The wild rush of the river and noise of the
gale ran through my turbid sleep in dreams of tramping bat-
talions, — such as a wounded and fevered man, lying un-
helped on a battle-field, might dream.
Yet let us always be just. There are things to be said
in behalf of cobble-stone beds by rivers of the Northwest.
I was soft to the rocks, if not they to me. I have heard of
regions where one may find that he slept cheek by jowl with
a cobra di capella. These are absent from the uninviting
bed of cobble-stones by the Nachchese, and so are mosquitos,
rattlesnakes, burglars, and the cry of fire. Negative ad-
vantages these. Consider also the positive good to a man,
that, having been thoroughly toughened by hardness, he
knows what the body of him is strong to be, to do, and to
suffer. Furthermore, one after experience of a pummelling
couch, like this, will sympathize sufiiciently, and yet not
morbidly, with the poor bedless. So I slept, or did not sleep,
while the gale roared wildly all night, and was roaring still
at dawn.
Potlatch House of the Lummi Indians.
X.
TREACHERY.
People cloddish, stagnant, and mundane, such as most
of us are, pretend to prefer sunset to sunrise, just as we
fancy the past greater than the present, and repose nobler
than action. Few are radical enough in thought to perceive
the great equalities of beauty and goodness in phenomena
of nature or conditions of life. Now I saw a sunrise after
my night by the Nachchese, which, on the side of sunrise,
it is my duty to mention.
Having therefore put in my fact, that on a morning of
August, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, sunrise
did its duty with splendor, I have also done my duty as an
observer. The simple statement of a fact is enough for the
imaginative, who will reproduce it for themselves, accord-
ing to their experience; the docile unimaginative will buy
alarm-clocks and study dawns. Yet I give a few coarse de-
tails as a work of supererogation.
If I had slept but faintly, the cobble-stones had purveyed
me a substitute for sleep by hammering me senseless; so
that when the chill before dawn smote me, and I became
conscious, I felt that I needed consolation. Consolation
came. I saw over against me, across the river, a hill blue
as hope, and seemingly far away in the gray distance. Light
flushed upward from the horizon, meeting no obstacles of
cloud, to be kindled and burnt away into white ashiness.
Light came up the valley over the dark, surging hills. Full
in the teeth of the gale it came, strong in its delicacy, surely
victorious, as a fine scimitar against a blundering bludgeon.
TREACHERY. 151
Where light and wind met on the crest of an earth-billow,
there the grass shook like glittering spray. Meanwhile
the hill opposite was drawing nearer, and all the while taking
a fuller blue. Blue passed into deep scintillating purple,
rich as the gold-powdered robe of an Eastern queen. As
daylight grew older, it was strong enough to paint detail
without sacrificing effect; the hill took its place of neighbor-
hood, upright and bold, a precipitous front of warm, brown
basalt, with long cavities, freshly cleft, where prisms had
fallen, striping the brown with yellow. First upon the
summit of this cliff the sunbeams alighted. Thence they
pounced upon the river, and were whirled along upon its
breakers, carrying light down to flood the valley. In the
vigorous atmosphere of so brilliant a daybreak I divined
none of the difficulties that were before sunset to befall me.
By this we were in the saddle, following the sunlight rush
of the stream. StifRsh, after passing the night hobbled,
were the steeds, as bruised after boulder beds were the cav-
aliers. But Loolowcan, the unimpassioned, was now aroused.
Here was the range of his nomad life. Anywhere hereabouts
he might have had his first practice-lessons in horse-stealing.
His foot was on his native bunch-grass. Those ridges far
away to the northeast must be passed to reach Weenas.
Beyond those heights, to the far south, is Atinam and "Le
Play House," the mission. Thus far time and place have
made good the description of the eloquent Owhhigh.*
Presently in a small plain appeared a horse, hobbled and
lone as a loon on a lake. Have we acquired another master-
less estray? Not so. Loolowcan uttered a peculiar trilo-
bated yelp, and forth from an ambush, where he had dodged,
crept the shabbiest man in the world. Shabby are old-clo'
men in the slums of Brummagem; shabbier yet are Mor-
*"Le Play House" is probably Loolowcan's attempt at the French
"le prete" priest. However, as the Indian tongue converted r into 1,
it may represent his effort to say the "pray house." As the priests in
charge of the Atanum Mission spoke French, the former explanation
is the more likely.
152 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
mons at the tail of an emigration. But among the seediest
ragamuffins in the most unsavory corners I have known, I
find no object that can compare with this root-digging
KHckatat, as at Loolowcan's signal-yelp he crept from his
lair among the willows. His attire merits attention as the
worst in the world.
The moccasins of Shabbiest had been long ago another's,
probably many another Klickatat's. Many a coyote had
appropriated them after they were thrown away as defunct,
and, after gnawing them in selfish solitude, every coyote
had turned away unsatisfied with their flavor. Then Shab-
biest stepped forward, and claimed the treasure-trove.
He must have had a decayed ingenuity; otherwise how
with thongs, with willow twigs, with wisps of grass and per-
sistent gripe of toe, did he compel those tattered footpads to
remain among his adherents?
Breeches none had Shabbiest; leggings none; shirt equally
none to speak of. But a coat he had, and one of many colors.
Days before, on the waters of Whulge, I had seen a sad
coat on the back of that rusty and fuddled chieftain, the Duke
of York, Nature gently tempers our experience to us as we are
able to bear. The Duke's coat was my most deplorable vision
in coats until its epoch, but it had educated me to lower
possibilities. Ages ago, when this coat was a new and lively
snuff-color, Garrick was on the stage, Goldsmith was buying
his ridiculous peach-blossom, in shape like this, if this were
ever shapely. In the odors that exhaled from it there seemed
an under stratum of London coffee-houses. Who knows but
He of Bolt Court, slovenly He of the Dictionary, may not
have been guilty of its primal grease-spot? And then how
that habiliment became of a duller snuff-color; how grease-
spots oozed each into its neighbor's sphere of attraction;
how one of its inheritors, after familiarizing it with the gutter,
pawned it one foggy November day, when London was
swallowing cold pea-soup instead of atmosphere; how, the
pawner never coming to redeem, the pawnee sold it to an
TREACHERY. 153
American prisoner of the Revolution, to carry home with
him to Boston, his native village; how a degraded scion of
the family became the cook of Mr. Astor's ill-fated ship,
the Tonquin, and swopped it with a Chinook chief for four
otter-skins; and how from shabby Chinook to shabbier it
had passed, until Shabbiest got it at last; — all these adven-
tures, every eventful scene in this historic drama, was writ-
ten in multiform inscription all over this time-stained ruin,
so that an expert observer might read the tale as a geologist
reads eras of the globe in a slab of fossiliferous limestone.
Such was the attire of Shabbiest, and as such he began a
powwow with Loolowcan. The compatriots talked em-
phatically, with the dull impulsiveness, the calm fury, of
Indians. I saw that I, my motions, and my purposes were
the subject of their discourse. Meanwhile I stood by, some-
what bored, and a little curious.
At last, he of the historical coat turned to me, and,
raising his arms, one sleeveless, one fringed with rags at the
shoulder, delivered at me a harangue, in the most jerky and
broken Chinook. Given in broken English, corresponding,
its purport was as follows.
Shabbiest loquitur, in a naso-guttural choke: — "What
you white man want get 'em here? Why him no stay Boston
country? Me stay my country; no ask you come here. Too
much soldier man go all round everywhere. Too much
make pop-gun. Him say kill bird, kill bear, — sometime
him kill Indian. Soldier man too much shut eye, open eye
at squaw. Squaw no like; s'pose squaw like, Indian man
no like nohow. Me no understand white man. Plenty
good thing him country; plenty blanket; plenty gun; plenty
powder; plenty horse. Indian country plenty nothing. No
good Weenas give you horse. No good Loolowcan go Dalles.
Bad Indian there. Small-pox there. Very much all bad.
Me no like white man nohow. S'pose go away, me like. Me
think all same pretty fine good. You big chief, got plenty
thing. Indian poor, no got nothing. Howdydo? Howdydo?
154 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Want swop coat? Want swop horse? S'pose give Indian
plenty thing. Much good. Much very big good great
chief white man!"
"Indignant sagamore," replied I, in mollifying tones,
"you do indeed misunderstand us blanketeers. We come
hither as friends for peace. No war is in our hearts, but
kindly civilizing influences. If you resist, you must be
civilized out of the way. We should regret your removal
from these prairies of Weenas, for we do not see where in
the world you can go and abide, since we occupy the Pa-
cific shore and barricade you from free drowning privileges.
Succumb gracefully, therefore, to your fate, my representa-
tive redskin. Do not scowl when soldier men, seai'ching
for railroads, repose their seared and disappointed eyeballs
by winking at your squaws. Do not long for pitfalls when
their cavalry plod over your kamas swamps. Believe all
same very much good. Howdydo? Howdydo? No swop!
I cannot do you the injustice of swopping this buckskin
shirt of mine, embroidered with porcupine-quills, for that
distinguished garment of yours. Nor horse can I swop in
fairness; mine are weary with travel, and accustomed for a
few days to influences of mercy. But, as a memorial of
this pleasant interview and a testimonial to your eloquent
speech, I should be complimented if you would accept a
couple of charges of powder."
And, suiting act to word, I poured him out powder,
which he received in a buckskin rag, and concealed in some
shabby den of his historic coat. Shabbiest seemed actually
grateful. Two charges of powder were like two soup-tickets
to a starving man, — two dinners inevitably, and possibly,
according to the size of his mark, many dinners, were in
that black dust. He now asked to see my six-shooter, which
Loolowcan had pointed at during their vernacular confidence.
He examined it curiously, handling it with some apprehen-
sion, as a bachelor does a baby.
"Wake nika kumtun ocook tenas musket. Pose mika
I
TREACHERY. 155
mamook po, ikta mika memloose; — I no understand that
little musket. Suppose you make shoot, how many you
kill?" he asked.
"Hin, pose moxt tahtilum; — Many, perhaps two tens,"
I said, with mild confidence.
This was evidently impressive. "Hyas tamanoiis; big
magic," said both. "Wake cultus ocook; no trifler that!"
We parted, Shabbiest to his diggings, we to our trail.
Hereupon Loolowcan's tone changed more and more. His
old terrors, real or pretended, awoke. He feared the Dalles.
It was a long journey, and I was in such headlong haste.
And how could he return from the Dalles, had we once
arrived? Could the son of Owhhigh foot it? Never! Would
I give him a horse?
Obviously not at all would I give a horse to the new-
fledged dignitary, I informed him, cooling my wrath at
these bulbous indications of treachery, nurtured by the
talk of Shabbiest, and ready to grow into a full-blown Judas-
tree if encouraged. At last, by way of incitement to greater
diligence in procuring fresh horses for me from the bands at
Weenas, I promised to hire one for his return journey. But
Loolowcan the Mistrusted, watching me with disloyal eyes
from under his matted hair, became doubly doubted by me
now.
We turned northward, clomb a long, rough ridge, and
viewed, beyond, a valley bare and broad. A strip of
Cottonwood and shrubs in the middle announced a river,
Weenas. This was the expected locale; would the personnel
be as stationary? Rivers, as it pleases nature, may run
away forever without escaping. Camps of nomad Klick-
atats, are more evasive. The people of Owhhigh, driving
the horses of Owhhigh, might have decamped. What then,
Loolowcan, son of a horse-thief? Can your talents aid me
in substituting a fresher for Gubbins drooping for thy
maltreatment?
Far away down the valley, where I could see them only
156 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
as one sees lost Pleiads with telescopic vision, were a few
white specks. Surely the tents of Boston soldier tilicum,
winkers at squaws and thorns in the side of Shabbiest, — a
refuge if need be there, thought I. Loolowcan turned away
to the left, leading me into the upper valley.
We soon discovered the fact, whatever its future worth
might be, that horses were feeding below. Presently a
couple of lodges defined themselves rustily against the thick-
ets of Weenas. A hundred horses, roans, calicos, sorrels,
iron-grays, blacks and whites, were nipping bunch-grass on
the plain. My weary trio, wearier this hot morning for the
traverse of the burnt and shaggy ridge above Weenas, were
enlivened at sight of their fellows, and sped toward them
companionably. But the wild cavalcade, tossing disdain-
ful heads and neighing loudly, dashed off in a rattling stam-
pede; then paused curiously till we came near, and then were
off again, the lubberly huddling along far in the rear of the
front caracolers.
We dismounted, and tethered our wayfarers each to a
bush, where he might feed, but not fly away to saddleless
freedom with the wild prairie band. We entered the nearer
and larger of the two lodges.
Worldlings, whether in palaces of Cosmopolis or lodges
of the siwashes, do not burn incense before the absolute
stranger. He must first establish his claims to attention.
No one came forth from the lodges to greet us. No one
showed any sign of curiosity or welcome as we entered.
Squalid were these huts of squalid tenancy. Architecture
does not prevail .as yet on the American continent, and per-
haps less among the older races of the western regions than
among the newer comers Bostonward. These habitations
were structures of roughly split boards, leaning upon a
ridge-pole.
Five foul copper-heads and bodies of men lurked among
the plunder of that noisomie spot. Several squaws were
searching for gray hairs in the heads of several children.
TREACHERY. 157
One infant, evidently malcontent, was being flat-headed.
This fashionable martyr was papoosed in a tight-swathing
wicker-work case. A broad pad of buckskin compressed its
facile skull and brain beneath. If there is any reason why
the Northwest Indians should adopt the configuration of
idiots, none such is known to me. A roundhead Klickatat
woman would be a pariah. The ruder sex are not quite so
elaborately beautified, or possibly their brains assert them-
selves more actively in later life against the distortion of
'/
WAKEMA : Aged Klickitat Squaw.
childhood. The Weenas papoose, victim of aboriginal ideas
in the plastic art, was hung up in a corner of the lodge, and
but for the blinking of its beady black eyes, almost crowded
out of its head by the tight pad, and now and then a feeble
howl of distress, I should have thought it a laughable image,
the pet fetish of these shabby devotees. Sundry mats,
blankets, skins, and dirty miscellanies furnished this pop-
ulous abode.
Loolowcan was evidently at home among these com-
patriots, frowzier even than he. He squatted among them,
158 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
sans gene, and lighted his pipe. One of the ladies did the
honors, and motioned me to a seat upon a rusty bear-skin.
It instantly began biting me virulently through my cor-
duroys; whereat I exchanged it for a mat, soon equally car-
nivorous. Odors very villanous had made their settlement
in this congenial spot. An equine fragrance such as no es-
sence could have overcom.e, pervaded the masculine group.
From the gynseceum came a perfume, hard to decipher,
until I bethought me how Governor Ogden, at Fort Van-
couver of the Hudson's Bay Company, with a cruelly wag-
gish wink to me, had persuaded the commissary of the rail-
road party to buy twelve dozen quarts of Macassar, as
presents for the Indians.*
"Fair and softly" is the motto of a siwash negotiation.
Why should they, in their monotonous lives, sacrifice a new
sensation by hurry? The five copper-skins "first eyed me
over" with lazy thoroughness. They noted my arms and
equipment. When they had thus taken my measure by
the eye, they appealed to my guide for historical facts; they
would know my whence, my whither, my wherefore, and
his share in my past and my future.
Loolowcan droned a sluggish tale, to whose points of
interest they grunted applause between puffs of smoke.
Then there was silence and a tendency toward slumber de-
clared itself among them; their minds needed repose after
so unusual a feast of ideas. Here I protested. I expressed
my emphatic surprise to Loolowcan, that he was not urgent
in fulfilling the injunctions of my friend the mighty Owh-
high, and his own agreement to procure horses. The quad-
rupeds were idle, and I was good pay. A profitable bargain
was possible.
The spokesman of the party, and apparently owner of
the lodge and horses, was an olyman siwash, an old savage,
*It is only fair to Gen. Hodges, McClellan's adjutant and com-
missary, to say that he declines to admit any share in this delicate at-
tention to the ladies of Wenas! See Appendix C.
TREACHERY. 159
totally unwashed from boyhood up, and dressed in du-ty
buckskin. Loolowcan, in response to my injunctions, ap-
pealed to him. Olym.an declined expediting me. He would
not lend, nor swop, nor sell horses. There was no mode for
the imparting of horses, temporarily or permanently, that
pleased him. His sentiments on the subject of Boston vis-
itors were like those of Shabbiest. All my persuasions he
qualified as "Cultus wah wah; idle talk." Not very polite
are thy phrases, Olyman head man of Stenchville on Weenas.
At the same time he and the four in chorus proposed to
Loolowcan to abandon me. Olyman alone talked Chinook
jargon; the other four sat, involved in their dirty cotton
shirts, waiting for interpretation, and purred assent or dis-
sent, — yea, to all the insolence of Olyman; nay, to every
suggestion of mine. Toward me and my plans the meeting
was evidently sulky and inclement.
Loolowcan, however, did not yet desert his colors. He
made the supplementary proposition that Olyman should
hire us a sumpter horse, on which he the luxurious Loolowcan,
disdainer of pedestrians, miight prance back from the far-
away Dalles. I was very willing on any conditions to add
another quadruped to my trio. They all flagged after the
yesterday's work, and Gubbins seemed ready to fail.
While this new question v/as pending, a lady came to my
aid. The prettiest and wisest of the squaws paused in her
researches, and camie forward to join the council. This
beauty of the Klickatats thought hiring the horse an ad-
mirable scheme. "Loolowcan," said she, "can take the con-
sideration-money, and buy me'ikta,'what not, at the Dalles."
This suggestion of the Light of the Harem touched Olyman.
He rose, and com.manded the assistance of the shirt-clad
quartette. They loungingly surrounded the band of horses,
and with whoops and throwing of stones drove them into
a corral, near the lodges. Olyman then produced a hide
lasso, and tossed its loop over the head of a roan, the stereo-
scopic counterpart of Gubbins.
160 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Meantime Loolowcan had driven up my horses. I or-
dered him to tie Antipodes and Gubbins together by the
head, with my long hide lariat. The manner of all the In-
dians was so intolerably insolent, that I still expected trouble.
My cavalry, I resolved, should be well in hand. I flung the
bight of the lariat with a double turn over the horn of my
saddle and held Klale, my quiet friend, by his bridle. My
three horses were thus under complete control.
The roan was brought forward. But again an evil genius
among the Indians interfered, and growled a few poisonous
words into the ear of Olyman. Olyman doubled his demand
for his horse. I refused to be imposed upon, with an in-
cautious expression of opinion on the subject. The Indians
talked with ferocious animation for a moment, and then
retired to the lodge. The women and children who had been
spectators immediately in a body marched off, and disap-
peared in the thickets. Ladies do not leave the field when
amicable entertainment is on the cards.
But why should I tarry after negotiation had failed? I
ordered Loolowcan to mount and lead the way. He said
nothing, but stood looking at me, as if I were another and
not myself, his recent friend and comrade. There was a
new cast of expression in his dusky eyes.
At this moment the Indians came forth from the lodge.
They came along in a careless, lounging way, but every rag-
amuffin was armed. Three had long single-barrel guns of
the Indian pattern. One bore a bow and arrows. The fifth
carried a knife, half concealed, and, as he came near, slipped
another furtively into the hand of Loolowcan.
What next? A fight? Or a second sham-fight, like that
of Whulge?
I stood with my back to a bush, with my gun leaning
against my left arm, where my bridle hung; my bowie-knife
was within convenient reach, and I amused myself during
these instants of expectancy by abstractedly turning over
the cylinder of my revolver. "Another adventure," I
TREACHERY. 161
thought, "where this compact machine will be available to
prevent or punish."
Loolowcan now stepped forward, and made me a brief,
neat speech, full of facts. Meanwhile those five copper-
heads watched me, as I have seen a coterie of wolves, squatted
just out of reach, watch a wounded buffalo, who made front
to them. There was not a word in Loolowcan's speech about
the Great Spirit, or his Great Father, or the ancient wrongs
of the red man, or the hunting-grounds of the blest, or fire-
water, or the pipe of peace. Nor was the manner of his
oration lofty, proud, and chieftainly, as might befit the son
of Owhhigh. Loolowcan spoke like an insolent varlet, ready
to be worse than insolent, and this was the burden of his lay.
"Wake nika klatawah copa Dalles; I won't go to Dalles.
Nika mitlite Weenas; I stay Weenas. Alta mika payee nika
chickamin pe ikta; now you pay me my money and things."
This was the result then, — my plan shot dead, my con-
fidence betrayed. This frowzy liar asking me payment for
his treachery, and backing his demand with knives and guns!
Wrath mastered me. Prudence fled.
I made my brief rejoinder speech, thrusting into it all
the billingsgate I knew. My philippic ran thus: —
"Kamooks, mika kliminwhit ; dog, you have lied.
Cultus si wash, wake Owhhigh tenas; paltry savage, no son
of Owhhigh! Kallapooya; a Kallapooya Indian, a groveller.
Skudzilaimoot; a nasty varmint. Tenas mika tum tum;
cowardly is thy heart. Quash klatawah copa Dalles; afraid
to go to Dalles. Nika mamook paper copa squally tyee
pe spose mika chaco yaquah yaka skookoom mamook stick;
I shall write a paper to the master of Nisqually (if I ever get
out of this), and suppose you go there, he will lustily apply
the rod."
Loolowcan winced at portions of this discourse. He
seemed ready to pounce upon me with the knife he grasped.
And now as to pay, "Hyas pultin mika; a great fool art
thou, to suppose that I can be bullied into paying thee for
162 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
bringing me out of my way to desert me. No go, no pay."
"Wake nika memloose; I no die for the lack of it," said
Loolowcan, with an air of unapproachable insolence.
Having uttered my farewell, I waited to see what these
filthy braves would do, after their scowling looks and threat-
ening gestures. If battle comes, thou, Loolowcan, wilt
surely go to some hunting-grounds in the other world,
whether blest or curst. Thou at least never shalt ride Gub-
bins as master; never wallop Antipodes as brutal master;
nor in murderous revelry devour the relics of my pork, my
hardtack, and my tongues. It will be hard if I, with eight
shots and a slasher, cannot make sure of thee to dance before
me, as guide, down the defiles of purgatory.
There was an awkward pause. All the apropos remarks
had been made. The spokesmen of civilization and bar-
barism had each had their say. Action rather halted. No
one was willing to take the initiative. Whether the Stench-
villians proposed to attack or not, they certainly would not
do it while I was so thoroughly on my guard. Colonel Colt,
quiet as he looked, represented to them an indefinite slaughter
power.
I must myself make the move. I threw Klale's bridle
over his neck, and, grasping the horn, swung myself into the
saddle, as well as I could with gun in one hand and pistol in
the other.
The Klickatats closed in. One laid hold of Antipodes.
The vicious-looking Mephistophiles with the knife leaped
to Klale's head and made a clutch at the rein. But Colonel
Colt, with Cyclopean eyeball, was looking him full in the
face. He dropped the bridle, and fell back a step. I dug
both spurs into Klale with a yell. Antipodes whirled and
lashed at his assailant with dangerous hoofs. Gubbins
started. Klale reared and bolted forward.
We had scattered the attacking party, and were ofif.
XI.
KAMAIAKAN.
Towing a horse on each side, by a rope turned about my
saddle-horn, I moved but slowly. For a hundred yards I
felt a premonitory itching in my spine, as of arrow in the
marrow. I would not deign to turn. If vis a tergo came,
I should discover it soon enough. I felt no inclination to
see anything more of any Indians, ever, anywhere. I was in
raging ^Tath; too angry as yet to be at a loss for the future;
too furious to despond.
Whatever might now befall, I was at least free of Loolow-
can the Frowzy. As to mutual benefit, we were nearly quits.
He had had from me a journey home and several days of ban-
queting; I from him guidance hither. He had at last de-
serted me, shabbily, with assassination in his wishes; but I
had not paid him, had vilipended him, and taken myself off
unharmed. Withal I was disappointed. My type Indian,
one in the close relations of comrade, had failed me. It is
a bitter thing to a man to find that he has thrown away even
a minor measure of friendship or love upon a meaner nature.
I could see what the traitor influences were, but why could
he not resist, and be plucky, honorable, and a fine fellow?
Why cannot all the pitiful be noble?
What saved me from massacre by the citizens of Weenas
was not, I suppose, my six-shooter, not my double-barrel,
not my bowie, — though each had its influence on the minds
of Indians, — but the neighborhood of the exploring camp.
Much as Shabbiest and Olyman disliked these intruders,
they feared them more. Loolowcan also felt that he was
164 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
responsible for my safety, and that, if I disappeared, some
one would ask him the inevitable question, where had he
put me. The explorers, not having had much success in
finding a railroad, would be entertained with an opportu-
nity for other researches. Yet the temptation to six siwashes
to butcher one Boston man, owner of three passable horses
and valuable travelling gear, is so great, and siwash power
to resist present temptation so small, that I no doubt owed
something to my armament, and something to my evident
intention to use it.
I now made for the exploring camp as best I might.
Gubbins and Antipodes were disposed to be centrifugal,
and, as I did not wish to weary Klale with pursuits, I held to
my plan of towing the refractory steeds. At times the two
would tug their lengths of rope isosceles, and meet for biting
each other. When this happened, I, seated just behind the
apex of the triangle, was wellnigh sawed in twain by the
closing sides. After such encounter, Antipodes would per-
haps lurch ahead violently, while Gubbins, limping from a
kick, would be a laggard. Klale would thus become the
point where two irregular arms of a diagonal met, and would
be sorely unsteadied, as are those who strive to hold even
control between opponent forces.
Thus I jerked along, sometimes tugging, sometimes
tugged, until I discerned a distant flicker in the air, which
soon defined itself as the American flag, and through the
underwood I saw the tents of the exploring party, a wel-
come refuge.
I was tired, hot, excited, and hateful, disgusted with
Indians and horses, and fast losing my faith in everything;
therefore the shelter of a shady tent was calming, and so
was the pleasant placidity of the scene within. Lieutenant
M.* was reclining within, buying of a not uncleanly Indian
long, neat potatoes and a silver salmon. Dewiness of his
*Lieut. Sylvester Mowry of the Third U. S. Artillery, the meteor-
ologist of the McClellan surveying party.
KAMAIAKAN. 165
late bath in the melted snows of the Weenas sparkled still
on the bright scales of the fish. It was a tranquillizing spec-
tacle after the rough travel and offensive encounters of the
day. Almost too attractive to a man who, after a few mo-
ments of this comparatively Sybaritic dalliance, must re-
new, and now alone, his journey, fed with musty hardtack,
and must again whip tired nags over plains bristling with
wild sage, and over the aggravating backbones of the earth.
The camp could give me, as it did, a hospitable meal of
soldier's fare; but, with friendliest intentions, the camp
could do little to speed me. It could advise me that to
launch out unguided into the unknown is perilous; but I
was resolved not to be baffled. Le Play House, the mission
where Loolowcan should have guided me in the morning,
was somewhere. I could find it, and ask Christian aid there.
The priests would probably have Indian retainers, and one
of these would be a safer substitute for my deserter. I would
not prognosticate failure; enough to meet it if it come.
Le Play House is on the Atinam, twenty miles in a bee-
line from camp. Were one but a bee, here would be a pleasant
flight this summer's afternoon. But how to surely trace
this imaginary route across pathlessness, over twenty miles
of waste, across two ranges of high scorched hills? Two
young Indians, loungers about the camp, offered to conduct
me for a shirt. Cheap, but inadmissible; I am not now, my
young shirtless, in the mood for lavishing a shirt of civili-
zation on any of the si wash race. Too recent are the in-
juries and insults of Loolowcan and the men of Stenchville.
I am still in an imprudent rage. I rashly scorn the help
of aborigines. Thereaway is Atinam, — I will ride thither
alone this pleasant afternoon of summer.
I could not fitly ask the fusillade for Loolowcan, Olyman,
and his gang. Their action had been too incomplete for
punishment so final. I requested Lieutenant M. to mamook
stick upon my ex-comrade should he present himself. I
fear that the traitor escaped unpunished, perhaps to occupy
166 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
himself in scalping my countrymen in the late war.* Owh-
high in that war was unreasonably hanged; there are worse
fellows than Owhhigh, in cleaner circles, unhung, and not
even sent to Coventry.
Before parting, Lieutenant M. and I exchanged presents
of our most precious objects, after the manner of the Homeric
heroes. Hard-shell remainder biscuits he gave, jaw-breakers,
and tough as a pine-knot, but more grateful than my hard-
tack, well sprouted after its irrigation by the S'kamish. I
bestowed, in return, two of my salted tongues, bitter as the
maxims of La Rochefoucauld.
Gubbins and Antipodes were foes irreconcilable, — a fact
*Winthrop had evidently not heard of the fate that befell his guide
at the close of the Indian war, or perhaps he did not know that his
"Loolowcan" was identical with the notorious Qualchen, son of Owhi,
whose murder of the highly-respected Indian agent, A. J. Bolon,
hastened the outbreak of that war. Bolon, who had been trying to hold
back the warriors of Kamaiakan and Schloo by negotiating with those
chiefs, had started to return to The Dalles, "accompanied by three
Indians," says Snowden, "one of whom was a son of one of the chiefs.
By some this was supposed to be Qualchen, son of Owhi, and by others
he is supposed to have been a son of Sho-ah-way, another chief. After
proceeding for some distance from the mission this young man, whoever
he was, dropped behind the party and shot Bolon through the back.
With the help of his companions he then cut his throat, killed his horse,
built a fire and burned the bodies of horse and rider together."
Gen. Hazard Stevens writes me from Boston that he is convinced
that Loolowcan and Qualchen were the same. This is now established
beyond question by the testimony of Edward Huggins, the Hudson's
Bay Factor, cited later in this volume.
The retribution that overtook Qualchen was as ruthless as his own
character. At the close of the Indian war, Col. George Vv^right, having
captured Owhi, sent word to his son that he would hang the old chief
if Qualchen did not appear forthwith. "The next day," says Snowden,
in a passage that pictures Qualchen in very different garb from that worn
by Loolowcan the Frowzy, "about 9 o'clock, two gaily-dressed warriors
and a squaw, followed by an Indian hunchback, rode boldly into the
camp and directly to Colonel Wright's tent. All wore a great deal of
scarlet, and the squaw was bedecked with two highly ornamental scarfs
passing over the left shoulder and under the right arm, while on the sad-
dle in front she carried a long lance, the handle of which was wound with
strings of many colored beads. The two braves carried rifles, and one
had a highly ornamented tomahawk. This was Qualchen, the much-
wanted; and he and those with him were immediately seized. 'He came
to me at 9 o'clock this morning,' says Colonel Wright in his report,
'and at 9:15 he was hung.' " — Snowden: History oj Washington, III.,
333; IV., 32.
KAMAIAKAN. 167
of immense value. Therefore, that they might travel with
less expense of scamper to me, I tied their heads together.
I felt, and so it proved, that, whenever Antipodes begged to
pause and feed, Gubbins would be impelled to keep up a
steady jog-trot, and whenever Gubbins wished to inspect
a tuft of bunch-grass to the right, his companion would
stolidly decline compliance, and plod faithfully along the
ideal bee-line. There must be no discursiveness in my troop
henceforth.
Then I resolutely said adieu to the friendly camp, and,
pointing my train for a defile in the hard hills upon the
southern horizon, started, not very gayly, and very lonely.
We did not droop, horses or man, but the visionary Hope
that went before was weak in the knees, and no longer
bounded gallantly, beckoning us onward. The two light-
loaded horses, in their leash, were rarely unanim^ous to halt,
but their want of harmony often interfered with progress,
and Owhhigh's whip must often whirr about their flanks,
hinting to them not to be too unbrotherly. Toiling thus
doggedly on over the dry levels and rolling sweeps of prairie,
Klale and I grew weary with the remorseless sunshine, and
our responsibility of the march.
As I rounded a hillock, two horsemen, galloping toward
me, drew up at a hundred yards to reconnoitre. One of
them immediately rode forward. What familiar scarecrow
is this? By that Joseph coat I recognize him. It is Shab-
biest, pleased evidently to see that Loolowcan has taken
his advice, and I am departing alone.
"Kla hy yah? Howdydo?" said the old man, "Whither
now, Boston tyee?"
"To Le Play House," answered I, short and sour, feeling
no affinity for this rusty person, the first beguiler of my
treacherous guide.
"Not the hooihut," said he. "Nanitch ocook polealy;
behold this powder," — the powder I had given him. For
this gift, within his greasy garb there beat a grateful heart,
168 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
or possibly a heart expectant of more, and he volunteered
to guide me a little way into the trail. Moral: always give
a testimonial to dreary old grumblers in ole clo', when you
meet them in the jolly morning, — possibly they may re-
quite you when you meet at sulky eve.
First, Shabbiest must ask permission of his companion.
"My master," he said; "I am elaita, a slave." The master,
a big, bold Indian of Owhhigh type, in clothes only second-
hand, gave him free permission. The old man's servitude was
light.
Shabbiest led off on his shambler in quite another di-
rection from mine, and more southerly. After a mile or so
we climbed a steep hill, whence I could see the Nachchese
again. I saw also behind me a great column of dust, and
from it anon two galloping riders making for us.
They dashed up, — the same two youths who at camp
had offered to guide me to Le Play House for a shirt. I was
humbler now than when I refused them before noon, having
over-confidence in myself and my power of tracing bee-lines.
We must, perhaps, be lost in our younker and prodigal pe-
riods, before our noon, that we may be taught respect for
experience, and believe in co-operation of brother-men.
Now, I possessed two shirts of faded blue-check calico,
and was important among savages for such possession. One
of these, much bedimmed with dust, at present bedecked
my person, — buckskin laid aside for the heat. There was no
washerwoman within many degrees of latitude and longi-
tude, — none probably between the Cascades and the
Rockies. Why not, then, disembarrass myself of a value-
less article, — a shirt properly hors du combat, — if by its aid
I might win to guide me two young rovers, ambitious of
so much distinction on their Boulevards as a checked calico
could confer?
Young gallopers, the shirt is yours. Ho for Le Play House!
Adieu, Shabbiest, unexpected re-enterer on this scene!
Thy gratitude for two charges of powder puts a fact on the
KAMAIAKA.N. 169
merit side of my book of Indian character. Receive now,
with my thanks, this my last spare dhudeen, and this ounce
of pigtail, and take away thyself and thy odorous coat from
between the wind and me. Shabbiest rode after his master.
Everything now revived. Horses and men grew confi-
dent, and Hope, late feeble in the knees, now with braced
muscles went turning somersets of joy before us. Antipodes
and Gubbins, unleashed, were hurried along by the whoops
and whips of my younker guides; and Klale, relieved of re-
sponsibility, and inspired by gay companions, became
sprightly and tricksy. Sudden change had befallen my
prospects, lately dreary. Shabbiest had come as forerunner
of good fortune. Then, speeding after him, appeared my
twin deliverers, guiding me for the low price of a shirt to-
tally buttonless.
It was worth a shirt, nay, shirts, merely to be escorted
by these graceful centaurs. No saddle intervened between
them and their horses. No stirrup compelled their legs. A
hair rope twisted around the mustang's lower lip was their
only horse furniture. "Owhhigh tenas," one of Owhhigh's
boys, the younger claimed to be. Nowhere have I seen a
more beautiful youth. He rode like an Elgin marble. A
circlet of otter fur plumed with an eagle's feather crowned
him. His forehead was hardly perceptibly flattened, and
his expression was honest and merry, not like the sombre,
suspicious visage of Loolowcan, disciple of Talipus.
Neither of my new friends would give me his name. Af-
ter coquetting awhile, they pretended that to tell me would
be tamanoiis of ill-omen, and begged me to give them pasai-
ooks' names. So I received them into civilization under
the titles of Prince and Poihs. These they metamorphosed
into U'plint'z and K'pawint'z, and shouted their new ap-
pellatives at each other in glee as they galloped. Prince,
my new Adonis, like Poins, his admiring and stupid comrade,
was dressed only in hickory shirt of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany and some nondescript raggedness for leggins. Deer
170 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
are not abundant in this arid region, and buckskin raiment
is a luxury for chiefs.
With these companions, the journey, just now dismal,
became a lark. Over the levels the horses dashed freshly, —
mine as if they wished to show how much I had undervalued
their bottom, and how needless had been my detour, under
my false leader, to exchange these trusty and tried fellow-
travellers for unknown substitutes. Over the levels they
dashed, and stout of heart, though not quite so gayly, they
clambered the hills macadamized with pebbles of trap.
Antipodes, loping in the lead, suddenly shied wildly
away from a small rattlesnake coiled in the track. The lit-
tle stranger did not wait for our assault. He glided away
into a thick bush, where he stood on the defensive, brandish-
ing his tongue, and eying us with two flames. His tail
meanwhile recited cruel anathemas, with a harsh, rapid burr.
He was safe from assault of stick or stone, and I was about
to call in my old defender, the revolver, when Uplintz prayed
me to pause. I gave him the field, while Kpawintz stood by,
chuckling with delight at the ingenuity of his friend and hero.
Uplintz took from a buckskin pouch at his belt his pipe,
and, loosening from the bowl its slender reed stem, he passed
through it a stiff spire of bunch-grass. A little oil of tobacco
adhered to the point. He approached the bush carefully,
and held the nicotinized straw a foot from the rattlesnake's
nose. At once, from a noisy, threatening snake, tremulous
with terror and rage from quivering fang to quivering rattle,
— a snake writhing venomously all along its black and yel-
low ugliness, — it became a pacified snake, watchful, but
not wrathful.
Uplintz, charmer of reptiles, proceeded with judicious
coolness. Imperceptibly he advanced his wand of enchant-
ment nearer and nearer. Rattler perceived the potent in-
fluence, and rattled no more. The vixenish twang ceased
at one end of him; at the other, his tongue became gently
lambent. The narcotic javelin approached, and finally
KAMAIAKAN. 171
touched his head. He was a lulled and vanquished rattle-
snake. He followed the magic sceptre, as Uplintz withdrew
it, — a very drunken serpent "rolled to starboard, rolled to
larboard," staggering with the air of a languidly contented
inebriate. He swayed feebly out upon the path, and squirmed
there, while the charmer tickled his nose with the pleasant
opiate, his rattles uttering mild plaudits.
At last Kpa\dntz, the stolid, whipping out a knife, sud-
denly decapitated our disarmed plaything, and bagged the
carcass for supper, with triumphant guffaws. Kpawintz
enjoyed his solution of the matter hugely, and acted over
the motions of the snake, laughing loudly as he did so, and
exhibiting his tidbit trophy.
We had long ago splashed across the Nachchese. The
sun, nearing the western hills, made every opening valley
now a brilliant vista. The rattlesnake had died just on the
edge of the Atinam ridges, and Kpawintz was still brand-
ishing his yellow and black prey, and snapping the rattle
about the flanks of his wincing roan, when Uplintz called
me to look with him up into the streaming sunshine, and see
Le Play House.
A strange and unlovely spot for religion to have chosen
for its home of influence. It needed all the transfiguring
power of sunset to make this desolate scene endurable. Even
sunset, lengthening the shadow of every blade of grass,
could not create a mirage of verdant meadow there, nor
stretch scrubby cottonwood-trees to be worthy of then- ex-
aggerated shade. No region this where a Friar Tuck would
choose to rove, solacing his eremite days with greenwood
pleasures. Only ardent hermits would banish themselves
to such a hermitage. The missionary spirit, or the military
religious discipline, must be very positive, which sends men
to such unattractive heathen as these, — to a field of labor
far away from any contact with civilization, and Vv^here no
exalting result of converted multitudes can be hoped.
The mission was a hut-like structure of adobe clay, plas-
172 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
tered upon a frame of sticks. It stood near the stony bed
of the Atinam. The sun was just setting as we came over
against it, on the hillside. We dashed down into the valley,
that moment abandoned by sunlight. My Indians launched
forward to pay their friendly greeting to the priests. But
I observed them quickly pause, walk their horses, and noise-
lessly dismount.
As I drew near, a sound of reverent voices met me, —
vespers at this station in the wilderness. Three souls were
worshipping in the rude chapel attached to the house. It
was rude indeed, — a cell of clay, — but a sense of the Divine
presence was there, not less than in many dim old cathedrals,
far away, where earlier sunset had called worshippers of
other race and tongue to breathe the same thanksgiving and
the same heartfelt prayer. No pageantry of ritual such as I
had often witnessed in ancient fanes of the same faith; when
incense filled the air and made it breathe upon the finer
senses; when from the organ tones large, majestical, triumph-
ant, subduing, made my being thrill as if music were the
breath of a new life more ardent and exalting; when inward
to join the throngs that knelt there solemnly, inward to the
old sanctuary where their fathers' fathers had knelt and
prayed the ancestral prayers of mankind for light and braver
hope and calmer energy, inward with the rich mists of sun-
set flung back from dusky walls of time-glorified marble
palaces, came the fair and the mean, the desolate and the
exultant, — came beauty to be transfigured to more tender
beauty with gentle penitence and purifying hope, — came
weariness and pain to be soothed with visions of joy
undying, celestial, — came hearts wellnigh despairing, self-
scourged or cruelly betrayed, to win there dear repentance
strong with tears, to win the wise and agonized resolve; —
never in any temple of that ancient faith, where prayer has
made its home for centuries, has prayer seemed so mighty,
worship so near the ear of God, as vespers here at this rough
shrine in the lonely valley of Atinam.
KAMAIAKAN. 173
God is not far from our lives at any moment. But we
go for days and years with no light shining forth from kind-
ling heart to reveal to us the near divineness. With clear
and cultivated perception we take in all facts of beauty,
all the wonderment of craft, cunning adaptation, and sub-
tle design in nature; we are guided through thick dangers,
and mildly scourged away from enfeebling luxury of too
m.uch bliss; we err and sin, and gain the bitter lessons of
penance; and all this while we are deeming or dreaming our-
selves thoughtfully religious, and are so up to the measure
of our development. But yet, after all these years, coming
at last to a wayside shrine, where men after their manner
are adoring so much of the Divine as their minds can know,
we are touched with a strange and larger sympathy, and
perceive in ourselves a great awakening, and a new and
wider perception of God and the godlike, and know that
we have entered upon another sphere of spiritual growth.
Vespers ended. The missionaries, coming forth from
their service, welcomed me with quiet cordiality. Visits
of men not savage were rare to them as are angels' visits
to worldlings. In winter they resided at a station on the
Yakimah in the plains eastward. Atinam was then- summer
abode, when the copper-colored lambs of their flock were
in the mountains, plucking berries in the dells, catching
crickets on the slopes.
Messrs. D'Herbomez and Pandosy had been some five
years among the different tribes of this Yakim.ah region,
effecting of course not much. They had become influential
friends, rather than spiritual guides. They could exhibit
some results of good advice in potato-patches, but polyg-
amy was too strong for them. Kamaiakan, chiefest of
Yakimah or Klickatat chiefs, sustained their cause and ac-
cepted their admonitions in many matters of conduct, but
never asked should he or should he not invite another Mrs.
Kamaiakan to share the honors of his lodge. Men and In-
dians are firm against clerical interference in domestic insti-
174 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
tutions. Perhaps also Kamaiakan had a vague notion of
the truth, that polygamy is not a whit more unnatural than
celibacy.
Whether or not these representatives of the Society of
Jesus have persuaded the Yakimahs to send away their su-
pernumerary squaws, for fear of something harsher than the
good-natured amenities of purgatory, one kindly and suc-
cessful missionary work they have done, in my reception
and entertainment. Their fare was mine. Salmon from the
stream and potatoes from their own garden spread the board.
Their sole servant, an old Canadian lay brother, cared for
my horses, — for them and for me there was perfect repose.
By no means would Uplintz and Kpawintz allow me to
forget their promised reward. Each was an incomplete
dandy of the Yakimahs until that shirt of blue had been tried
on by each, and contrasted with the brown cuticle of each.
They desired to dress after my mode; with pasaiooks' names
and an exchangeable shirt between them, they hoped to be-
come elegant men of Boston fashion. Twilight was gloom
to their hearts until I had condescended to lay aside that
envied garment, until it had ceased to be mine, and was the
joint property of two proud and happy young braves, and
until each, wearing it for a time and seeing himself reflected
in the admiring eyes of his fellow, felt that he was stamped
with the true cachet of civilization. Alas, that the state of my
kit did not permit me to double the boon, and envelope the
statuesque proportions of Uplintz with a clean calico, rich
in pearl buttons. For there came an obtruding question
how the two juvenals would distribute the one mantle.
Would they appear before the critical circles of Weenas only
on alternate days? Would they cleave the garment into a
dexter and a sinister portion, one sleeve and half a body to
each? Or would they divide the back to one, and the front
to the other, and thenceforth present, the one an obverse,
and the other a reverse to the world? It is my hope that their
tenancy in commion of this perishable chattel did not sunder
KAMAIAKAN. 175
companionship. Kpawintz would infallibly give up his un-
divided half to Uplintz, if that captivating young Adonis
demanded it. But I trust that the latter was content with
grace, beauty, and rattlesnakes, and yielded the entire sec-
ond-hand shirt to his less accomplished friend. Elabo-
rate toilettes are a necessity of ugliness. Uplintz, fair as
Antinoiis, would only deteriorate under frippery.
It had a fresh flavor of incongruity to talk high
civilization on the Atinam, in a mud chamber twelve feet
FATHER CHARLES PANDOSY, of the Atanum Mission.
square, while two dusky youths of Owhhigh's band, squatted
on the floor, eyed us calmly, and, when their pipe was out,
kept each other awake with monotonous moaning gutturals.
The mountain gale of to-night was strong as the mistral of
Father D'Herbomez's native Provence.
We talked of that romantic region, comparing adobe
architecture of the Northwest with the Palace of Avignon,
the Amphitheatre of Nismes, the Maison Carree, and the
Pont du Gard. Kamaiakan's court lost by contrast with
King Rene's, and no Petrarch had yet arisen among the
176
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Yakimahs. Then, passing over the Maritime Alps into the
plains of Piedmont, we measured Monte Rosa, dominant
over Father Pandosy's horizon of youth, with St. Helens,
queen of the farthest West, and rebuilt in fancy, on these
desert plains, sunny Milan and its brilliant dome.
It is good to have the brain packed full of images from the
wealthy past; it is good to remember and recall the beauti-
ful accumulations of human genius from earliest eld to now.
For with these possessions a man may safely be a comrade
FATHER L. D'HERBOMEZ, of the Atanum Mission. Later,
Bishop of Vancouver, B. C.
of rudest pioneers, and toughen himself to robust manliness,
without dislinking himself from refinement, courtesy, and
beauty of act and demeanor. Nature indeed, wise, fair, and
good, is ever at hand to reintroduce us to our better selves;
but sometimes, in moods sorry or rebellious. Nature seems
cold and slow and distant, and will not grant at once to our
eagerness the results of long, patient study. Then we turn
to our remembrances of what brother men have done, and
standing among them, as in a noble amphitheatre, we can-
not be other than calm and patient; we cannot fall back into
KAMAIAKAN. 177
barbarism and be brutal, though our present society be
Klalams or Klickatats; and even when treachery has ex-
asperated us in the morning, in the evening, under the quiet-
ing influence of Art and History, we can forgive the savage,
and think of pacifying themes.
A roof crushes and fevers one who has been long wont
to sleep beneath the stars. I preferred my blankets without
the cabin, sheltered by its wall from the wind that seemed to
prophesy a storm of terrors growing on the mountains and
the sea, to the luxury of a bunk within. The good fathers
were lodged with more than conventual simplicity. Dis-
comfort, and often privation, were the laws of missionary
life in this lonely spot. It was camp life with none of the
excitement of a camp. Drearily m.onotonous went the days
of these pioneers. There was little intellectual exercise to
be had, except to construct a vocabulary of the Yakimah
dialect, — a hardly more elaborate machine for working out
thought than the babbling Chinook jargon. They could
have inevitably but small success in proselyting, and rarely
any society except the savage dignity of Kamaiakan, the
savage vigor of Skloo, and the savage cleverness of Owhhigh.
A tame lustrum for my hosts, varied only by summer mi-
grations to the Atinam and winter abode on the Yakimah.
If the object of a man's life were solely to produce effect
upon other men, and only mediately upon himself, one
would say that the life of a cultivated and intellectual mis-
sionary, endeavoring to instruct savages in the complex and
transitional dogmatisms of civilization, was absolutely
wasted.
When I woke, late as sunrise, after the crowded fatigues
and difficulties of yesterday, I found that already my hosts
had despatched Uplintz and Kpawintz to a supposed neigh-
bor camp of their brethren, to seek me a guide. Also the old
servitor, a friendly grumbler, was off to the mountains on a
similar errand. Patience, therefore, and remember, hasty
voyager, that many are the chances of savage life.
178 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Antipodes had shaken to pieces whatever stitched bag
he bore. I seized this moment to make repairs. Among my
traps were needles and thread of the stoutest, for use and
for presents. The fascinating squaw of Weenas, if she had
but known it, was very near a largess of such articles. But
the wrong-doing of Sultan Olyman lost her the gift, and my
tailor-stock was undiminished. I made a lucky thrust at
the one eye of a needle, and began my work with severe
attention.
While I was mending, Uplintz, with his admiring Orson,
Kpawintz, came galloping back.
Gone were the Indians they had sought; gone — so said
their trail — to gad nomadly anywhere. And the two com-
rades, though willing to go with me to the world's end for
the pleasure of my society and the reward of my shu-ts, must
admit to Father Pandosy, cross-examining, that they had
never meandered along the Dalles hooihut.
The old lay brother also returned bringing bad luck.
Where he had looked to find populous lodges, he met one
straggling squaw, left there to potter alone, while the Be-
douins were far away. The many chances of Indian life
seemed chancing sadly against me. Should I despair of far-
ther progress, and become an acolyte of the Atinam mission?
Just then I raised my eyes, and lo! a majestic Indian in
Lincoln green! He was dismounting at the corral from a
white pacer. Who now?
"Le bon Dieu I'envoie," said Father Pandosy; "c'est
Kamaiakan meme."
Enter, then, upon this scene Kamaiakan, chiefest of
Yakimah chiefs. He was a tall, large man, very dark, with a
massive square face, and grave, reflective look. Without
the senatorial coxcombry of Owhhigh, his manner was
strikingly distinguished, quiet, and dignified. He greeted
the priests as a kaiser might a papal legate. To me, as
their friend, he gave his hand with a gentlemanly word of
welcome.
KAMAIAKAN.
179
All the nobs I have known among Redskins have re-
tained a certain dignity of manner even in their beggarly
moods. Among the plebeians, this excellence degenerates into
a gruff coolness or insolent indifference. No one ever saw
a bustling or fussy Indian. Even when he begs of a blanket-
eer gifted with chattels, and beg he does without shame or
shrinking, he asks as if he would do the possessor of so much
trumpery an honor by receiving it at his hands. The nau-
seous, brisk, pen-behind-the-ear manner of the thriving
KAM-AI-A-KAN : Head Chief of the Yakimas.
tradesman, competitor with everything and everybody, would
disgust an Indian even to the scalping point. Owhhigh,
visiting my quarters at Squally with his fugue of beggars,
praying me to breech his breechless, shirt his shirtless, shoe
his shoeless child, treated me with a calm loftiness, as if
I were merely a steward of his, or certainly nothing more than
a co-potentate of the world's oligarchy. He showed no dis-
composure at my refusal, as unmoved as his request. Fa-
talism, indolence, stolidity, and self-respect are combined
180 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
in this indifference. Most of a savage's prayers for bounty
are made direct to Nature; when she refuses she does so ac-
cording to majestic laws, of which he, half reflectively, half
instinctively, is conscious. He learns that there is no use
in waiting and whining for salmon out of season, or fresh
grasshoppers in March. According to inevitable laws, he
will have, or will not have, salmon of the first water, and
aromatic grasshoppers sweet as honey dew. Caprice is out
of the question with Nature, although her sex be feminine.
Thus a savage learns to believe that power includes steadi-
ness.
Kamaiakan's costume was novel. Louis Philippe dodg-
ing the police as Mr. Smith, and adorned with a woollen com-
forter and a blue cotton umbrella, was unkingly and a car-
icature. He must be every inch a king who can appear in
an absurd garb and yet look full royal. Kamaiakan stood
the test. He wore a coat, a long tunic of fine green cloth.
Like the irregular beds of a kitchen garden were the patches,
of all shapes and sizes, combined to form this robe of cere-
mony. A line, zigzag as the path over new-fallen snow
trodden by a man after toddies too many, — such devious
line marked the waist. Sleeves, baggy here, and there tight
as a bandage, were inserted somewhere, without reference to
the anatomical insertion of arms. Each verdant patch was
separated from its surrounding patches by a rampart or a
ditch of seam, along which stitches of white threads strayed
like vines. It was a gerrymandered coat, — gerrymandered
according to some system perhaps understood by the oper-
ator, but to me complex, impolitic, and unconstitutional.
Yet Kamaiakan was not a scarecrow. Within this gar-
ment of disjunctive conjunction he stood a chieftainly man.
He had the advantage of an imposing presence and bearing,
and above all a good face, a well-lighted Pharos at the top
of his colossal frame. We generally recognize whether there
is a man looking at us from behind what he chances to use
for eyes, and when we detect the man, we are cheered or
"LE PLAY HOUSE."
Euins of the Atinam Mission.
"As I drew near, a sound of reverent voices met me, —
vespers at this station in the -wilderness. Three souls
were worshipping in the rude chapel attached to the
house. It was a cell of clay; but a sense of the Divine
was there, not less than in many dim cathedrals. *
* * Never in any temple of that ancient faith, where
prayer has made its home for centuries, has prayer
seemed so mighty, worship so near the ear of God, as
vespers here at this rough shrine in the lonely valley."
—Chapter XL
KAMAIAKAN. 181
bullied according to what we are. It is intrinsically more
likely that the chieftainly man will be an acknowledged
chief among simple savages, than in any of the transitional
phases of civilization preceding the educated simplicity of
social life, whither we now tend. Kamaiakan, in order to
be chiefest chief of the Yakimahs, must be clever enough to
master the dodges of salmon and the will of wayward mus-
tangs; or, like Fine-Ear, he must know where kamas-bulbs
are mining a passage for their sprouts; or he must be able
to tramp farther and fare better than his fellows; or, by a
certain tamanoiis that is in him, he must have power to per-
suade or convince, to win or overbear. He must be best
as a hunter, a horseman, a warrior, an orator. These are
personal attributes, not heritable; if Kamaiakan Junior
is a nature's nobody, he takes no permanent benefit by his
parentage.
Chieftainly Kamaiakan seated himself and his fantastic
coat in the hut. He had looked in to see his friends, the
good fathers, and to counsel with them what could be done
for Mrs. Kamaiakan the third. That estimable lady had
taken too much salmon, — very far too much, alas! — and
Kamaiakan feared that he was about to become a widower,
pro tanto. Such a partial solution of the question of polyg-
amy was hardly desired by the missionaries. It were better
to save Mrs. K. the third; for doubtless already, knowing
of her illness, many a maiden of Yakimah high fashion was
wishing that her locks might glisten more sleekly attractive;
many a dusky daughter of the tribe was putting on the per-
manent blush of vermilion to win a look from the disconso-
late chief. The fathers feared that he would not content
himself with one substitute, but not to give offense, would
accept the candidates one and all. Therefore one of the
gentlemen busied himself with a dose for the surfeited squaw,
— a dose in quantity giant, in force dwarf, — one that
should make itself respected at first sight, and gain a
Chinese victory by its formidable aspect alone.
182 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
While one compounded this truculent bolus, the other im-
parted my needs to the chief.
Kamaiakan himself could not profit by this occasion to
make a trip to the Dalles and cultivate my society. Not
only domestic trials, but duties of state prevented. Were
he absent at this critical epoch, when uninvited soldier-men
were tramping the realm and winking at its ladies without
respect to rank, who would stand forward as champion?
Who pacify alike riotous soldier-man and aggrieved savage?
Kamaiakan could not leave the field to Skloo the ambitious,
nor to Owhhigh the crafty, when he returned from Squally
rich with goods, the proceeds of many a horse-theft. Absent
a week, and Kamaiakan might find that for another, and
not for him, were the tawny maids. Kamaiakan must stay.
A nobleman on the climb must keep himself always before
the vulgar.
But a follower of the chief had just ambled up on a pony,
leading his sumpter-horse. Him Kamaiakan despatched up
the Atinam, where he had heard that a camp of his people
had halted on their way to the mountain berry-patches.
Among them was a protege of the chief, who knew every
trail of the region and had horses galore.
Many are the chances of nomad life. Enter now, in the
background, a siwash soon to be a personage in this drama,
if the last legs of his flea-bitten white Rosinante can but
convey him to the foreground to announce himself.
Enter Ferdinand on the scene, in an Isabella yellow
shirt, — he and his garments alike guiltless of the soap of
Castile, or any soap of land less royal.
Ferdinand was a free companion, a cosmopolite of his
world. He was going somewhere, anywhere, nowhere. He
had happened in with dinner in view. So long as the legs
of Rosinante lasted, Ferdinand could be a proud cavalier.
Now, those legs failing, he drooped. He would soon become
a peon, a base footman, and possibly, under temptation, a
footpad. Better, then, quarter himself on his friends and
KAMAIAKAN. 183
former masters, the priests, until in the free pastures of
Atinam Rosinante should grow bumptious again.
As his name imported, this newcomer claimed to be
identified with civilization. "No Indian name have I," he
said, "I am Fudnun, a blanketeer." He was a resolved
reilegado from Indian polity and sociality. He had served
with the Hudson's Bay Company. He had even conde-
scended to take lessons in cookery from the pale-face squaws
of the Willamette.
While Ferdinand was thus announcing himself, and
communicatively making good his claim as a blanketeer,
the envoy of Kamaiakan returned. He had hastened up
the Atinam, and come to Camp No-camp. The able-bodied
siwashes had all vanished, leaving only a few children, re-
cently out of the papoose period, and a few squaws far on
toward second childhood. Only such were left as had no
more than power enough to chase and bag the agile grass-
hopper and far-bounding cricket, and to pounce upon and
bag every tumbling beetle of the plain.
Such industry the messenger had found at the camp;
but the able-bodied, capable of larger duties, had vanished
up the wild valleys, and scattered along the flanks of Tacoma,
to change their lowland diet for that of the mountain-side;
— while the fresh horses I should have had swam in the ver-
dure of the summit prairies, the guide I should have had was
stuffing by the handful strawberries, raspberries, black-
berries, salal-berries; and his squaws, with only furtive
tribute to their own maw, were bestowing the same fruits
into baskets for provident drying.
Again what was to be done, for day grew toward noon,
and by to-morrow night I must be at the Dalles, eighty
miles away? My kind friends of the mission were discus-
sing whether the old sacristan could be trusted to know the
trail and bear the fatigues, when Ferdinand rose, stepped
out of the chorus, to become an actor in the drama, and thus
spoke, self-prompted: —
184 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
**Fudnun nika, pasaiooks; Ferdinand I, blanketeer.
Siks nika copa Boston tyee; friend I to Boston chief. Nika
nanitch cuitan, closche yakah klatawah; I've seen the horses,
they'll go well enough. Nika kumtux Dalles hooihut, pe
tikky hyack klatawah r I know the Dalles trail, and am ready
to go at once."
Excellent Ferdinand! What fine apparition, what quaint
Ariel, doing his spiriting gently, wooed thee to these yellow
sands of Atinam, to be my deliverer? Sweet youth, thou
shalt have a back-load of trinkets to carry to thy Miranda
when we part. Fudnun, the blanketeer, let us go.
My new comrade showed Boston energy. He drove up
the three horses at once. Rest and bunch-grass at dis-
cretion had revived them. A tough journey was before us,
but thus far they had not failed in the face of worse diffi-
culties than we were to meet. For a supplement, the mission-
aries lent me a mare of theirs, to be ridden as far as her foal
would follow, and left on the prairie for Ferdinand to pick
up on return. The kindness of these gentlemen went with
me after my departure.
Adieu, therefore, to the good fathers, and may they be
requited in better regions of earth, or better than earth,
for their hospitality. Adieu, Kamaiakan, prudent and
weighty chief! fate grant thee a coat of fewer patches, a
nobler robe of state. Adieu the old lay brother. Uplintz
and Kpawintz, my merry pair, continue foes of the rattle-
snake, and friends to the blue-shirted Boston men.
YAKIMA RUG-MAKER.
"And now that I am on the tariff for squaw's, — dry goods
buy them as sometimes in Christendom. The conven-
tional price is expressed in blankets. Blankets paid
to papa buy: five, a drudge; ten, a cook and basket-
maker; twenty, a fine article of squaw, learned in the
kamas-beds, and with skull flat as a shingle; fifty, a
very superior article, ruddy with vermilion and
skilled in embroidering buckskin with porcupine-
quills; and one hundred blankets, a princess, with
the beauty and accomplishments of her rank. Mothers
in civilization will be pleased to compare these
with their current rates."
—Chapter XIII.
i
XII.
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT.
A little before noon we left the hut of blue mud, the
mission of Atinam. We forded the shallow river, and Fer-
dinand cheerily led the way straight up the steep hillside.
From its summit I could overlook, for farewell, the parallel
ranges, walls of my three valleys of adventure. There were
no forests over those vast arid mounds to narrow the view.
Hills of Weenas, hills of Nachchese, valley of Atinam, — I
took my last glance over their large monotony.
I might glance over the landscape, and recall my crowded
life in it, only while the horses breathed after their climb,
and no longer. If not eighty, certainly sixty miles away
over the mountains is the Columbia, Achilles of rivers.
And, says Ferdinand, "it must be a race all day with time,
all night with time, a close race with time to-morrow." If
uncertainty of success is a condition of success, we shall win
the race. But no dalliance, no staying to study landscape;
we must on, steadily as the Princess Parizade, whatever
sermons there be in the stones along our way.
Vast were the hilly sweeps we overcame. Nags of mine,
ye had toil that penultimate day of August. But straight
from far snow cliffs came electric airs, forerunners of the
nightly gale. And the sun, that it might never be deemed a
cruel tyrant, had provided remedies against its own involun-
tary despotism, in streams from the snows of Tacoma, melted
not beyond the point of delicious coolness. Snow crystals
married with sunbeams came gliding down the valleys on
their wedding tour. Down the gorges in the basalt, and so
186 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
by pool and plunge, the transfigured being, a new element,
poured to the pebbly reaches below. Whenever we had
climbed the long bulk of a dusty hillside, dreary with wild
sage, a stunted and abortive tree, the mean ensign of barren-
ness, and then descended the hot, thirsty slopes of a de-
clivity as dreary, down in the valley always we found the
antidote to dust, thirst, and sterility, the precious boon of
water hidden among grass and trees, — sunshine's gift
brought from the snows to cure the pangs of sunshine.
Sparkling draughts of water were ready in vale after vale.
I had but to stoop from my saddle while Klale drank, and
scoop the bright flow in a leather cup long dedicated to
^gle, in classic fountains of historic lands.
Ferdinand's temptation and test of faithfulness befell
him before we had gone two leagues on our way. As the
fates threw Shabbiest in the path of Loolowcan, now Fer-
dinand's tempter appeared. One watches his man narrowly
at such a moment. Which Janus-face will he turn? the one
that sees the past, or the one that looks toward the future?
Will he be the bold and true radical, or the slinking con-
servative? The combat, with its Parthian flights and Pyrrhic
victories, is generally more briefly called life, and its result
character.
Thus far I had only the coarse public facts on Ferdinand
as a theme for analysis. When Mystery takes care that a
man shall exist, and have a few years' career in villany or
heroism. Mystery also takes care to set upon the man's
front a half -decipherable inscription. Fudnun was attract-
ive, not repulsive, in the traits that mark character. By
physiognomy, I deemed him a truish man, a goodish fellow,
a wiseish nomad. But how was I to know what education
had made of him? what indiscriminate vengeance he might
have in his heart? what treachery in return for other blan-
keteers' treachery? The same spirit of our darksome en-
lightenment that makes slavery possible, makes maltreat-
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 187
ment of Indians certain. Fiidnun might feel himself nomi-
nated to punish in me the wrongs of his race.
The Indian who was to be Fudnun's Mephistophiles was
riding seemingly astray and purposeless across the world,
like an Indian. But when the stranger, coming full tilt
through a bending defile, saw us, it was too late to skulk. He
pulled up his wild black horse, noticed me with a cool How-
dydo, and opened fire upon Fudnun, with gutturals not at
all cheerful. Fudnun informed me that the tenor of the
newcomer's oration was like Shabbiest's to Loolowcan,
yesterday.
So, then, big Brownskin on a fiery black mustang, inferior
chief with shirt and leggins of buckskin reddened with clay,
sulky siwash of Skloo's band, armed with gun and knife, —
thou too art inhospitable to the parting guest, — thou
too art unwilling that by the aid of Fudnun, my friend,
I should speed out of the country toward the Columbia.
Now, then, none of this! Avaunt! Make tracks!
But he declined to make tracks, and held the too facile
Ferdinand in powwow. I questioned in my prudent heart
whether I should do what I twitched to do, namely, use
the Owhhigh whip upon this scowling interloper. The
wristlet of otter-fur tightened in my grasp; I shook the long
lash carelessly about the sturdy legs of the wiry horse of
Brownskin the Tempter, stinging them restive, horse and
man. With revengeful venom of the blackest in his mind,
the copper-headed, snaky beguiler continued his solicita-
tions, urging Ferdinand, as that excellent worthy afterwards
told me, not merely to desert, but to aid in a scheme of pil-
lage, and whatever outrage might precede or follow pillage.
Ferdinand, as I trusted, was proof against the wily
wheedler, though he sputtered poisonously in a language
I knew not. Ferdinand at last shook off that serpent in-
fluence, and turned toward the trail. Copper-head, baffled,
gave me a glance with a bite in it, and galloped away, too
188 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
much enraged to ask more barbarico for all my valuables as
a present.
"Ha, ha!" chuckled Fudnun, shaking his head, showing
his white teeth, and seeming as happy as a schoolgirl with
a new conundrum; "ha, ha!" chuckled he, as if this were a
joke of the freshest. "Yaka tikky memloose mika pe cap-
sualla conoway ikta; he want kill you and steal all the traps.
Halo nika; not at all I. Wake kahquah kliminwhit Fud-
nun, — wake cultus man ocook; not so is Fudnun a liar,
— no dastard he."
Certainly not, Fudnun the Trusty! I divined you rightly,
then. Your Janus-face points aright. You are not a spoilt
Indian. I set you in the scale against Loolowcan the Frowzy,
and once more half believe in honesty of barbarians. Having
defied temptation, henceforth you are true.
Fudnun had thus far ridden the mission mare, while
Gubbins pranced bareback. Now the foal began to sigh
for his native heath, and shrink from strange, wild scenes.
We therefore stopped, and turned them out into the wide
world. They could wallow in the long sedges therealong,
and drink of the brook. No Indian of all the country-side
would allow his thievish heart to covet an animal with the
mission brand. Me, or any other intrusive pasaiooks, he
might rob of beast or the burden of beast, but whatever be-
longed to the priests was taboo. And if mission property
could not protect itself, woe be to the thief when the green,
gleaming coat of the dread inevitable Kamaiakan was seen
along his trail.
Gubbins must again endure a rider more humane than
Loolowcan. Antipodes's packs were now ridiculously light,
as ^sop's bag at the end of the journey. We could press
on fleet over hill and dale, on and on, steadily riding as if
we bore tidings of joy, or rode for succor for the beleaguered
of a starving city. On, never flagging, we sped, and drew,
as day waned, toward the wooded mountains. Never a
moment we rested, traversing tenantless wastes, until deep
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 189
in the afternoon we came to a large, pure well of exquisite
water, predicted by Ferdinand, wisest of nomads.
There, in a glade emeralded with richest of grass, I re-
posed, elaborating strength for my night ride. Meanwhile,
my horses, with never a leg the less than when I proved them
on the macadam of Squally, swallowed green landscape fast,
as if they feared this feast were a mirage, and the water-sprite
would presently roll up her green drapery and vanish. The
horses, with or without fancies or forethought, instinctively
made ready for the coming trial.
Sweet are such episodes of travel in the fair spots of
earth. Sweet, though the fare be but pork toasted on a
stick, and hardtack to which mustiness has but slightly
penetrated. And if after feast so Spartan, before a night
to be sleepless, a siesta propose itself, who will refuse? Not
the wise traveller, to whom sleep or food never come amiss.
By the Fountain of Fudnun the Jolly, to whom in less busy
times life was a long joke, sleep, or repose not quite losing
consciousness, might be permitted. For now my doubts
of winning the race were beheaded by trenchant intuitions
of success, and wriggled away into the background. Such
doubts necessarily forecrawl a man on the march toward
any object; it is well if he can timely destroy them, lest they
trip up the rider's hopeful ardor.
Distance, lying in long coils from Whulge onward, I had
nearly trampled to death; its great back showed marks of
my victorious hoofs; only the head reared itself, monstrous
and unsubdued. One more great rampart of mountains
must be stormed, and for this final assault Klale, Anti-
podes, and Gubbins were still taking in such stuff as courage
is made of. Feed on, trusty trio; I love the sound of those
jaws. It racks my heart to know that I must still demand
much go-ahead of you. But though an exacting, I have
been a merciful master. Ye have had long grass, to be di-
gested into leaps, short grass for walking material, and
sometimes a prairie-flower for inspiring a demivolt. I have
190 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
whipped you, Antipodes, but have I whaled you? And now
that you have taken your fill of grass, long, short, and flow-
ery, let us away, to climb the great ridges before nightfall.
We came, not long before sunset, to the great mountain
range, — another buttress of the Cascade system.* Full
against the plain rose a bulky earthwork. Klickatats on
mustangs had been, ever since Klickatats first learned to
ride, forever assaulting this fortress in elaborate zigzags
engineered with skill. And here, for fifteen hundred feet,
we too must climb, driving our horses before us; we bending
forward, and they struggling up on tiptoe and consuming
energy far too rapidly.
The sun was prematurely gone when we reached the
edge of easier slope above this mural front. Where I should
have seen, westward, the Cascades and Tacoma bright as
sunny cloud, but firmer than cloud, were now no mountains
black with pines, was no Tacoma against the rose of sunset.
A gloomy purple storm lay over the Cascades, vaster than
they. A m.ass of thunderous darkness had swept in from
ocean, and now stayed majestic, overlooking the wide world.
Would it retreat with the sun, to do havoc wherever white
sails were strained in hopeless flight, and whirl the spray
from wTecking coral-reefs to the calm lagoons within? Or
would it take a night of Titanic revelry among the everlast-
ing hills, toppling crag into chasm, shaking down avalanches
to drown their roar with roar of louder thunder, tossing
great trees over into the torrents to see their strong death-
struggle in the foam, by the ghastly beauty of lightning,
revealing a spectacle born and dead in an instant? Or must
it, with no choice of its own, range with the whirl of the globe,
taking giant pleasure or doing giant ruin as the chances of
Nature offered? Which of these was to be the destiny of
that purple storm, poised and lowering over the hidden
mountains? I could divine its decision, or its obedience, by
prophetic puffs of roasted air, that ever and anon, in a sudden
* The Simcoe Mountains.
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 191
calm that had now befallen, smote me, as if some impish
urchin, one of the pages of ^Eolus, dancing on a piping wind-
bag, was looking my way and smiting his breezy cheeks.
Beside that envelope of storm hiding the west from
floor to cope, there was only to be seen, now softened
with dull violet haze, the large, rude region of my day's
gallop, — thirty miles of surging earth, seamed with fre-
quent valleys of streams flowing eastward, where scanty
belts of timber grew by the waterside.
'VVTien August's sun, the remorseless, is gone, whether
behind the ragged rims of a hurricane or the crest of a sierra,
men and horses revive in that long shade. Twilight is
sweet and restoring in itself, and also to an unforeseeing trio
of mustangs, as promising the period when men encamp and
horses are unsaddled. Therefore, now, although the air was
hea\'y and the light lurid, we chased along the trail, mounting
slowly ever, and winding on through files of pines; — vigor-
ously we chased on, as if twilight of eve were twilight of
da\Mi, and our day but now begun.
Among the silent pines, deeper into the darkening wood.
But the same power that swept darkness forward in a steady
growing inundation, banished also silence. The overcoming
storm was battling with stillness, and slowly enveloping
the strife with thicker and thicker pall, such as hangs over
fields trod by the loud agonies of war.
A far forerunner of the gale struck suddenly upon the
mountain-front, like an early shot of battle, fired to know
the death range. While the roar of this first blast was pass-
ing away, and the trees were swaying back to stillness, a
fugue of growling winds came following after. The alarmed
whispers from leaf to leaf grew thicker now, joining to an
undertone of delicate wailing a liquid sound, but sad, like
the noise of a waterfall falling all the hours into a sunless
pool where one lies drowned because his life and soul could
bear life and light no longer. Again, with gush of blacker
darkness, came a throng of blasts tramping close; and after
192 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
them was seeming calm, — calm only in seeming, and filled
with the same whispers of alarm, the same dreary, feeble
wail, and now with sobs desperate, irrepressible.
Fitful bursts of weeping rain were now coming thicker,
until control ceased, and the floods fell with no interval,
borne on furiously, dashing against every upright object
as great crushing wave-walls smite on walls of cliff by the
seaside. The surges of wind were mightier than the fu-
rious rain drift, and with their strength and their roaring
came the majesty of thunder, constant as the wind. Long
ago, from where the clouds lay solid on the mountains,
great booming sounds had come, as if these masses rolling
over the summits had struck with muffled crash upon crags
below; and when those purple glooms stayed in hesitating
poise upon the Cascades, lightnings were passing in among
them, calling them together for the march, and signalling
on the laggards. Now a great outer continent, a belt of
storm world, was revolving over earth, and shaping itself
to the region it traversed. In this storm zone, revealed by
the scenic flames of neighbor lightning, were mountains
huger than any ever heaped by Titanic forces assaulting
heaven from earth. There were sudden clefts, and ravines
with long sweeping flanks, and chasms where a cloud moun-
tain-side had fallen in, leaving a precipice all ragged and
ruinous, ready itself to fall. There were plateaus and surgy
sweeps of cloud-land, valleys of gentleness, dells sweet and
placid, passes by toppling crags from vale to vale, great
stairways up to Alpine levels on high, garden-like Arcadias
among horrent heights, realms changefully splendid, — all
revealed by the undulations of broad, rosy lightning and
lightning's violet hues, where it shone through their gloom
of clouds. These clouds so black and terrible, hurrying on a
night so black and dreary, were not then terrible and dreary
in themselves, but only while there Vv^as no light to prove
their beauty, — when light gleamed, they shone transcendent.
Lightning, besides its business of revelation, had some
MOUNT ADAMS, SEEN FROM SUNNYSIDE.
"One cannot know too much of a nature's nobleman.
Tacoma the second, which Yankees call Mt. Adams, is
a clumsier repetition of its greater brother, but noble
enough to be the pride of a continent."
— Chapter III.
^^ms^^
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.aaiaYMML
.nsxnaldon a'siuj
9ldon iud ,i9rfic.
\\\
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 193
gymnastic feats of its own to show the world; to spring at
some great round-topped, toppling cloud-crag, and down to
the valleys beneath; to shoot through tunnels of darkness,
and across chasms, hanging a bending line of light athwart,
like the cable bridges of the Andes.
Lightning was also casting blinding splendors over the
permanent world below the storm. Wherever the trail bent
tov/ard the vantage edges of the mountain-side, every flash
disclosed magnificent breadth of lonely landscape, and then
the vision was instantly limited to the dense darkness around,
darker to dazzled eyes. But soon there were no such mo-
ments of darkness nor any silence. Thunder- tone flowed into
thunder-tone, as blasts had thickened to a gale, and lightning
made pervading light, flickering and unsteady as fevered
pulses.
Such was the machinery of this drama, and as to the
actors, I and my party, what of them?
Wet were they all, yea, drenched. And why should not
a little biped be drenched? It is an honor to the like of him
that splendid phenomena should take the trouble to notice
him even with ridicule. And drenching by an August thun-
derstorm is not chilly misery. Nor are men on a hooihut
considering damage to their integuments. On a hooihut,
we wear no tiles that to-morrow will be pulp; nor coats with
power to shrink and never again be shapely. Therefore,
while the air beat upon us with electric thrills, and the fu-
rious excitements of the tempest were around us, we dashed
along the narrow thread of the trail between the innumer-
able pines, — dashed along, acting with the might of the
storm, as if we were a part of it, and re-acting with ardors of
our own against its fury.
Ferdinand, \\Tapped in a white blanket, led the way;
Antipodes followed as main body; Klale and I were the
third division of my army. Flooded lightning showed us our
slender path winding up the illumined vista, and marked
more clearly, in the long, coarse mountain grass, by rain pools.
194 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
For all the ceaselessness of flashes there would sometimes
be moments of utter darkness, when the eyes closed involun-
tarily, and the look blenched, confounded, and dazzled by
the sudden gloom. Then the vista would disappear, the
path be blotted out, and Ferdinand, white blanketeer, be
annulled, so far as vision knew. But before night could
gain power from permanence, or my guide could lose his
last ocular image of the silver pathway, again flashes went
curving above us, the floods of light poured forth, and the
forest was betrayed as if clear noon were master.
The path had now bent inward, away from the edge of
the mountain. Under the roofing pines we could see no
more the stormy pageantry. The straight black trunks
opened before us; we were to go on, on, guided by the beauti-
ful ghastliness of lightning, fit illumination of terrible rites
in the penetralia of this austere forest. Very wet neophytes
we should arrive in the presence of whatever antique hiero-
phant there might be wonder-working within the roofless
sanctuary whither the lightning was leading us.
By this time the grandeurs of the storm were ended.
Madness and pangs died away into sullen grief. Passion
was over; tame realities were coming. There had been a
majestic overture crowded with discordant concords, and
there was nothing left for the opera but dull recitative.
Night became undramatic; sulky instead of inspired; grizzly
instead of splendorous. Solid rain now took the place of
atmosphere. While the storm rampaged, it was adven-
turous and heroic to breast it; now our journey became an
offensive plod. So long as lightning declared the path, it was
exciting to chase therein; our present meaner guide was the
sound of our own splashing in the trail.
Ferdinand still led on, finding the way by instinct. He
could see naught, and I could see not even him in his white
toga, except when some belated flash of the rear-guard
turned its lantern hither and thither, seeking its comrades.
We kept together by whistling to and fro. Observe this
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 196
fact; for it is said that Indians do not whistle. Also that
they eat no pork. For this latter reason some have connected
them with the Lost Tribes. With regard to the latter charge,
I can speak from a considerable range of induction. Indians
only eat no pork when they have no pork. Not one to whom
I have offered that viand of low civilization ever refused it,
but clutched it with more or less ardor, proportioned to his
state of repletion at the moment. My facts for induction
on whistling among the red men are fewer. This one, how-
ever, I present confidently: Fudnun the Blanketeer whistled
tunefully.
Ours was but a faint trail, rarely traversed, often illeg-
ible, even by full daylight, to untrained eyes, as I learned
afterwards. What wonder, then, that we wandered often
and that the keenness of Fudnun's vision was often tried,
as he peered about and searched by intelligent zigzags in
the darkness of night, under the darkness of pines, along the
matted, muffling grass, for the slight clew of our progress?
What wonder, then, that at last we erred totally, and
searched in vain?
"Halo klap; no find," said Fudnun the Trusty, coming
back rather disconsolate.
Perforce of the great controls of Nature, we must submit,
and take this night involuntary rest, quite lost in the forest.
Fudnun unsaddled. The horses could show no dislike
to their fare. The grass was long, plenteous, and every
blade was hung with lubricating rain-drops. Meanwhile,
I, groping about, found some bits of punk and dry fuel in
a natural fireplace hollowed in an ancient pine, one of the
giants. The genius loci here, being of monotonous cast of
mind, had given himself totally to pine culture. I could
see nothing, but I had a sense that immense rough-barked
pines were standing all about, watching my movements, —
what was I doing, grubbing there at the roots of their big
brother?
I was at work to light a fire. Fire was once a thing to
196 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
be kept safe by vestals; but now we can do without them;
fire sacred is cared for on myriads of domestic hearths; fire
profane is in our pantaloons pocket. One may evoke it in
an instant, as I did now. The tricksy sprite alighted in my
tindery tipsoo, and presently involved my punk and my chips
and all my larger fuel, as fast as I could seek it, by the grow-
ing blaze, among the ruins of the forest.
Fudnun took his supper, and soon was asleep, coiled in
a heap among the saddles. As for me, I watched and drowsed,
squatted before the fire, mummied in my blankets. Not a
position, certainly, for cheerful reveries. A drizzle, thick
as metaphysics, surrounded me. In its glowing cavity was
my fire, eating its way slowly into the dead old heart of the
tree, baking my face, but not drying my back. I was for-
tunately hungry, and hunger is excellent entertainment.
A hungry man has something to think of, and if he is his
own cook, something to do. I frizzled my pork and toasted
my biscuit-chips; then I ate the same, and that part of the
frolic was over. I longed for a tin cup of tea, well boiled and
bitter, but it was "water, water everywhere, and not a
drop to drink." I could not concentrate the drizzle, nor col-
lect the drops from the gi-ass, nor wring a supply from my
wet clothes, — no tea, then, the best friend of the cam-
paigner. In fact, as I could not sleep and recruit, and as
I was in rather sorry plight, there was nothing to be done
except to endure despondency and be patient.
Such pauses as this, midway in minor difficulty, are
profitable, if patience can but come up from the rear, and
marshal her sister faculties for steadier future march. In
such isolated halts in a man's life, when the future is not
so certain as to make him disdain the past, he discovers
the lessons there were in empiric days or years, of hurry
and dash. In the lonely forest, dark with midnight and
storms, where his fire casts but a gloaming light, — in such
a solitude a man self-dependent will hear the oracles speak
to him if they are to speak. He who would ask his fate at
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 197
Delphi goes not along the summer-blooming plains, nor
in among the vine-clad trellises, nor through the groves
of olives, gray and ancient in gentle realms of Arcady. The
Delphic gorge is stern and wild, and would affright all but
one who is resolute to wring a favorable fate from the cave
of prophecy. Poetic visions do not visit beds of roses, and
no good thing or thought came out of Sybaris.
So there, "lone upon the mountain, the pine-trees wailing
round me," I seemed to hear some of those great calming
words without which life goes restless, and may not dream
of peace. For early, thoughtful years and eras of ours are
saddened and bewildered by the sting of evil, others' and
our own; poisonous bigotries grapple with faith from its
cradle; we are driven along the gauntlet of selfishness; love,
the surest test of nobleness, seems the most hopeless test,
discovering only the ignoble; we dwell among comrades
of chance, not choice, and cannot find our allies; know not
any other law of growth than the unreflecting stir about
us. So instinctive faith dies, and because without faith
the soul dies, we must seek it, and perhaps wander for it
as far and not hopefully, — wander perhaps as far as to
the forests of Tacoma.
As I sat by my fire, thinking over the wide world, and
feeling that I looked less blindly than once upon its mys-
teries, suddenly I was visited by a brilliant omen.
All at once the darksome forest became startlingly full
of light. A broad glare descended through the lowering
night, and shed about me strange, weird lustre. I sprang
up, and beheld a pillar of flame hung on high in the gloom.
An omen quite too simply explicable. I had kindled
my fire in the hollow of a giant dead trunk. Flame slowly
crept up within, burning itself a way through the dry core,
until it gained the truncated summit, sixty feet aloft, and
leaped outward in a mighty flash. Once escaped, after its
stealthy growth, the fire roared furiously up this chimney
of its own making. The long flame streamed away from its
198 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
gigantic torch, lashing among the trees and tossing gleams,
sparks and great red flakes into the inner glooms of the wood.
Nobler such an exit for one of the forest primeval than to
rot away and be a century in slow dying. His brethren
around watched sombrely the funeral pyre of their brother.
Their moaning to the wind mingled with the roar of his mag-
nificent death-song.
Trust Nature. None of the thaumaturgists, strong in
magical splendors, ever devised such a spectacle as this. I
had fought my way, a pressing devotee, into the inner shrine,
unbullied by the blare of the tempest, and this was the boon
offered by Nature to celebrate my initiation.
The fire roared, and there was another roaring. Fer-
dinand snored roaringly from his coiled position among
the traps. A snore is the expression of gratitude for sleep,
not less genuine for its unconsciousness. Every breath is a
plaudit to Morpheus, the burlesque of a sigh of joy. Snor-
ing is to sleep what laughter is to waking. Fudnun's snore
in the solitary woods, among the great inarticulate facts
of nature, was society and conversation. He seemed to
utter amens of content in long-drawn cadence.
As I could not take my tall torch in hand and be a path-
finder, I patrolled about the woods, admiring it where it
stood, a brilliant beacon. The blossom of flame still un-
folded, unfading; and as leaf after leaf fell away like the
petals of roses, other petals opened about the unconsumed
bud. Firelight gave rich greenness to the dark pines.
Sometimes a higher quiver of flame would seize an over-
hanging branch and sally off gaily; but the blast soon ex-
tinguished these escapades.
Fire gnaws quicker than the tooth of Time. I was sitting,
drowsy and cowering, near my furnace, when a warning
noise aroused me. A catastrophe was at hand. Flames
grew intenser, and careered with leaps more frantic, as now,
with a riving uproar, the giant old ti*unk cut away at its
base, cracked, trembled, swayed, and fell in sublime ruin.
LIGHTNING AND TORCHLIGHT. 199
At this strange tumult, loud and harsh in the dull dead of
night, the horses, affrighted, looked up with the light of the
flame in their eyes, and then dashed off furiously.
Fudnun also was startled. He woke; he uncoiled; he
stared; he grunted; he recoiled; he slept; he snored.
Mouldering away in cheerless ruin lay the trunk all along
in the dank grass. Its glory had quenched itself in tim.e,
for now, Aurora being in the sulks, a fusty dawn, the slip-
shod drudge of her palace, was come as substitute for
the rosy goddess, to wake the world to malcontent.
Enchantment was perished. My torch, bright flarer through
darkness, became mere kitchen fuel. Fudnun awoke to
snore no more. He squatted in a mass, warming his musty
members after their bedrizzled cramps of the night. Then
we toasted our pork over the embers, completing the degra-
dation of the pine. It had had its centuries of dignity,
while its juniors, lengthening upward ungainly, envied
its fair proportions. Then the juniors had times of rejoic-
ing within their cortex, in their vegetable hearts, when
glory of foliage fell away from their senior's crown, and
larger share of sunlight came to the hungry youngsters.
And now the junior pines were in high feather that an un-
sightly monument of the past and memento mori was gone,
and lay a vertebrated skeleton of white ashes in the glade
it sheltered so fatherly once.
Carved Stone Pipe, from Grave near Fort Simcoe.
XIII.
THE DALLES —THEIR LEGEND.
Klale the ardent, Gubbins the punchy, Antipodes the
lubberly, had not stampeded far in their panic when the
great pine-tree torch fell crashing through the woods. Fud-
nun easily recovered them by the light of dawn, — three
horses well fed and well rested, three sinewy nags, by no
means likely to be scant of breath through Falstaffian fat-
ness, but yet stanch, and able to travel the last thirty or
forty miles of my journey before nightfall.
Prayerful for sunrise and sun-born ardors in that dull
dawn were horses and men. Cold is a bitter foe of courage;
hot blood is the only brave blood. All five of us, the grazers
three, the snorer one, and the one drowsy watcher, still
trembled with the penetrating chill of drizzle on the bleak
mountain-top. We might not have the instinctive cheer-
fulness, child and nursling of sunshine, but we soon, by
way of substitute, made an inspiriting discovery, — the
trail. Like many an exit from life's labyrinths, it was
hidden only for want of searching with more light. We
pounced upon its first faint indications, and went at such
full speed as a night of damp and cramp permitted, with
as much tirra-lirra in our matin song of march as might ring
through the vocal pipes of knights-errant carrying colds
in their heads.
"Nika klap; find um," Fudnun had shouted, with a
triumphant burst of laughter, when he caught sight of the
trail, lurking serpentine in the grass; and now, having re-
covered his reputation as a pathfinder, he would not lose
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 201
it again. With single-minded accuracy he kept this one ob-
ject in view. He fairly shamed my powers of observation
by his quick, unerring glance. Shrewd detective, he was
never at fault wherever that eluding path dodged artfully,
and became but a shattered clew of escape. If ever the hoo-
ihut disappeared totally, like a rivulet sinking under ground,
Fudnun, as if he bore a witch-hazel divining-rod, made
straight for the spot of its reappearance. Sometimes for a
mile there would be no visible way, and I, seeing my guide
still galloping on confidently under the pines, over the dry
brown carpet of their fallen leaves, would call him, and say,
— "Halo mitlite hooihut; here's no trail."
"Nawitka, closche nika nanitch; yes, I see it well," Fud-
nun would reply, pointing where a root had been scraped
by a hoof, or a tuft of moss kicked up, or the brown pine-
leaves trodden to a yellower tint; and presently, in softer
ground, the path would again declare itself distinctly, like
a pleasant association reawakening in moments of tender-
ness. Thus we hastened on through the open pine woods,
gaining distance merely. We fled on between tedious ranks
of yellow pines, with a raw wind chasing us and growing
icier, as we rode out upon the bare, shelterless slopes of the
lower regions.
And by and by, as the trail disentangled itself from for-
est and mountain, lo, in houseless wilds, a house! an archi-
tectural log cabin.
"Whose house, Fudnun? What outpost sentry-box of
Boston camps to come?"
It is the house of Skloo, Telamon of the Yakimahs, as
Owhhigh is their Diomed, the horse- thief, and Kamaiakan
their great-hearted Agamemnon; no advanced post of Bos-
ton men, but a refuge of the siwashes, between two fires
of pale-faces advancing westward and eastward.
The cabin was deserted. Skloo and the braves of Skloo
were gone over moor and fell, gone by canon and prairie,
gone after salmon, grasshoppers, berries, kamas, — after all
202
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Indian luxuries and wants, including pillage of pasaiooks
and foes of their own color, when to be had without peril.
The cabin of Telamon Skloo stood, lonely and deserted, in
a spot where the world looked large, and yellow prairies
rushed out of the forest, billowing broadly southward, to-
ward the desolate ranges, walls of the Columbia. As well,
perhaps, that Skloo was an absentee and his house shut;
Skloo, with a house on his back and a roof over his head,
would have been totally neutralized as a nomad chief. He
SKLOO : A Chief of the Yakimas.
would have lost Skloo the Klickatat rover, with whatever
interest or value he had in that relation, and have been pre-
cipitated to the level of any Snooks in Christendom, dweller
in villa or box.
I did not envy Skloo his stationary property of house;
certain mobile chattels of his I did envy him greatly.
A band of his horses were feeding in this spot of the unfenced
world. They did not heed our roadster passage as we drag-
gled by, much the worse for wearing travel. They noticed
us no more than a wary old grouse notices a gunless man.
Antipodes felt the thoughtless dolt stir again within him;
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 203
he forgot how he had been taught who was his master, and,
with packs flapping like rapid pinions, he bolted, to join that
free cavalcade. Fudnun instantly educated him severely
back into line.
Just then, over a swell of the ripe, yellow prairie, came at
full speed, on a coal-black horse, a young Indian, with his
long hair uncovered and streaming in the wind as he galloped.
On he rode, — a cavalier free and bold, without saddle or
stirrups, whirling his lasso with arm outstretched. He made
straight for the band of grazing horses, and the unwarning
blast blew from them toward him, as they stood curiously
watching our slow tramp along the trail. So the untamed
horses of Skloo's prairie did not sniff or see or hear the new-
comer until he was close upon them and the whizz of his
whirling lasso sang in their ears. Then they tossed their proud
heads, shook their plumage of mane, and, with a snort of dis-
gust at their unwatchf ulness, sprang into full speed of flight.
They bent toward us, and crossed the trail not a hundred
yards before us. Their pursuer was riding almost parallel
with them. As they dashed by, he flung his lasso at a noble
black, galloping with head elate and streaming mane and
tail.
The loop of the lasso, preserving its circle with geomet-
rical accuracy, seemed to hang an instant in the air, waiting
for its certain captive.
Will he be taken? Must he be enthralled?
Not so. A glorious escape! While the loop of the lasso
hung poised, the black had sprung through it unerringly, — ■
straight through its open circle, — touching it only to spurn
with his hindmost hoof, and then with the excitement of
his success he burst forward, and took the lead of all that
wild throng, dashing on like the wind.*
But not at all for this failure and overcast did the speed
of the headlong chaser lessen. He did not even turn for
* SeeJohnBrent, Chapter IIL, where Winthrop makes the horse Don
Fulano perform the same feat.
204
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
my applause at the circus-like "act of horsemanship" he had
afforded me in this spacious amphitheatre. His powerful
coal-black horse still sped on fleet as before, close upon the
parti-colored regiment, and the rider had his lasso quickly
in hand, and coiled for a fresh cast, more cautious. Far as
we could see over the undulations of the tawny plain, so
beautifully boundless, the herd was stretching on, rather
in joyous escapade than coward flight; and just apart from
PU-PU-MOX-MOX: YELLOW SERPENT;
Chief of the Walla Wallas.
them, their pursuer still held tireless and inevitable gallop, —
his right arm raised and whirling with imperceptible mo-
tion the lasso, now invisible in the distance.
My good-will was with the dappled herd of runaways,
rather than with the bronze horseman in chase. The cap-
ture of any wild stampeder would begin or renew his his-
tory of maltreatment, as some of them already knew from
past experience, and were flying now with remembrance of
abuse as well as for the instinct of freedom. There are no
absolutely wild horses in the Northwest. All the cavalier
Indians have their numerous bands of horses, broken and
unbroken, and wild enough, following the nomad movements
.stshcvr
B em-':-/'
•ibn.
lav-.
831 ■'.
SUNSET ON THE COLUMBIA.
From the hills on the north bank, east of The Dalles.
"Before me lay a region like the Valley of Death, rugged,
bleak, and severe. A tragical valley, where the forces
of Nature had fallen into despairs and ugly warfare,
* * * Mount Hood, across the valley, became a
cruel reminder of the unattainable. It was brilliantly
near, yet coldly far away, like some mocking bliss never
to be mine, though it might insult me forever by its
scornful presence."
—Chapter XIII.
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 205
of the tribe. It is a rough, punchy, hardy stock, utterly
unkempt and untaught, but capable of taking care of itself,
and capable also, according to the law of barbarism, of pro-
ducing chance individuals of size, strength, and beauty.
Bucephalus is the exception; Rosinante the rule. Buceph-
alus is worth a first-class squaw, or possibly two of those
vexatious luxuries of a cheaper grade. Rosinantes go about
five to the squaw.* Papa gets the price; not as in civiliza-
tion, where, when a squaw sells herself for a Bucephalus, a
brougham, and a black coachman, she keeps and uses the
equivalent. And now that I am on the tariff for squaws, —
dry goods buy them in Siwashdom as sometimes in Christ-
endom. The conventional price is expressed in blankets.
Blankets paid to papa, buy: five, a cheap and unclean arti-
cle, a drudge; ten, a tolerable article, a cook and basket-
maker; twenty, a fine article of squaw, learned in the kamas-
beds, and with skull flat as a shingle; fifty, a very superior
article, ruddy with vermilion and skilled in embroidering
buckskin with porcupine-quills; and one hundred blankets,
a princess, with the beauty and accomplishments of her
rank. Mothers in civilization will be pleased to compare
these with their current rates.
Skloo's prairie and the region thereabouts merits tenants
more numerous than stray bands of mustangs. Succulent
*This price, however, was subject, for cause, to heavy discount.
See Captain Bonneville's account of the Shoshone brave, one of whose
wives eloped with a trapper. Pursued by the bloodthirsty husband,
the fugitives were found in a camp of white traders, where brief parley
led to a transfer of title, the trapper paying two horses for a quitclaim,
and the bereft Shoshone consoling himself for the loss of his frail spouse
with the thrifty reflection that "two good horses were very good pay for
one bad wife." — Irving: Bonneville's Adventures, Ch. XLVII.
In the Himes family, who were part of the migration of 1853 over
Naches Pass, was a baby girl, nine months old, who had red hair. "When
the wagon train camped half way down the western slope of the Blue
Mountains, it was visited by Pu-Pu-Mox-Mox, the great Walla Walla
chief, richest of Northwestern Indians. Seeing this infant, he deter-
mined to buy her. The next morning, the Himes wagon was surrounded
with hundreds of horses, and the Indian Croesus was dumb-founded to
learn that his wealth was powerless to purchase one small, red headed
baby.
206 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
bunch-grass grows there in plenty for legions of graminiv-
ora to fatten on, as they take gentle, wholesome exercise
over the hillocks. It was by far the most propitious country
I had seen this side the mountains.
At present, exercise, and not grazing, was the business
of my cattle. We must hold to our unflagging march for a
few hours more. But prostration after my night watch,
and straining of mind and body for many days, was over-
coming me. I was still wet, cold, and weary, hardly ca-
pable of observation, the most instinctive of healthy human
faculties. It was now eleven o'clock of the thirty-first of
August. The sky began to clear with tumultuous power.
Massive black battalions of cloud came rushing by from the
reserves of storm that still were encamped upon the moun-
tain strongholds westward. Every gloomy cloud trailed
a blast, chilling as Sarsar, the icy wind of death. Between
these moments of torture, the sun of August came forth
through vistas of blinding white vapor, and fevered me.
I grew suddenly sick with a despair like death. Fudnun was
descending a slope some distance before me, driving An-
tipodes laboriously along. I essayed to shout to him, but
my voice choked with a sneering, fiendish rattle, as if con-
tempt of my soul at its mean jailer, my poor failing, dying
body. I clutched vainly at the coil of my lariat by my
saddle horn, and fell senseless.
I slept through a brief death to a blissful resurrection.
Awaking slowly, I doubted at first whether I were not now
released from earthly trammels, for tireless toil in a life
immortal. First, I perceived that I was conscious; there-
fore I still was in being. Quickly the tremulous blood,
in every fibre and cell, told me that I was still an organized
being, possessed of m.embers like those old familiar ones,
my agents in winning undying thoughts. Next, my eyes
unclosed, and I saw the fair sky. With my senses new-born,
my first discovery of external facts was the illimitable
heaven, bright with evanescent wreaths of clouds, white and
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 207
virginal. Whether, then, this were a new world where I
had awakened, or the world of my ancient tenancy, I knew
that the well-known laws of beauty reigned, and I need not
here apostatize from old loves and old faiths. Life went
on slowly reviving, drawing vigor from the air, and action,
the token of life, became a necessity. I stirred feebly, like
a child. The rustle of my first movement called out a
sympathetic stir. Another organization in the outer world
took note of me. I felt a warm puff upon my cheek, and
the nose of Klale the Trusty bent over me inquisitively.
The situation was now systematically explained. I
was my old self, on the old earth; wholly satisfactory,
whether desirable or not. Let us at least know where we
stand, — what are our facts; then, if there is anything to be
done with ourselves, or made of our facts, we can make
the attempt.
Something toward self -restoration may be done even by
a passive, supine weakling, lying among bunch-grass, on
a solitary prairie, leagues away from a house, — an unprom-
ising set of circumstances. I was at present a very valueless
worldling. But the world that takes us and mars us has also
to make us again. Unless our breakage is voluntary, de-
termined, and habitual, we shall mend. Not behind cor-
pulent bottles, purple, crimson, and blue, in a shop where
there is a putty-faced youth with a pestle and a redolence
of rhubarb, are kept the great agents of Nature, — our
mother, father, — who as mother gives us life, and as father
warns, flogs, cures, and guides us with severe tenderness.
Air, light, and water are the trinity of simple remedies, not
sold in the shops, for making a marred man new and whole
again. These three medicines were liberally provided near
my fainting-fit on the prairie.
The first thing I had to do, to be changed from a limp
object to a robust man, was only passive action. I was to
breathe and to bask. And when I had sufficiently suffered
the influence of air and light. Nature's next potent remedy
208 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
was awaiting me. I heard the welcome trickle of water
near at hand, — delicious, winsome sound, hardly less artic-
ulate than the tones of a beloved voice calling me to a
presence that should be refreshment and full renovation.
I could not walk, but I dragged myself along toward the
source of sound, Klale following, an uncontrolled friend.
Sweet water-music guided me to a neighbor rivulet.
It came singing along the bosomy swells of prairie, fondling
its long, graceful fringes of grass, curving and returning,
that it might not lose, with too much urgency, the self-
possessed delight of motion along the elastic softness of
its cushioned bed. If there were anywhere above in this
brook's career turmoil and turbulence, it suffered no worse
consequence than that it must carry along a reminiscence of
riot, quickly soothed, in files of bright bubbles, with their
skulls fuller than they could bear of microscopic images
of all the outer world. Each bubble was so crowded with
reflections from the zenith, that it must share its bursting
sympathy, and marry with every bubble it overtook and
touched, until it became so full of fantasies that it must
merrily explode and be resolved into a drop and a sun-
beam.
The countless charm of water, so sweetly shining forth
its quality of refreshment, revived me even before I could
stoop and taste. I sank and lapped. I bathed away the
fever from my brow, and let the warm, healthy sunshine
cherish me.
In eldest days, had I drooped by a Hippocrene like this,
a nymph had surely emerged from among the ripples and
laid her cooling hand upon me gently, giving me for all
my mortal days a guardian vision of immortality. In
younger time, then, had I perchance been blessed with
healing at the hands of some maiden leech, a Una, unerringly
errant hither upon a milk-white palfrey, hither where a
knight was sore bestead. Now, Nature nursed me, and I
grew strong again.
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 209
But let US bethink ourselves, Klale, "my trusty fr^re."
We were five; we are two. Where are the three ? Where
is Fudnun, the Incorruptible, the Pathfinder, the Merry?
Where Antipodes? Where Gubbins?
Where? Here! Here, pelting down the slope, over-
joyed, comes Fudnun, with whinnying nags. He had ad-
vanced sleepily, giving his whole mind to driving Antipodes,
until that reluctant steed, pretending to grow unhappy
that Klale and I were missing, bolted to the rear; where-
upon Fudnun perceived my absence, and turned to recover
me, dead or alive.
"Nika kulapi; I wheel about," said he, "halo nanitch;
see naught. Cultus nika tum tum; feeble grows my heart.
Pose mika memloose; perhaps you dead. Nika mamook
stick copa k'Gubns; I ply stick on Gubbins," — and he
continued to describe how he had found the spot of my fall,
and my gun lying there, and had followed my trail through
the long grass. Not, I am sure, with hopes of my scalp
and my plunder without a battle. Fudnun was honest,
and, finding me safe, he relieved himself by uproarious
laughter.
There is magnetism in society, even a Fudnun's. Strength
came quicker to my flaccid tissues. I thought of my jour-
ney's end, not far off, and toiled up that dread ascent into
my saddle. Klale trudged along and soon perceiving
that I swayed about no more, and, instead of clinging with
both hands to my saddle, sat upright and held the bridle,
he paced gradually into his cradling lope.
By the hearty aid of noon, the Cascades put their shoul-
ders to the clouds, lifted them and cut them to pieces with
their peaks, so that the wind could come in, like a charge
of cavalry, and annihilate the broken phalanxes. Mount
Adams, Tacoma the Less, was the first object to cleave
the darkness. I looked westward, and saw a sunlit mass of
white, high up among the black clouds, and baseless but
for them. It would have seemed itself a cloud, but, while
210 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
the dark volumes were heaving and shifting about it, this
was permanent. While I looked, the mountain and the
sun became evident victors; the glooms fell away, were
scattered and scourged into nothingness, and the snow-peak
stood forth majestic, the sole arbiter of this realm. The
yellow prairies rolled up where the piny Cascades, dwarfed
by distance, were a dark ridge upon the horizon, and the
overtopping bulk of Tacoma rose directly from them, a
silver mountain from a golden sea. No tameness of thought
is possible here, even if prairie-land lies dead level for
leagues, when on its edge the untamed forces of Nature
have set up these stately monuments. More than a hun-
dred miles away on the transcontinental journey, more
than a hundred miles away on the sea, these noble isolated
snow-peaks are to a traveller memorials of the land he has
left, or beacons, firmer than a pillar of cloud, of a land whither
he goes.
Again I thought of the influence of this most impressive
scenery upon its future pupils among men. The shape
of the world has controlled or guided men's growth; the
look of the world has hardly yet begun to have its effect
upon spiritual progress. Multitudes of agents have always
been at work to poison and dwarf poets and artists in those
inspiring regions of earth where nature means they shall
grow as naturally as water-lilies by a lake, or palms above
the thicks of tropic woods. Civilized mankind has never
yet had a fresh chance of developing itself under grand
and stirring influences so large as in the Northwest.
"Yah wah, enetee," said Fudnun, pointing to a great
surging hill a thousand feet high, "mitlite skookoom tsuk,
k'Lumby tsuk; there, across, is the mighty water, Columbia
River."
One more charge up this Titanic bastion, and I could
fairly shout, Victory! and Time beaten in the race by a
length! Up, then, my squad of cavalry. Clamber up
the grassy slope, Klale the untiring. Stumble forward,
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 211
k'Gubns, on thy last legs. Plod on, Antipodes, in the de-
spairing sulks. If ye are weary, am I not wearier? Have
I not died once to-day? Beyond this mighty earthwork
is a waste and desolate valley; if I am to perish, let me die
on the edge of appropriate, infernal scenery, such as I know
of beyond that hill. And that great river, briefest of the
master streams of earth, if it be not Styx to us, shall be
Lethe. Klale, my jolly imp, k'Gubns, my honest servitor,
Antipodes, my recalcitrant Caliban, Lethe is at hand.
Across that current an Elysium awaits us, as good an
Elysium as the materials permit, and there whatever can
be found of asphodel or horse-fodder shall be your meed,
and ye shall repose until ye start again.
Such a harangue roused the drooping quadrupeds.
We travelled up the steep, right in the teeth of hot blasts,
baked in the rocky cells of the valley beyond, and pouring
over to meet us like puffs from deadly batteries upon the
summit. We climbed for a laborious hour, and paused at
last upon the crest.
Behind was the vast, monotonous plain of my morning's
march. Distant behind were the rude, difficult mountains
I had crossed so painfully; and more distant westward
were the main Cascades, with their snow-peaks calm and
solemnly radiant. Of all this I was too desperately worn
out to take much appreciative notice. The scene before
me was in closer sympathy with my mood.
Before me was a region like the Valley of Death, rugged,
bleak, and severe. A tragical valley, where the fiery forces
of Nature, impotent to attain majestic combination, and
build monuments of peace, had fallen into despairs and
ugly warfare. A valley of anarchy, — a confession that
harmony of the elements was hopeless here, and that the
toil of Nature for cycles working a world out of chaos,
had failed, and achieved only a relapse into ruin, drearier
than chaos.
Racked and battered crags stood disorderly over all
212 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
that rough waste. There were no trees, nor any masses of
vegetation to soften the severities of the landscape. All
was harsh and desolate, even with the rich sun of an August
afternoon doing what it might to empurple the scathed
fronts of rock, to gild the ruinous piles with summer glories,
and throw long shadows veiling dreariness. I looked upon
the scene with the eyes of a sick and weary man, unable to
give that steady thought to mastering its scope and detail
without which any attempt at artistic description becomes
vague generalization.
My heart sank within me as the landscape compelled me
to be gloomy like itself. It was not the first time I had
perused the region under desolating auspices. In a log
barrack I could just discern far beyond the river, I had
that very summer suffered from a villain malady, the
small-pox. And now, as then. Nature harmonized dis-
cordantly with my feelings, and even forced her nobler
aspects to grow sternly ominous. Mount Hood, full before
me across the valley, became a cruel reminder of the un-
atainable. It was brilliantly near, and yet coldly far away,
like some mocking bliss never to be mine, though it might
insult me forever by its scornful presence.
The Dalles of the Columbia, upon which I was now
looking, must be studied by the Yankee Dante, whenever
he comes, for imagery to construct his Purgatory, if not his
Inferno. At Walla Wallah two great rivers, Clark's Fork
and the Snake, drainers of the continent north and south,
unite to form the Columbia. It flows furiously for a hun-
dred and twenty miles westward. When it reaches the dreary
region I was now studying, where the outlying ridges of the
Cascade chain commence, it finds a great, low surface
paved with enormous polished sheets of basaltic rock. These
plates, Gallice dalles, give the spot its name. Canadian
voyageurs in the Hudson's Bay service had a share in the
nomenclature of Oregon. The great river, a mile wide not
far above, finds but a narrow rift in this pavement for its
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 213
passage. The rift gradually draws its sides closer, and at
the spot now called the Dalles, subdivides into three mere
slits in the sharp-edged rock. At the highest water there
are other minor channels, but generally this continental
flood is cribbed and compressed within its three chasms
suddenly opening in the level floor, each chasm hardly
wider than a leap a hunted fiend might take.
In fact, the legend of this infernal spot asserts a dia-
bolical origin for these channels in the Dalles. I give this
weird and grotesque attempt at explaining strange facts in
Nature, translating it into more modern form.
THE LEGEND OF THE DALLES.
The world has been long cycles in educating itself to be
a fit abode for men. Man, for his part, has been long ages
in growing upward through lower grades of being, to be-
come whatever he now may be. The globe was once nebu-
lous, was chaotic, was anarchic, and is at last become
somewhat cosmical. Formerly rude and convulsionary
forces were actively at work, to compel chaos into anarchy
and anarchy into order. The mighty ministries of the
elements warred with each other, each subduing and each
subdued. There were earthquakes, deluges, primeval
storms, and furious volcanic outbursts. In this passionate,
uncontrolled period of the world's history, man was a fiend,
a highly uncivilized, cruel, passionate fiend.
The Northwest was then one of the centers of volcanic
action. The craters of the Cascades were fire-breathers,
fountains of liquid flame, catapults of red-hot stones.
Day was lurid, night was ghastly with this terrible light.
Men exposed to such dread influences could not be other
than fiends, as they were, and they warred together cruelly,
as the elements were doing.
Where the great plains of the Upper Columbia now
spread, along the Umatilla, in the lovely valley of the
214 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Grande Ronde, between the walls of the Grande Coulee,
was an enormous inland sea, filling the vast interior of the
continent, and beating forever against a rampart of hills,
to the east of the desolate plain of the Dalles.
Every winter there were convulsions along the Cas-
cades, and gushes of lava came from each fiery Tacoma, to
spread new desolation over desolation, pouring out a melted
surface, which, as it cooled in summer, became a fresh
layer of sheeny, fire-hardened dalles.
Now as the fiends of that epoch and region had giant
power to harm each other, they must have of course giant
weapons of defense. Their mightiest weapon of offense
and defense was their tail; in this they resembled the
iguanodons and other "mud pythons" of that period, but
no animal ever had such force of tail as these terrible,
monster fiend-men who warred together over all the North-
west.
As ages went on, and the fires of the Cascades began to
accomplish their duty of expanding the world, earthquakes
and eruptions diminished in virulence. A winter came
when there was none. By and by there was an inter-
val of two years, then again of three years, without rumble
or shock, without floods of fire or showers of red-hot stones.
Earth seemed to be subsiding into an era of peace. But
the fiends would not take the hint to be peaceable; they
warred as furiously as ever.
Stoutest in heart and tail of all the hostile tribes of
that scathed region was a wise fiend, the Devil. He had
observed the cessation in convulsions of Nature, and had
begun to think out its lesson. It was a custom of the fiends,
so soon as the Dalles plain became agreeably cool after an
eruption, to meet there every summer and have a grand
tournament after their fashion. Then they feasted riotously,
and fought again until they were weary.
Although the eruptions of the Tacomas had ceased
now for three years, as each summer came round this festi-
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 215
val was renewed. The Devil had absented himself from
the last two, and when, on the third summer after his long
retirement, he reappeared among his race on the field of
tourney, he became an object of respectful attention.
Every fiend knew that against his strength there was no
defense; he could slay so long as the fit was on. Yet the
idea of combined resistance to so dread a foe had never
hatched itself in any fiendish head; and besides, the Devil,
though he was feared, was not especially hated. He had
never won the jealousy of his peers by rising above them
in morality. So now as he approached, with brave tail
vibrating proudly, all admired and many feared him.
The Devil drew near, and took the initiative in war
by making a peace speech.
"Princes, potentates, and powers of these infernal
realms," said he, "the eruptions and earthquakes are ceasing.
The elements are settling into peacefulness. Can we not
learn of them? Let us give up war and cannibalism, and
live in milder fiendishness and growing love."
Then went up a howl from deviltry. "He would lull
us into crafty peace, that he may kill and eat safely. Death!
death to the traitor!"
And all the legions of fiends, acting with a rare unanimity,
made straight at their intended Reformer.
The Devil pursued a Fabian policy, and took to his
heels. If he could divide their forces, he could conquer
in detail. Yet as he ran his heart was heavy. He was
bitterly grieved at this great failure, his first experience
in the difficulties of Reform. He flagged sadly as he sped
over the Dalles, toward the defiles near the great inland
sea, whose roaring waves he could hear beating against
their bulwark. Could he but reach some craggy strait
among the passes, he could take position and defy attack.
But the foremost fiends were close upon him. Without
stopping, he smote powerfully upon the rock with his tail.
The pavement yielded to that Titanic blow. A chasm
216 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
opened and went riving up the valley, piercing through
the bulwark hills. Down rushed the waters of the inland
sea, churning boulders to dust along the narrow trough.
The main body of the fiends shrunk back terror-stricken;
but a battalion of the van sprang across and made one
bound toward the heart-sick and fainting Devil. He smote
again with his tail, and more strongly. Another vaster
cleft went up and down the valley, with an earthquaking
roar, and a vaster torrent swept along.
Still the leading fiends were not appalled. They took
the leap without craning. Many fell short, or were crowded
into the roaring gulf, but enough were left, and those of the
chiefest braves, to martjT their chase in one instant, if they
overtook him. The Devil had just time enough to tap once
more, and with all the vigor of a despairing tail.
He was safe. A third crevice, twice the width of the
second, split the rocks. This way and that it went, wavering
like lightning eastward and westward, riving a deeper
cleft in the mountains that held back the inland sea, riving
a vaster, gorge through the majestic chain of the Cascades,
and opening a way for the torrent to gush ocean ward.
It was the crack of doom for the fiends. A few essayed
the leap. They fell far short of the stern edge, where the
Devil had sunk panting. They alighted on the water, but
whirlpools tripped them up, tossed them, bowled them along
among floating boulders, until the buffeted wretches were
borne to the broader calms below, where they sunk. Mean-
while, those who had not dared the final leap attempted a
backward one, but wanting the impetus of pursuit, and
shuddering at the fate of their comrades, every one of them
failed and fell short; and they too were swept away, horribly
sprawling in the flood.
As to the fiends who had stopped at the first crevice,
they ran in a body down the river to look for the mangled
remains of their brethren, and, the undermined bank giv-
OLYMAN CHARON AND HIS DUG-OUT, AT THE
DALLES.
"Between me and elysium flows the Styx, gray and tur-
bulent; and Charon, where is he? There are no canoes
on this side. I fired shots, nay, impatient volleys, and
very pretty pop-gun noise it seemed by the loud river
in this broad, rough bit of earth. Are we to repeat
the trials of Tantalus? No, for I see a figure stirring
near a log on the beach,^ — the figure one of the Frowzy,
and the log a canoe. He launches, and comes bravely
paddling across the long half-mile of furious current.
* * * A welcoming howdy-do ^aid I, and for a fitting
number of oboli he agreed to ferry me and mine."
—Chapter XIII.
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 217
ing way under their weight, every fiend of them was carried
away and drowned.
So perished the whole race of fiends.
As to the Devil, he had learnt a still deeper lesson. His
tail also, the ensign of deviltry, was irremediably dislo-
cated by his last life-saving blow. In fact, it had ceased
to be any longer a needful weapon! its antagonists were
all gone; never a tail remained to be brandished at it,
in deadly encounter.
So, after due repose, the Devil sprang lightly across
the chasms he had so successfully engineered, and went
home to rear his family thoughtfully. Every year he brought
his children down to the Dalles, and told them the terrible
history of his escape. The fires of the Cascades burned
away; the inland sea was drained, and its bed became
fair prairie, and still the waters gushed along the narrow
crevices he had opened. He had, in fact, been the instru-
ment in changing a vast region from a barren sea into
habitable land.
One great trial, however, remained with him, and made
his life one of grave responsibility. All his children born
before the catastrophe were cannibal, stiff-tailed fiends.
After that great event, every new-born imp of his was
like himself in character and person, and wore but a flaccid
tail, the last insignium of ignobility. Quarrels between these
two factions imbittered his days and impeded civilization.
Still it did advance, and long before his death he saw the
tails disappear forever.
Such is the Legend of the Dalles, — a legend not with-
out a moral.
So in this summer afternoon I rested awhile; looking
over the brown desolateness of the valley where the Devil
baffled the fiends, and then slowly and wearily I wound
along down the enormous hillside by crumbling paths,
and then between scarped cliffs of fired rock or shattered
218 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
conglomerate down to the desert below. The Columbia
was still two or three cruel miles away, but at last, turning
to the right, away from the pavement and channels of the
Dalles, I came to the cliffs over the river.
Over against me, across the unfordable whirls of gray
water, still furious after its compression in the rifts above,
was the outermost post of Occidental civilization. My
countrymen were backing from the Pacific across the con-
tinent, and to protect their advancing rear had established
a small garrison here at the Dalles. There were the old
log barracks on the terrace a mile from the river. My
very hospital, where I had suffered, and received the kind-
liest care, and where to my fevered dreams had come visions
of Indians, antic, frantic, corybantic, circling about me with
hatchets because I had brought the deadly pest into their
tribe, — that log cabin, vacated by its occupant, the officer
in command, that I might be well lodged through my illness,
was still there among the rough, yellow pines, unaltered
by one embrowning summer. There was the sutler's shop
near the shore, and, grouped about it, tents of the first-
comers of the overland emigration, each with its gypsy
supper-fire. Truly an elysium of civilization as elysian
as one could desire, and Mount Hood standing nobly in
the background, no longer chill and unsympathizing. But
between me and elysium flows the Styx, gray and turbu-
lent, and Charon, where is he? There are no canoes on this
side. How shall we cross, Fudnun, the Blanketeer?
"Kloneas; dunno. Pose mika mamook po; suppose you
fire a shot," said Fudnun, "pesiwash chaco copa canim;
and Indian come with canoe."
I fired shots, nay, impatient volleys, and very petty
popgun noise it seemed by the loud river in this broad,
rough bit of earth. No one appeared to ferry me. I waved
a white blanket. No one heeded. I fired more shots,
more volleys. It would be farcical, or worse, should we be
forced to stay here "dum defluat amnis," to wait until this
o e
5 o
Bt
■"^^ OS'S
3s
^^AK/'^-
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND.
219
continental current run driblets. Are we to repeat, with
variations, the trials of Tantalus? No, for I see a figure
stirring near a log on the beach. At this distance I cannot
distinguish, but I can fancy the figure to be one of the
Frowzy, and the log a canoe. It is so. He launches, and
comes bravely paddling across the stream. We scuffled
down the craggy bank to meet him.
"Howdydo! Howdydo!" said Olyman Charon, landing
Indian House of Slabs, on the Columbia.
his canoe, and lounging bow-leggedly up to shake hands.
A welcoming howdydo, said I in return, and for a fitting
number of oboli he agreed to ferry me and mine in two
detachments. I would cross first with the traps, swimming
Klale; Fudnun would come afterward with k'Gubns and
Antipodes. I upheld Klale's head in the bow while Charon
paddled and steered aft. The river proved indeed almost
a Styx to poor Klale. It was a long half-mile of stemming
a furious current, and once or twice the stout-hearted
little nag struggled as if his death-moment had come. But
220 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
Charon paddled lustily, and we safely touched the farther
shore.
It was sunset of the last of August. I had won the day,
and not merely the day. Across the tide-ways of Whulge,
the Squally prairies, the wooded flanks and buttresses of
Tacoma, by the Nachchese canon and valley, from traitors
on Weenas, from the Atinam mission, from the camp of
the flaring torch, across Skloo's domains, and at last over
the region of the Devil's race-course here at the Dalles; —
over all these stages of my route I had hastened, and my
speed was not in vain. I had seen new modes of savage
life. I had proved Indian treachery and Indian friendship.
I knew the glory and the shame of Klalam and Klickatat.
Among many types of character w^re some positively
distinct and new ones; Dooker Yawk, the drunken; Owh-
high, the magisterial; Loolowcan, the frowzy; Shabbiest,
the not ungrateful; merry Uplintz, and hero-worshipping
Kpawintz; Kamaiakan, the regal and courteous; Fudnun,
the jocund; — all these had been in some way intimately
associated with my destiny. I had conquered time and
space by just so little as to feel a respect for my antagonists,
and some satisfaction in myself as victor. My allies in
the contest, my three quadrupeds, had borne them nobly.
I had a serene sense of new and large experience, and of some
qualities in myself newly tested. Of all my passages of
wild life, this was the most varied and concentrated. There
had been much grandeur of nature, and vigorous dramatic
scenes, crowded into this brief journey. As a journey, it
was complete with a fortunate catastrophe after the rapidity
of its acts, to prove the plot well conceived. I had rehearsed
my longer march, and was ready to begin to enact it.
I left Klale to shake himself free of the waters of his
Lethe, and nibble at what he could find of the promised
asphodel, until his comrades came over, and myself moved
about to greet old friends. My two comrades of the morrow
THE DALLES — THEIR LEGEND. 221
were in a tent, hard by, playing poker with Pikes of the
emigration, and losing money to the said crafty Pikes. ♦
So, when the morrow came, I mounted a fresh horse,
and went galloping along on my way across the continent.
With my comrades, a pair of frank, hearty, kindly roughs,
I rode over the dry plains of the Upper Columbia, beyond
the sight of Mount Hood and Tacoma the less, across John
Day's River and the Umatillah, day after day, through
throngs of emigrants with their flocks and their herds
and their little ones in great patriarchal caravans, with
their white-roofed wagons strewed over the surging prairie
like sails on a populous sea, moving away from the tame
levels of Mid-America to regions of fresher and more dra-
matic life on the slopes toward the Western Sea. I climbed
the Blue Mountains, looked over the lovely valley of the
Grande Ronde, wound through the stern defiles of the
Burnt River Mountains, talked with the great chiefs of the
Nez Percys at Fort Boisee, dodged treacherous Bannacks
along the Snake, bought salmon, and otter-skins for finery,
of the Shoshonees at the Salmon Falls, shot antelope, found
many oases of refreshing beauty along the breadth of that
desolate region, and so, after much adventure, and at last
deadly sickness, I came to the watermelon patches of the
Great Salt Lake Valley, and drew recovery thence. I
studied the Utah landscape. Oriental, simple, and severe.
I talked with Brother Brigham, a man of very considerable
power, practical sense, and administrative ability. I chatted
with the buxom thirteenth of a boss Mormon, and was
not proselyted. And then, in delicious October, I hastened
on over the South Pass, through the buffalo, over prairies
on fire, quenched at night by the first snows of autumn.
For two months I rode with days sweet and cloudless,
and every night I bivouacked beneath the splendors of
unclouded stars.
And in all that period while I was so near to Nature,
* See p. 15 note.
222
THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE.
the great lessons of the wilderness deepened into my heart
day by day, the hedges of conventionalism withered away
from my horizon, and all the pedantries of scholastic thought
perished out of my mind forever.
1
Animal-shaped Bowl, or Mortar, Carved in Lava. Found In
Grave on Yakima Reservation.
A PARTIAL VOCABULARY
OF THE CHINOOK JARGON.
In reprinting Winthrop's Chinook Vocabulary, no attempt has
been made to expand it into a dictionary of the jargon. Through the
courtesy, however, of Dr. CM. Buchanan, of Tulalip, several correc-
tions and explanations are added to Winthrop's list. These and other
additions are enclosed in brackets. Readers who wish a fuller manual
of this curious lingua franca are referred to the work of Dr. George
Gibbs {Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, 1863), and the full and excellent
compilations of John Gill {Gill's Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, Port-
land, 1909), George C. Shaw {The Chinook Jargon and How to Use It,
Seattle, 1909) and others.
The following extracts from a manuscript account by Dr. Buchanan
explain the most important features of what he has called "the bar-
baric Volapuk of early commerce in the Northwest."
"A thorough knowledge of a few dozen words will give one sufficient
material with which, after actual practice, to carry on ordinary con-
versations. In practice the sentences are built up by agglutination
or association of words, just as a child builds houses and various other
v/onderful structures from its blocks. In so doing there is always a
very wide sphere for the exercise of ingenuity on the part of the speaker,
and upon this, in a measure, depends the skill with which he may handle
Chinook and convey his thoughts therein. The jargon is essentially a
spoken and not a written tongue — it is very much alive. * * There
are no hard and fast rules for the spelling of words, and every one in
writing Chinook follows the dictates of his own judgment in the fabri-
cation of phonetic equivalents, which are at best only approximations.
"A Chinook word is elastic and expresses a broad and general idea
rather than one altogether specific, hence the extreme elasticity of
the jargon. Specific ideas must be expressed by qualifiers or modifiers
added to the word, as will be readily seen in practice. Each word is a
tool whose general uses and whose specific uses must be so mastered
before successful work can be done or satisfactory progress be made.
"In Chinook the verb is absolutely inflexible, and never changes
its form for mood, tense or anything else; these are always indicated by
the agglutination of a word indicating the mood, tense, etc. The idea
of tense is most simple and rudimentary, that is, past, present and future;
ahnkutty, alia, alki.
"Intensity of meaning or duration of time may be indicated by pro-
longation of the sounding of a word, thus: Laly (time) — la-a-a-aly
(a long time). This is based upon an instinctive principle common
to all tongues, just as we in English phonetically indicate prolongation
of time or extension in space or intensity of feeling by means of the in-
tonation. So we say 'a long time' and 'a lo-o-o-ong time.' "
224
VOCABULARY OF THE CHINOOK JARGON.
Aha, yes.
Ahti or achti [Ahts], sister.
Ala, I wonder; surprise.
Alki, future, by and by.
Alta, now, present.
Ankoti [Ahn-cutty], before; time
past.
Attle, to be pleased. [Yutl or youtl,
glad.]
Aquine or Aquatine, belly.
Boston tilicum, American [people].
Bote, boat.
Callapooya, mean Indian.
Canim, canoe.
Cansu [Kon-se or kon-sih], how
many.
Chaco, come.
Chick-chick, wagon, etc.
Chicu or che-chu [Chee], new, clean.
Chickamin, iron, etc. [also money].
Chil-chil, button.
Chuck, water, river.
Cli, to cry.
Cloocheman, woman.
Closche nanitch, look sharp.
Cluckamon [See Chickamin], money.
Cochon, pig, pork.
Copa mitlite pire, to burn.
Copa nika mitlite, it belongs to me.
Cop-su-wallah [Kop-shwal-lah],
steal.
Couway (courez) cooly [Coley], run.
Cultus hee-hee, dance.
Cultus, common, inferior [worth-
less, useless].
Cultus tee-hee, play.
Cum-tux, understand, hear.
Dah-blo or derb, devil [also "le
job," the devil].
Ding-ding, hotir.
Dlie, dry.
Drait [de-late], straight.
Eh-ee, uncle.
Elita, slave.
Enetee [In-ah-tie], across.
Esik [Is-sik], paddle.
Essil, corn.
Gleese, gleach, grease, oil, tar, etc.
Gleese-stick, candle.
Halo, none, nothing.
Haloa mah [Hul-loi-mah] another
kind.
Hankachim, handkerchief.
Haul, pull.
Haus [House], sail, tent.
Ho, let; an interjection.
Hoel, mouse.
Hooe-hoo, swop, sell.
Hooihut [Oy-hut], road.
Hui [Hyu], much, many.
Hui-haus [Hyu-house], town.
Hyack, quick, make haste.
Hyas, very greatly.
Ichfat [Itshoot], bear, animal.
Ikta, what things.
lUahee, earth, dust, floor, etc.
Hip or eelip, the first.
Inati, over, across, outside.
Ipsuit, find [Ip-soot, to hide, conceal].
Iscum, take, bring.
Ittle-whilly, flesh.
Ituel, victuals.
Kah, where.
Kah mika chaco, where do you
come from?
Kah mika klatawah, where are
you going?
Kahquah or kapwah, alike, like.
Kah ta mika wah-wah, what did
you say?
Kaloock, swan.
Kaliaton, lead; k. hyas, balls; k.
tenas, shot.
Kamooks [Comox, cow-mux], dog;
mean, poor fellow.
Kanoway [Konaway], all.
Ka-puet, needle.
Kappo, coal.
Kap-sualla [Kop-shwal-lah], steal.
Karabine [Cal-a-peen], rifle.
Kata [Kah-tah], why.
Katock, year.
Kaw-kaw, crow, raven.
Kaw-heloo, goose.
Kaw-wash [Kwahss], afraid.
Kee-a-wali, love.
Kee-la-pi, turn over [Keelapie tum-
tum, to change one's mind].
Keelapy, come back, return.
Kiasee or 'sie [Kon-see, kon-sih],
how many, much.
Kicemali [Kee-kwil-lee], down be-
low.
Kicuali tyee [Kee-kwil-lee tyee],
devil.
Kimtah, back.
Kinny-ki-nick, smoking-weed.
Kinoose, tobacco.
VOCABULARY OF THE CHINOOK JARGON.
225
Kitlo, kettling, kettle.
Klatawah, go, walk.
Klale, black.
Klahyam, klah-hye-am (Klah-how-
yah], good bye.
Klahya, klah-hyg-gah [Klah-how-
yah], how d'ye do.
Klahana [Klah-hah-nee], out.
Klaska, them, those.
Klaxta, who.
Klimmin, little, soft.
Klipsc, upset.
Kliminwhit, klimink-whit, lie.
Kloneas [Kloh-nass], don't know;
may be.
Kllosche, good.
Klowawah, slow.
Knitan [Ku-ih-tan], horse.
Knitan-house [Kuihitan house],
stable.
Ko, stop; arrived.
Kock-sheet [Kok-shit], break, strike
kill, etc.
Kock-sheet-stick, war-club.
KoU, cold.
Kollo [Klah-hud], fence.
KoUaps, or k'laps [Klap], find.
Komsock, beads.
Konamoxt, both [Konaway, all;
mox, two; konamux, both].
Kopa, with, by.
Kopet, enough, done; stop, let me
alone.
Kotsuck, middle.
Kowee, tie in, tie up.
Kullu or kuUa, kullie, bird of any kind
Kum-tux, know, understand.
Kutl or kul-kul [Kull], hard.
Kwanasim, always [Konaway, all;
sun, day; kwannisum, all days
or always].
La bouche, mouth.
La coope, te-cope, white.
La crame, yellow.
La hache, axe.
La lame, oar.
La vest, jacket.
Le bya (la vielle?), old woman.
Le cassette, trunk.
Le cou, neck.
Le dents, teeth.
Le langue, tongue.
Le loim, sharp.
Le molass, mA}lasse9.
Le mouton [Le mooto], sheep.
Le main [Le mah], hand.
Le pied, foot.
Le pipe, pipe.
Le plush [Le Plash], boards.
Le polo, pan.
Le pomme, apple.
Le pois, peas.
Le poshut, fork.
Le porte, door.
Le poule, fowl.
Le nez, nose.
Le selle, saddle.
Le shabree, plough.
Le t§te, head.
Lip-lip, boil.
Lolo, carry.
Lope, rope.
Lum, spirit of any sort.
Mahcook, buy
Mamook, work, do.
Man, man.
Masatche, bad [Vile, dirty, evil].
Masatche man, enemy [vile man].
Memloose [May-muh-loos], die,
dead, destroy.
Mesika, ye or you [you, your, yours.
There is no such thing as case
in Chinook, therefore one form
represents at once the nomi-
native, possessive and objective].
Mika, you.
Mitlite, leave, stop; place, set down.
Mit-mit-stick, mast or tree.
Moon, month.
Moos-moos, beef, cattle.
Moosum, sleep.
Mowitch, deer.
Muck-a-muck, eat, drink, food.
Musket, gun.
Musket-stone, flint.
Musket tenas, pistol.
Na-wit-kah, yes, indeed.
Nanitch, see.
Neim [Nem], name.
Nesika, we, us.
Nika, /.
Nika attle copa mika, / am pleased
with you. [See "attle," supra].
Nika sia, my love.
Nik-wah, here to me.
Oapcan, basket.
Ocook, this, that.
Oelk, snake.
226
VOCABULARY OF THE CHINOOK JARGON.
Oelhin, seal.
Olilly or olalely, berry.
Olo, hungry.
Olyman saolrocks, second-hand, old
clothes ["Old man" or "ole man,"
worn out or worthless].
Opitchure [Opitsah], knife.
Opotche [Opoots], back [vulgar].
Oree, brother.
Pasaiooks, French, foreigners.
Pat-le [Pahtl], full.
Pe, and, but.
Pechi, green.
Pel [Pil], red [Pil-pil, blood].
Pesispy [Pah-ses-sy], blanket.
Pesispy sail, woollen cloth.
Peshooks, thickets.
Petick (?), world.
Pil-pil, blood.
Piltin, fool, foolish.
Pire, fire.
Pire-gleese, tallow.
Pire-ship, steamer.
Pire-stone, flint.
Poo, plook, shoot.
Polikely [Poh-luk-ly], night.
Pose, if, suppose [Spose, used for
any expression of condition].
Pusse [Pish-pish], cat.
Quak-quak, duck.
Quallon, ear [Kwoh-lahd-dy, In-
dian word more commonly used].
Quanisam, always.
Sah-hah-lee, high up, heaven.
Sah-hah-lee-tyee, God.
Sail, cotton cloth, etc.
Samon, fish.
Sapolel, wheat.
See-ah-hoos, face or eyes.
See-ah-pal, hat, cap.
ShecoUon, pantaloons.
Shixe, friend
Sitcum, half.
Siwash [Corrupted ^^Sauvage"],
Indian.
Sly ah, pay off.
Skookum, strong, stout; ghost.
Skookum man, warrior.
Snas, rain.
Sonture (ceinture), sash.
Stogeon, sturgeon.
Talipus, wolf.
Tamala, to-morrow.
Tamanoiis, guardian spirit.
Tamoluck, barrel.
Tatoosh, milk, cheese, butter [Ta-
toosh, breast or mammary gland].
Tee-ah-nute, leg.
Tee-coop or t'kope (cope), white.
Tee-hee or hee-hee, laugh.
Tenas, infant; t. cloocheman, girl;
t. man, boy; t. le porte, window.
Tikky, want, wish.
Tilicum, people.
Till-till, tired, heavy.
Tin-tin, bell, watch.
Tipsoo, grass, feathers, hair, beard,
wool, etc.
Tipu, ornament.
Tissum, pretty.
Tit-the-co-ep, cut.
T'kope (cope) tilicum, white man.
Tocta, doctor.
Tolo, win.
Tumpelo, back.
Tum-tum, heart.
Tyee, chief, master, etc.
Utescut, short.
Uttecut, long.
Wah-wah, talk.
Wake, no, not.
Wapato, potato.
Weltch, more.
Yack-wah, this way [or here].
Yah-hal, name.
Yah-wah, yonder.
Yaka, him, she, it.
All words in Chinook are very much aspirated, gutturalized, sput-
tered, and swallowed.
CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST
WESTERN LETTERS AND JOURNALS
OF
THEODORE WINTHROP
fit Prt fibred
WESTERN WASHINGTON
AND
NORTHWEiSTTERP} OREGOW
WITH
WINTHROf'S ROOTE
WESTERN LETTERS AND JOURNALS
CALIFORNIA.
Theodore Winthrop's letters from the Pacific Coast cover the period
between his departure from Panama, in March, 1853, and his arrival
at old Fort Dalles, Oregon, homeward bound, on August 31, following.
With the exception of his weeks of illness at The Dalles, on his first
visit there in the spring, and of his month's stay at Victoria and Belling-
ham Bay, with the forced march that took him so swiftly across the new
Territory in the last days of the short northern summer, this correspond-
ence accounts in detail for his half-year on the coast.
The letters were addressed to members of his family. Written for
their friendly eyes, and without thought of publication, they are
devoid of all effort at style or effect; nevertheless, they contain many
charming notes of travel, and some vivid snap-shot pictures of Western
life and scenes. They are such letters, indeed, as a young man of quick
intelligence, wide reading and extended travel would naturally write
to the beloved widowed mother and her children at home, anxious to
know what might befall that roving, inquisitive, and semi-invalid son
and brother, three thousand miles away in the newest West.
Duphcating these letters in many particulars, Winthrop's journals
also add much that the letters omit. They thus aid us materially in
piecing out the story of his summer west of the Rockies. From both
sources, the letters and the journals, we get many side-lights on the
incidents narrated in "The Canoe and the Saddle." Many paragraphs
in the book were evidently developed from the hasty notes of the diary
and the more careful narrative of the letters.
230 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
In "The Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop, edited by his
sister," 1884, there was published a somewhat condensed transcrip-
tion of the letters. In reprinting them here, I have added a num-
ber of passages and, indeed, several brief letters that were omitted from
that very enjoyable volume. My aim has been to retain everything
that has more than a private interest. The first letter was written on
shipboard, en route from Panama to San Francisco:
"Near Acapulco, March 14, 1853.
"My dear Mother: — Nearly half way to cool weather
again, and looking forward to the enjoyment of warm
clothes and a fast walk. Panama, whence I sailed on the
8th, is fading in recollection, and my existence apart there
becoming like a dream. Yet it was difficult to tear my-
self away. I shall long remember the Cathedral Plaza and
the life around it. I find it still a question whether I shall
ever have any energy again. As I am seeking my fortune,
I must not allow apprehensions; but my heart sinks when I
think how little my infirm health fits me to join battle with
giants such as I see around me.
"Our voyage thus far has been agreeable. I had al-
ready known the officers of the ship, and have found them
pleasant company. We have few passengers, generally
uninteresting. The Ocean has been strictly Pacific, hardly
broken by a ripple. We have sailed along with a remorse-
less glare of sunlight. I have felt the heat more on this
trip than any time at Panama. First, we sailed close along
a rather bold, hilly shore, thickly wooded and completely
solitary. At the gulf of Nicoya, we gradually left the land
bluer and fainter in the distance until we lost it entirely,
striking across the Bay of Tehuantepec. We are now in
sight of the distant Mexican coast, and to-night shall be
in Acapulco. The ship behaves admirably, steadily making
from 220 to 240 miles a day.
"No events; a few flying fish skipping out of the water
and a couple of water-spouts stretching down slender arms
of cloud into the sea, like bent sherry cobbler tubes, have
SAN FRANCISCO. 231
hardly varied the monotony of our tropical sailing. The
water is beautifully blue, and the horizon cloudless; the
nights are fine, with a young moon.
"I feel very far from home, and have no idea
what I am going to do in San Francisco. I shall try, be-
fore I am finally settled in anything, to run about the coun-
try a little, and work off Panama. As we approach Aca-
pulco, sailing straight down a broad path of moonlight,
fires of burning brush appear all along the shore. At mid-
night we plunged into the land, and all at once, a way open-
ing, found ourselves in a smooth lake surrounded by hills
with no apparent exit — the harbor of Acapulco. We lay
between the coal hulks until morning. Then I went ashore.
The town is surrounded by hills, high, barren and burnt,
looking as if recent volcanic fires had passed over them.
With many cracked and ruined houses, it shows traces of
the late earthquakes. Everything is parched. The houses
are all of one story, — huts rather than houses; and the peo-
ple live lazily in the shade of the corridors that surround
them. The square is covered with booths for selling fruit
and liquors. I close, as the steamier will soon be off, and
hope to write soon and in good health at San Francisco."
"San Francisco, Cal., March 27, 1853.
"My dear Mother: — I arrived here on Thursday even-
ing, March 24th. We had fine weather and a fine coast
from Acapulco until we crossed the Gulf of California.
At San Diego we saw American California; shores like
downs, bare of all except scanty herbage and grass, with
higher hills in the distance sprinkled occasionally with
snow. The change to really cold weather, thermometer
45*^, was severe but refreshing, and I felt new life when I
could button together what the moths of Panama had left
of my thick coat, and walk rapidly about the deck. The
shore was bare and uninteresting. San Diego is in three
parts, — a desolate harbor with a few sheds and three coal
232 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
hulks; an old town six miles from the beach, and a new town
containing the barracks. The harbor is land locked. Ap-
proaching Monterey, the coast became apparently more
fertile ; there were some trees and more verdure; the hills,
too, were higher and finer, and the rocky points brilUant
with surf. Monterey is prettily situated in a beautiful
sweep of bay, wooded with pines; a green and smiling coun-
try surroimds it, a good deal cultivated, and with all the
freshness of spring. But the general appearance of the
coast is hardly inviting; its fertility and beauty are said to
be behind the Coast Range.
"About 1 p. m., on the 24th, we began to see the 'Heads'
at the entrance of San Francisco Bay. After a gale the
night before, the day was splendidly clear of the fogs that
usually beset the coast and have recently caused the loss
of our Tennessee. A large number of ships were beating
in and out, and a Yankee pilot boat hailed us. The en-
trance is worthy of the noble bay. The south shore is
barren and sand-hilly, but having a wild, seashore look;
on the north the cliffs come precipitately down into the
water. The narrow entrance is somewhat beset with rocks,
which are covered with birds and basking seals. After
the first set of points, the coast trends inward to another
set, the real Golden Gate, equally bold and fine, and about
as wide as the Narrows. * This continues perhaps two miles,
when you discern the shipping and the town creeping round
the point, and the whole breadth of the lake-like bay opens
grandly before you. The effect is simple in its elements, —
an expanse of calm water bounded by sharply defined hills.
From their summits you have striking panoramic views
across the bay and down upon the wonderful town, which is
a realization in rapidity of growth, if not in splendor, of
our fairy tales.
"On approaching, we found all the 'paraphernalia of
civilization ;' we were boarded by news boats ; our arrival
*Below New York Harbor.
AN ASTONISHING PLACE. 233
was announced by a succession of telegraphs. Firing our
gun and rounding the point, I was astonished to find an
array of shipping apparently as great as that in New York.
Fine ships were lying out in the stream, and blocking the
crowded wharves. Back of them stretched an extent of
city seeming interminable, and exaggerated by the evening
mist and smoke. The wharf and steamers alongside were
filled with people awaiting our arrival, and there was far
more bustle and noise and throng than ever on a similar
occasion at home.
"The activity here is appalling. The original town was,
as you know, built upon a narrow, crescent-shaped bit of
ground backed by steep hills. As it extended, the hills
were cut away, and the water filled up, until an office which
was at the waterside is now half a mile from the wharves.
But they could not fill in rapidly enough, and much of the
lower town is wharf -built — planking upon piles. This
part is principally composed of small wooden buildings.
But farther in, upon terra firma, there are broad streets
and many substantial edifices of brick and stone, some
being really good in architecture and appearance, though
flimsy wooden affairs still predominate.
"Although land is exceedingly valuable, most of the
better buildings are of only two stories, and the extent is
consequently greater. Everywhere construction and de-
struction are going on together. People are generally
convinced that the town is a fixed fact. Few cities offer
such fine sites for houses. The hills, however, are being
dug down ; and in making a call yesterday I found the easiest
method of getting away was to step down a sand bank
eight feet high. It is indeed an astonishing place. To me,
coming from the poco tiempo of Panama, the contrast was
especially striking. But the whole thing appears unsub-
stantial. It is generally agreed that the 'emplacement'
of the town is not the best in the bay, and there are still
234 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
persons who expect that the whole will be abandoned and
Benicia or some other locality chosen.
"San Francisco is even more alive at night than during
the day. The shops are all in full blast, and the gambling
houses filled; night auctions of old clothes and new, hats and
all Jew wares, are common. To-morrow or next day I shall
go up to Benicia, and perhaps begin my little journey to
the mines, and perhaps home. A few days will settle the
matter. I cannot think of anything else but how to get
on respectably and to have something better than the miser-
able life of the last two years. Having no profession and
no mercantile education or experience, I have nothing to
fall back upon and nothing particular to look forward to.
Ill health has destroyed my hopefulness. It is of course
some advantage to have visited this coast, but there are
disagreeable things connected with the life. The standard
of right and wrong, of character, manners, and everything,
is peculiar; and a man gradually falls into indifference to
such things.
"Monday, March 28. — Another rainy day, chilly and
dull. A little fire is necessary here during the morning and
evening for the whole year. The streets being all covered
with wood, you walk upon a very wet footing, enormously
thick boots are de rigueur, generally worn outside the panta-
loons, more apparently in reminiscence of old times than
from the necessity of the case. Except the unfinished
state of everything, there is no air of a new place about
San Francisco. The men are well dressed and look as if
they had seen the world. The shops are handsome within,
and the display of goods sometimes brilliant. All restau-
rants, etc., are furnished handsomely and more in the
European style than anything one sees at home. People
in business live luxuriously and work hard.
"Wednesday, March 30. — This morning Capt. Knight
has placed me in charge of the ticket sales here. It is not
a position that suits me, and I take it only temporarily,
JINGLES FOR THE "JUDGE." 235
waiting for something better. It gives me, however, some-
thing to do, and I shall at least have an opportunity to see
the place and get an idea of how things are managed.
"Thursday, March 31. — To-morrow sails the steamer
and this is the busy day of all. We are expected to sit up
all night.
"Friday, 3 a. m. — Up all night and jolly."
Here is an amusing bit of fooling, which contains some local color,
as well as a delightful suggestion of intimate family ties. This letter
in doggerel was written to Winthrop's sister Sarah. "Judge" was his
pet name for her, — handed down from their childish plays, in which
she had taken that character, while the boys, Theodore and William,
were, with prophetic instinct, always soldiers. The last line evidently
refers to the great fires which had recently devastated San Francisco :
"San Frisco, March 30, 1853.
"My dear little Judge: — Your memory I'll nudge to
recall my existence afar. By chance I am hurled to this
end of the world, and have quit my much-loved Panama.
There I basked in the sun from the dawn to the dun, and
lolled in a hammock all day. Here I bustle about in the
noise and the rout, nor tranquil a moment can stay. There
the moon of the tropics shone soft on my optics, and I
gazed on its rays with delight. Here the romance is off,
and I sneeze and I cough, if I chance to be caught out at
night. There fruits were the go; — by the way, 'tisn't slow
to breakfast on plantain well fried. Here 'tis salmon in-
stead, — beef, pork, cabbage head; and horses ten dollars
the ride. Of the beautiful bay I can't enough say, but there
it was quiet and dead; while here ships and boats are as
thick as the motes that glance where the sunlight is spread.
Here I've seen but few dames, and don't know e'en their
names. They can't lisp 'amistad' and 'amor.' And I've
lost the soft eyes and the half -uttered sighs that touched
me so deeply before. There all things were strange, and
your glances might range o'er buildings a century old. Here,
236 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
sleep but an hour, and story and tower have sprung ere
their ashes were cold.
"Here I stopped.
"T. WINTHROP."
" San Francisco, April 14, 1853.
"My dear Mother: — My second impressions of San
Francisco correspond with the first in that I am agreeably
disappointed with the town and its surroundings. In re-
spect to mere position, the place has not much to boast of.
It began upon the sandy beach of a cove in the bay at the
foot of some sand-hills,and as the city progressed they cut
down the nearer parts of the hills and threw their sand into
the water extending the flat until the present waterfront
is nearly a half mile beyond the original. Many old vessels
that lay anchored in their own element are now built into
blocks of solid edifices. The sand-hills that remain partially
excavated above the town are barren. Only at this season
they are scantily covered with grass and a few stunted
bushes. Of these the only interesting one is the California
lilac so called (Ceanothus'l), hearing a pretty bluish flower,
delightfully fragrant ; sometimes a large tree, but when
dwarfed by insufficient nourishment or by the strong sea-
winds, a shrub hardly perceptible.
"These hills, destined soon to fall before the encroaching
city, overhang it, and give a bird's-eye view of its rectangular
plan and everywhere unfinished appearance. The general
tone is bricky and dusty, almost all the new buildings be-
ing substantial fireproof brick of one story. It may safely
be called the dirtiest place in the world. A single day will
transform it from a slough, navigable only in a pair of gaff-
topsail boots, to an ankle-deep dustpan; and when you con-
sider that besides the immense street traffic, there is hardly
a half block where they are not cutting, or filling, or build-
ing, or pulling down, you may imagine that the springy
plank pavements send up dust thick as a London fog. But
LIKE THE SHORES OF GREECE. 237
the same hills, though desolate enough in themselves, give
you not merely views over the dusty waste but beyond it,
across the quiet inland sea, to the smooth, treeless hills
that like carefully kept green pastures surround it. The
forms of these, though not bold or picturesque, are graceful
and lovely indeed; and in this atmosphere, clear but soft,
they assume a richness of hue that reminds me of the shores
of Greece. In this landscape there are no picturesque
effects, no spots or nooks of beauty; the grand character-
istic of the views is breadth, outline, panoramic effect.
Along the southern shore of the bay, the same soft, swell-
ing hills prevail, but the soil is richer, and now in spring
they are either beautifully green or thickly carpeted with
flowers, among which the golden glow of the Escholtzia
is conspicuous. They are entirely without enclosures,
and you can ride or walk where you will. Most of the
flowers are new, but I find very fine my old fancy, the
Bartsia,* large yellow pansies, and blue and white lupines.
They say that farther in the interior, where the real fer-
tility of the country begins, the flowers are richer and more
varied.
"I spent my second Sunday at Benicia. At the time of
the great fires in San Francisco, f some persons, frightened
by these, and thinking that the rapidity of the tide would
make so exposed an anchorage as San Francisco was before
wharves were built always dangerous, — afraid, too, of the
violence of the northwest winds which prevail, and thinking
that there was not room enough here for the town, — were
considering whether a more desirable locality might not be
found for the western metropolis. Some people interested in
real estate persuaded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company
to establish its depot at Benicia, bribing it by the present
of a large tule ground or peat bog. The site of the town is
desirable enough for an inland one, and if certain projected
*Castilleia, Indian paint-brush.
tin 1849, 1850 and 1851.
238 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
railroads should, sometime in the future, be built, it may
become important. Meantime, the Company has wasted
enormous sums in establishing its works there, thirty miles
from San Francisco.
"The steamboats that ply on the bay and rivers are as
complete in equipment as any of our own; they are fast and
explosive; thirty persons were scalded to death on the
Jenny Lind the other day. The sail up the bay just at even-
ing is very beautiful; everything is on a broader scale than
the bay of New York. The Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers issue first, as you will see on the map, into Suisun Bay,
and then through Carquinez Straits into San Francisco
Bay. Benicia lies just above the entrance of Suisun Bay
on the slope of low hills, — a straggling town without a
tree. The bend of the river here is very beautiful, and the
opposite bank, rising abruptly, and sprinkled with low trees,
looks like a park. In the background are the two fine sum-
mits of Monte Diablo, two thousand feet high, distant thirty
miles, but immediate in the clear air. The water of the
river is muddy, but looking down on it, and especially
where the sun falls vertically upon the broad spread of
Suisun Bay, it has a pink color, something like this blotting-
paper, entirely novel to me, and pretty. The same soft
hills covered with flowers rise above the town. With a
friend, I lay basking in the sun and enjoying the view and
thinking that this part, at least, of California was worthy
of the name. On one of the hills is the grave and monu-
ment of Miles Goodsell of New Haven, a borderer who died
here.
"April 16. — Last Sunday I had a fine long walk down the
bay and over the sand-hills. We walked about fifteen
miles, and collected enormous bunches of flowers. The
seaward views are noble, particularly from Fort Point,
one of the heads of the Golden Gate, where the United
States is building a lighthouse. Here you look near two
hundred feet down a precipice. There is a grand beach
THE GOLDEN GATE. 239
and ocean swell outside. Beyond, the outer heads make
the outworks of the bay. The conformation of some of these
sand-hills is singular. In some places they sweep away
inland, advancing like a cataract of water, smooth and
softly rounded to the top and then breaking precipi-
tously.
"The weather has been almost perfect since my arrival,
exactly the thing for outdoor exercise, and urging me to
terminate my tiresome confinement to the office and begin
my wanderings. You need not be surprised to see me home
towards autumn, if I should come across the plains or by
Mexico. I have not yet made many acquaintances, though
some enjoyable ones. Jonathan Edwards, who returns home
by this opportunity with his pile, has been very pleasant
and kind. Miss Susan Dolibar, now the wife of Mr. Thomp-
son, I have seen. Hall McAllister is an important character
here. The Chinamen form a very large and odd portion
of the population."
To his younger brother, William Woolsey Winthrop:
"Dear Billy: — I approve entirely of your plan of going
to Europe. You could not employ time and money better.
Perhaps I may offer you a contribution. You must improve
your French. I hope to see you before starting, and give
you the benefit of my experience. I wish I could be your
guide. Such a tour will do more to enlarge the mind and
quicken the perception than any other way of spending
thrice the tin."
War-club made of the Bone of a Whale. From Neah Bay.
THE NORTHWEST,
Winthrop's letters and journals describing his travels in Oregon
and Washington, while of course retelling many of the incidents of
"The Canoe and the Saddle," add much of interest that is not found
therein. They fill out the narrative of his entire summer in the North-
west, and vividly picture conditions on the frontier. We get frequent
glimpses of men who were prominent in the new Territories, as well
as of the local representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company, the huge
commercial organization by which Great Britain sought to hold this
vast region for the fur trapper and Indian trader, and which continued
here as a mercantile concern long after its political significance had
passed. Winthrop's visit was, of course, at a time when the question
of title had been settled, and when American ownership and occupation
of the land was no longer a matter of diplomatic negotiation or frontier
politics.
All of the men of note mentioned in "Canoe and Saddle," as well
as others, appear frequently in the letters and diaries. Most promi-
nent of these are the Hudson's Bay factors, Peter Skeen Ogden, Dr.
William F. Tolmie, and Edward Huggins, with many oflScers of the
United States army, on duty at Vancouver Barracks and old Fort
Dalles.
The Hudson's Bay Company required its servants at the several
trading posts to keep a daily record of events. To this excellent prac-
tice we owe much information of value to the student of northwestern
history, and incidentally some interesting side-lights on Winthrop's
book and letters. As long as the Company maintained its "Fort" on
the Nisqually, such journals were faithfully kept there, — much in the
fashion of a ship's log. Commonly the day's record begins with a state-
ment of the weather, and of the trade in the "sale shop." Then a note
is made of the employment of the different men of the post for the day, —
some at the Company's farms on the great gravel prairie south of the
Fort, or caring for the Company's cattle; others loading lumber for San
Francisco, or counting pelts brought in by the Company's French-
anelsH .1'
THE COLUMBIA AND MOUNT ST. HELENS.
FROM NEAR PORTLAND.
"Dearest charmer of all is St. Helens, queen of the Cas-
cades, queen of Northern America, a fair and graceful
volcanic cone. Exquisite mantling snows sweep along
her shoulders toward the bristling pines. Sometimes
she showers her realms with a boon of light ashes, to
notify them that her peace is repose, not stupor; and
sometimes lifts a beacon of tremulous flame by night
from her summit."
—Chapter III.
WHO LOOLOWCAN WAS. 241
Canadian trappers or bought from its Indian customers. Record is
made of the movements of Chief Factor Tolmie, and occasionally of
the arrival or departure of strangers from "the States," — "Americans,"
as the old entries say.
In one of these manuscript volumes, now turning yellow with age,
and inscribed: "Nisqually Journal, October 4th, 1852, to May 28th,
1854," several entries concern us directly. These not only record Win-
throp's visit to the Fort, but, what is more important, they establish
the identity of that fickle redskin, "Loolowcan the Frowzy." Here we
learn as a fact what has hitherto been largely a guess of the historians,
namely, that Winthrop's guide in his trip across the Cascade Range
was a personage well known to our Territorial history, — none other,
in fact, than the notorious Qualchen, Owhi's son, who later murdered
A. J. Bolon, the Indian agent, and thus touched off the waiting mine
for the great Indian war of 1855-7.
These entries in the "Nisqually Journal" are in the handwriting of
a clerk, but they contain notes and interlineations in that of Edward
Huggins, the Company's last factor at the Fort. It is evident that
Mr. Huggins made his annotations some years later than 1853, since
Winthrop, at the time of his visit, had published nothing, had not even
decided upon literature as a career, and could not then have been called
an "author," as the factor's note describes him. They were made,
undoubtedly, after the publication of "The Canoe and the Saddle."
Mr. Huggins, as his sons inform me, greatly admired this book, and at
different times owned several copies of it. One of these, which he anno-
tated, has most unfortunately been lost.
Three passages from the old "Journal" are given below. To distinguish
between the additions by Mr. Huggins and the clerk's general record,
the former are enclosed in brackets. It will also be noted that the
dates of the "Journal" differ by a day from those of Winthrop's letters.
This discrepancy, however, is explained by the fact that the Fort records
were often made the morning after the events recorded, and dated one
day late. Thus while Winthrop's letter of July 23 announces his arri-
val at the fort on that day, the "Journal" records it under date of July 24.
The pertinent entries in the "Journal" are as follows:
"Sunday, July 24, 1853. — Very warm. Captain Howard, accom-
panied by a Mr. Winthrop [Theodore, author] arrived from Vancouver.
Captain Howard states that he is about commencing to work the newly
discovered coal mine in Bellingham Bay. [Note : This is the Captain
Howard of the celebrated Forrest divorce-case fame, and it is rumored
that he is out here to be away when the case is again tried, he being
an important witness. This is all table talk, though, and very likely
there is no truth in the report.]"
242 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST,
"Tuesday, August 23rd. — Fine, Very warm, ♦ * ♦ Evening,
arrived from Victoria Mr. T. Winthrop, an American, who accom-
panied Dr. Tolmie. Dr. Tolmie will be here in two or three days."
"Wednesday, August 24th. — * * * Trade very brisk in sales
shop. Took upwards of $400.00, principally from Klickatats, a party
of whom with the Chief Howchai [Ouchi] have just arrived with a band
of horses. Mr. Winthrop [Theodore Winthrop] having obtained three
horses and an Indian Guide [Qualchen, son of OuchiJ from the Klick-
atats, left for the Dalles, by way of the Mountains [Naches Pass]."
With the quotation of these illuminating extracts from the "Nis-
qually Journal," we proceed with Winthrop's letters:
"Portland, Oregon Territory, April 29, 1853.
"Dear Mother: — I left San Francisco on Sunday, the
24th, in the Columbia. Outside the bay we met a stiff nor-
wester which made me seasick as usual, and put us back
nicely. The steamer followed the coast at a distance of
from three to ten miles. The shores are mostly bold and
harborless, deeply wooded with forests of pine; these begin
soon after leaving San Francisco, and continue north, cloth-
ing the Coast Range, and forming the inexhaustible wealth
of the country. Already the lumber trade is very important,
both from ports along the coast, principally Humboldt Bay,
and on the Columbia, where numberless sawmills are fast
opening little breathing-holes in the sunless forest. The
size of the redwood pines is almost fabulous. What do
you think of one 96 feet in circumference, one 35 feet in
diameter, and one 313 feet long? Here at Portland, more
than 120 miles from the sea, ships are freighted with spars
and timber for China. For ages Oregon will supply lumber
to the new world of the Pacific. These deep pine woods give
a gloomy look to the coast. The shores are bold and surf-
beaten. Some of the headlands are precipitous and
striking. We stopped in the night at Port Orford, — a
small military post and settlement.
"The bar at the mouth of the Columbia is dangerous.
Even crossing it, as we did, with the most favorable wind
and tide, the swell and roar of the breakers was grand.
Passing this you enter a spacious estuary, enclosed between
ASTORIA. 243
a low piny point to the south, and on the other side, a high
wooded bluff, terminating in a clear green spot, an old
battle-ground of the Indians. You look out upon a broad
expanse of water, surrounded by low mountains, black with
pines. In the distance, and more than a hundred miles
inland, the beautiful cone of Mt. St. Helens, one of the
noblest of snowy mountains, is a crown to the view. The
river at this point is very grand and solitary, worthy of
being the great stream of the Pacific Coast.
"Proceeding, you bend to the right, and find in a small
cove the few houses of Astoria. There is a little clearing
on the slope, giving just room enough for perhaps twenty-
five buildings. The situation is not fitted for a town, and
the anchorage and channel will hinder, if not prevent, its
becoming the site of a great place, such as must arise at
the mouth of the Columbia. Just above, a very pretty
and picturesque promontory called Tongue Point runs out
from the technical left bank of the river, commanding its
whole sweep. Five miles or so brings you to the real course
of the stream, from one to three miles in width. As it nar-
rows, some bold basaltic cliffs rise above, in three very
narrow terraces, with deep water at the base, and covered
with thick firs. The opposite banks are low, and deciduous
trees with fresh spring foliage make a beautiful contrast.
Two or three little threads of cascades fall down the cliff.
"The scenery all along is of a similar character, wild
and imposing as the lower course of a great river should be,
but solitary. The first stopping places are hardly more
than a sawmill and a house. Opposite the mouth of the
Cowlitz, a village called Rainier is growing up, to meet the
trade from Puget Sound (which I hope to visit). At this
point the splendid peak of St. Helens came out brilliantly
white against the sky; it is a rounded cone, of which you
see nothing but the snowy summit, one thu-d of the moun-
tain, above surrounding ranges. It is a volcano, and still
occasionally smokes from a black spot on the side. At the
244 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
town of St. Helens, the course of the river brings the peak
opposite and full in view, — a grand object for perpetual
admiration, — quite isolated. The clouds hid the other
peaks. Rainier and Hood.
"St. Helens, which has now about thirty houses, is at
the proper head of navigation for large ships, and is likely
to become the important point. The Company has built
a fine wharf, and is about to transfer its depot there. Here
the bank is a rock of basalt, perhaps twenty feet high,
affording an admirable locality for town and port. One
mouth of the Willamette comes in here. From this point
it became too dark to see. Vancouver is said to be a lovely
spot; I am going there to-day. Portland, up the Willamette,
the farthest point to which vessels of any size can go, strag-
gles along the bank of the river, a thriving place of 1,500
people, rescued from the forest."
"Portland, Oregon, April 29, 1853.
"Dear Sister: — It was natural for me to have gone to
California when on the Pacific Coast, but coming here, to a
country once so much more thought of than California,
and of late so little in comparison, has a different effect.
Oregon still seems distant from the old United States, — still
seems to be the far Northwest; and there is a feeling of grand-
eur connected with the mountains and forests and the great
continental river of this country that belongs to nothing in
the land of gold. The Columbia is most imposing in its
lower course, a great, broad, massive stream. Its scenery
has a breadth and a wild power every way worthy of it.
It will bear cultivation admirably; also and sometime — a
thousand years hence — the beauty of its highly finished
shores will be exquisite.
"There is a heartiness and rough sincerity impressed
upon people by the kind of life they lead in these new coun-
tries. An easy hospitality, given and received without
much ceremony, is a thing of course. Prices are so high
PORTLAND. 245
that the old ideas of economy are thrown aside. Money
is easily made and freely spent; a dollar is nothing. All
the men of the country are young, and almost all prosperous.
Here in Oregon, so far as I have seen, the style is quite
different from that of California. The population of Ore-
gon is not all of the most valuable kind. It consists largely
of the successors of the pioneers, who have not the energy
of a real farming population, and are half nomad still,
without the local attachment necessary to progress.
"The very bad land system of Oregon, framed to pre-
vent speculation, has prevented investment in land by set-
tlers who could not wait until a residence of four years
upon a spot gave them its o\\Tiership, or of two (under the
new law) the privilege of purchase. At present no one not
living upon a tract can possess it; there are no titles even
to house lots in the towns. As no one can buy, of course
no one will make large or permanent improvements. The
prosperous people are the cattle and produce farmers,
principally in the valley of the Willamette, where the bulk
of the population is collected. Everything they can raise
meets a ready market, either shipped down the Willamette
and Columbia or Umpqua for San Francisco, or carried
back into the northern mining district on pack-mules. These
mines are principally supplied from the upper Willamette
and Umpqua with fresh provisions, and now indeed all
provisions are more conveniently carried to them from this
district than up the Sacramento. It is the Paradise of farm-
ers. Lumbering also is lucrative, and store-keeping. Man-
ual labor of all kinds is highly paid. Oregon, however, is
essentially a new country, and has the wants of a new country.
In this it differs from California, which has taken a peculiar
tone from its colonization and the enormous San Francisco
commerce, making it like a finished old place. There must
always be a marked difference in their character and people.
"In a few minutes I shall turn in between the blankets
246 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
of my host, Mr. Malcolm Breck, who has a large country-
store and business here. Good night!
"April 80. — My plans are quite grand for a tour in
these regions till my money is all gone. On the steamer
coming here, I met a character, — a typical pioneer. Born in
Kentucky, educated as a surveyor, and passing his early
life on the frontier, he moved to this country fifteen years
ago with his family in the first emigration, took up a whole
DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN.
Famous Hudson's Bay Factor at Fort Vancouver, prior to Winthrop's
visit. "Father of Old Oregon."
claim, and now by the sudden colonization of the country
and rise in farm produce finds himself a rich man. He is
rough, ugly, and backwoodslike, but has the real love of
nature and freedom, with a tinge of romance."
"Vancouver, Washington Territory, May 1, 1853.
"My dear Mother:— I rode over here from Portland
yesterday. The distance is about eight miles by land, but
eighteen down the Willamette and up the Columbia. In
these eight miles there are three ferries — across the Wil-
lamette, across a slough of the Columbia, and then across
FORT VANCOUVER.
247
the main stream, here a mile broad. Vancouver, formerly
Fort Vancouver, is the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay
Company and of the United States army for Oregon and
Washington Territories. It is upon the right or north bank
of the Columbia, six miles above the Willamette. Having
long been settled here, the Company have cleared and cul-
tivated a large space of land, and given to the broad meadow
on the river bank the beautiful smoothness of an English
GEN. B. L. E. BONNEVILLE.
The explorer celebrated by Irving. Commandant of the U. S. Army
Post at Vancouver during Winthrop's visit.
lawn. There is a belt of fine trees along the river, and about
a quarter of a mile back the ground rises in a terrace, upon
which are the houses and barracks of the United States
troops. Below, upon the flat, just above the inundations
of the river, are the stockade and warehouses of the Company.
The stockade contains four or five very large block store-
houses, with the house of the Governor and several minor
buildings. When the Indians were numerous and danger-
ous, these stockades were necessary for protection, but now
248 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
the Indians have dwindled into insignificance. The beauti-
ful tract of the Company will probably soon be purchased
by the United States, or absorbed illegally by squatters.
The trade is still considerable, though more with the whites
than the Indians. The United States station includes a
number of neat log houses, forming three sides of an oblong,
and looking down to the river over the exquisite green lawn.
Back of all is the deep pine forest and two or three outljing
trees.
"I was fortified with a letter of introduction from General
Hitchcock* to the commanding officer, Col. Bonneville, f
who received me very kindly, and gave me quarters in his
house. I was soon at home with all the officers. I had also
a letter to Governor Ogden of the H. B. Co. He is of
New Jersey but a British subject, all his life in the service,
and looks like an old gray lion. I had intended to stop here,
and go up the Columbia only as far as the Cascades and the
Dalles, and then visit Puget Sound; but I found that Captain
Brent, with a small party, was going to Fort Hall and Salt
Lake, and to return thence to California, and I decided at
once to join him. The Hon. Mr. Fitzwilliam, a young Eng-
lishman of my own age, is also of the party, on his way
across the plains, and we shall travel as pleasantly as pos-
sible. Captain Brent goes on government service, and we
shall see some of the most interesting parts of the less vis-
ited Indian country. I have not yet decided whether to
go on with Fitzwilliam across the plains and report to you,
via St. Louis, or return to California. Most likely the latter.
We shall travel expedite, and be about thirty days from the
Dalles to Salt Lake City, where, if sufficient inducement
*Gen. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, an old family friend, and an army
officer of distinction.
t The celebrated "Captain Bonneville," whose western exploration
and adventures furnished Washington Irving with the materials for
one of his most famous books. The Captain Brent mentioned below
was Captain T. L. Brent, depot quartermaster at Fort Vancouver.
THE DALLES. 249
offers, I may turn Mormon. Once off, you may not hear
from me for a long time, but you need have no anxiety, as
we travel with perfect security. I expect to gain health
and strength enough to last the rest of my life. I should
come of course straight on home with Fitzwilliam but I
have left all my traps in California, and seen nothing of
that country — not even the mines. However, quien sabe
but I shall knock at your door about the end of July in a
flannel shirt and buckskin breeches?"
"Dalles of the Columbia, May 10, '53.
"My dear Mother: — We left Vancouver on Monday in
the little steamer Multnomah. At 4 p. m. we reached the
landing at the foot of the rapids, in the midst of the Cas-
cade Mountains. These mountains are of trap formation,
and present bold broken crags and precipitous fronts. The
scenery had already been grander and wilder than any river
I had seen, and upward to this place it became more and more
singular and striking. The mountains are from 1,500 to
5,000 feet high, and the great river forces its way through
them in a wild pine-clad gorge for sixty miles. We encamped
at the landing, and next day took the luggage of the party
up to the foot of the principal rapid in small boats, where
we portaged them by, on a rude tram road. The company
being large, — Captain Brent's party, with one hundred
days' provisions, and Capt. Wallen's* company of infantry
with baggage, ammunition, caissons, etc., — this process
occupied two entire days, till we got on board a flat boat.
"Our boat was navigated by two ignorami, and we
had to stop and cut a big steering oar in the woods. It
blew a gale — our flat came near being wrecked, which
would have been awkward with sixty men on board; and
we put into port about seven miles up, where we encamped.
Next morning, with scenery growing still wilder, we went
up stream, the strong wind helping our crazy craft to struggle.
*Captain Henry Davies Wallen, U. S. A.
250 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
About noon we put into port again, waiting for the wind to
fall, and I had time to climb a mountain and see the course of
the river. We got away in the afternoon, and camped
about twenty miles up, in a splendid place. The tents
and numerous camp-fires made the woods and the crags
most animated. Many pretty cascades came tumbling
into the river. On the third day we reached the Dalles,
and were most hospitably entertained at the Barracks, I
being quartered with Major Alvord,* the commandant, to
whom I had a letter from General Hitchcock. The cam-
paign thus far has been delightful, with a pleasant and lively
set of officers, and all the excitement of a small military
expedition. We find there need be no apprehension about
the Indians.
"The Cascades of the Columbia are rapids, not falls,
but very picturesque. Here at the Dalles, the river is drawn
into a narrow compass between walls of trap, about forty
feet high, and at the Dalles proper, is confined in a space
of eighty-five yards. This I will visit to-day."
"Portland, 0. T., June 13, '53.
"My dear Mother: — L'komme propose? Dieu dispose! 1
made my preparations to return across the plains, and
reached the Dalles, as I have written you, but went no far-
ther. There I had, very mildly, the small-pox, which I
probably caught from a friend whom I visited in Portland,
at the moment when the disease was most infectious. He,
poor fellow, had it terribly; but with me the fever was slight,
and the eruption has left almost no traces. The day I
wrote you I had a slight fever, so that I was hardly able
to keep my saddle in a ride to the Dalles, and on returning
I felt so ill as to lie down. I was quartered with Major
Alvord. On the disease pronouncing itself, he gave up
his room to me and camped out. From him and all the
other officers, as well as Doctor Summers, I received every
*Major Benjamin Alvord, U. S. A.
SHOOTING THE RAPIDS. 251
kindness, though of course they had to avoid me. The
disease has been virulent here, the Indians dying in crowds —
almost every one who was attacked. With me, except the
slight irritation caused by the eruption, the illness itself
was nothing; the chief discomfort was the idea of having a
dangerous malady and the fear of giving it to others. I
was of course disappointed in not being able to go with
Brent and Fitzwilliam. I was pronounced safe in about
three weeks, and am now in excellent health. It was use-
less to try to overtake my party ; so I determined to defer
the trip.
"The country about the Dalles is desolate and wild
in the extreme. Sad must be the disappointment of the
emigrants, who have heard of the beauty of the country,
on arriving there in the autumn, when every green thing is
parched, themselves wayworn, their wealth of cattle become
poverty, — half starved and almost hopeless. But the beauty
of Oregon is farther on, and if the rest of the Willamette and
the adjoining valleys correspond with what I have seen,
Oregon is certainly one of the loveliest places on the earth.
"While I was ill, the Columbia rose enormously, — its
regular June flood from the melting of the snows. This made
a difference of thirty feet in the water level below, in the
broad part of the stream. The country about Vancouver
and at the mouth of the Willamette is now a vast lake.
The narrow channels of the Dalles were filled almost to the
brim, and the rapids at the Cascades nearly obliterated,
showing only huge tossing breakers and a current of aston-
ishing velocity. Through this the Hudson's Bay Company's
boat, which brought us down, was shot, half-laden, by the
Indians, most beautifully. The Dalles proper (for the whole
of the narrow channel through the basalt, for four or five
miles, is also 'the Dalles') is a spot where the whole body
of the river is confined within three narrow rifts in the rock,
the widest only about sixty yards, and the others almost
jumpable. The difference of level between high and low
252 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
water is more than sixty feet. When the river is low it must
be even wilder and stranger. There is nothing beautiful
except the grandeur of the mighty rushing torrent mass.
These three channels are cut in a bed of rough trap rock,
which crops out all over the barren, bare country. It needs,
however, only moisture to make it fertile, and the little val-
leys of some small streams are rich.
"The barracks are a mile from the river, upon a hillside,
scantily wooded with pines and oaks, with a noble view of
Mt. Hood, always magnificent with its unsullied snows.
Just at the angle of the Columbia below, the rounded snowy
cone of Mt. Adams fills up the gap of the range. These
snowy summits are all isolated, not forming the beautiful
ranges of the Alps. They rise singly and apart, and it is
only at a certain elevation that you command more than one
or two at a view. As single peaks, all are very fine, but I
have not yet seen any picturesque high mountain scenery.
"I left the Dalles on June 4th, in one of the H. B.
Go's, boats carrying furs, collected during the winter at Fort
Colville by a fine specimen of a wild highlander, who has
charge of that post. He was followed by a fine 'tail' of half-
breeds and Indians, with one picturesque old white-headed Ca-
nadian, of whom I bought a noble pair of buckskin panta-
loons. The free life that these men lead in the wilderness
has great charms for me. Captain Wallen and I had a
pleasant trip down the river, floating almost fast enough,
but the Indians pulled like good fellows, rising up to their
oars. We stopped once or twice for them to 'muck-a-
muck,'* which they are ready for forty times a day. We got
to the Cascades about 1 p. m., and making the portage,
while the lightened boat shot the rapids, got away on the
lower river by 5 o'clock. The evening was lovely. At
nightfall the Indians all went to sleep in the bottom of the
boat, and we floated rapidly down stream all night, by star-
light, dozing in our blankets. At 4 a. m. we landed at Van-
*To eat, in Chinook jargon.
UP THE WILLAMETTE. 253
couver, where I was kindly received again by Gov. Ogden.
The flood had been very destructive to the crops; the whole
of the lovely meadow was a great lake. The officers of the
garrison are pleasant company, and the H. B. Co. live
in solid, comfortable style, with plenty of good beer. I en-
joyed my final convalescence. The Indians upon the Columbia
are a miserable race, living principally upon salmon and
roots. The fishery at the Cascades is fabulously productive,
and the Indian lodges for drying the richly colored fish
are real curiosities. The fish are caught in a scoop net,
which an Indian — standing on a framework, built over
the most rapid spots — sweeps down against the stream till
he catches his quantum. I have seen them take four or
five splendid fish in as many minutes. The whole world
lives upon salmon, till it is tired of it.
"I came back to Portland and found my friends as be-
fore. I met here William Moulthrop, formerly of New
Haven, whose father has a very fine ranch about twenty-
five miles from this place. He and his father both came out
to the coast in command of different vessels, and falling into
the Oregon trade have settled in the country."
"Scottsburg, Umpqua River, June 28, 1853.
"My letters come to you from places which you never
heard of perhaps, but of importance in this growing coun-
try. This is a town just cut out of the woods, and rough
enough in appearance, and almost inaccessible at times, but
a large business is done here. It is one of the principal points
of supply by mule trains for the North California and Ore-
gon mines, and for a large and beautiful farming country
on the upper Umpqua River.
"Leaving Portland, I followed up the Willamette val-
ley. The scenery is exquisite. Of the river I did not see
much, as it flows between banks thickly wooded with firs;
but the valley is composed of beautiful smooth prairies,
sprinkled with belts of heavy timber, or open groves of
254 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
oaks. This is the general character of the country, —
smooth grazing meadows, suitable for any kind of farming.
The plains are broken by constant water courses. On one
side the Coast Range closes the view, a rough and rather
desolate chain. On the other are the Cascade Mountains,
higher and more distant, and defined by the great snow
peaks, which rise almost isolated and at nearly regular in-
tervals. From many spots several of the peaks can be
seen far off upon the horizon. From one hill near Salem,
the present capital of the Territory, I could see Mts. St.
Helens, Adams, Hood, Jefferson, and the Three Sisters.
At this great distance, nearly two hundred miles, the smooth,
rounded cone of St. Helens is particularly beautiful, rising
as if at once from the plain, magnificently defined against
the sky in the blue distance. Looking at the peaks so
far off, they are perhaps even more imposing than a connected
range, and I have seen few more striking views than one
near Salem, where the eye could command all of them, with
a vast expanse of plain and forest, sprinkled with cultivated
spots and backed by the far blue mountains. It is the part
of the world to live in !
"Most of the valley being open, excellent roads are
made merely by driving wagons over the grass till a track
is worn. To a traveller on horseback, progress is easy.
The donation law, giving to every family settled before 1849
a section of land, and to every single man a half section,
has strung along cabins at a distance of a mile or so, with
their little spots of cultivation; but in general the wide plains
are open and grazed by herds of the finest cattle. The
stock of American cattle here is exceedingly good, the best
alone supporting the trip across and being improved by it,
as well as by the excellent pasture of the country. Though
the Willamette valley is not very \^ide, each small stream
that flows into it has its own little spot of smooth verdure in
the forest, with a supply of fine oak and fir timber for the
cabins, and a stream of water at the door. Labor is dear.
FARMERS RICH AND LAZY. 255
and the prices of farm products high. The old farmers of
Oregon found themselves suddenly rich on the discovery of
the gold, and became lazy, so that nothing has been done
to develop the country in proportion to its resources. Many
settlers are half-breeds and Canadians of the H. B. Co.
There is one extensive district called the French Prairie,
where you naturally ask for a glass of water in that
language. A few Indians remain, but they are lazy and good
for nothing, and the salmon fishing makes them com-
paratively rich. The Indians of the lower country are more
powerful and more dangerous.
"I bought a fine American mare, and riding from Port-
land to Oregon City one evening, started next morning up
the river. The short interval between the farm houses
makes it always possible to get something to eat, and if
there is a lady of the house, she is always captivated by talk-
ing of the trip across the plains, which almost all the Oregon
women have made. You turn your horse into the rich pas-
tures, and take a nooning under the trees, or a bath in some
living brook. In the forests, whether oak or fir, the fern
is usually breast deep. Everything grows in this country.
The weather has been delicious, and the heat bearable, ex-
cept at noon, the nights cool enough for blankets, — one of
the first things, by the way, to think of in Oregon.
"My first night brought me to Salem, a village of less
than a thousand people, on one of these exquisite plains.
The streets are wide, and the original oak trees have been
left about. Mt. Hood is everywhere in plain sight. There
were rumors of gold discoveries in the neighboring moun-
tains, but nothing authentic. My second day carried me
through a region of equal beauty to Marysville, the head of
high-water steam navigation on the Willamette, on another
fine plain, where the Coast Range comes nearer. When-
ever one has hit on a good site for a town, his next neighbor
starts a rival one, so that there are often two settlements
within a quarter of a mile in open warfare. If you buy a
256 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
lot in one, you lose the good opinion of everybody in the
other.
"I stopped the third night at a farmer's house, — a back-
woodsman enriched by the mines, and now not even taking
the trouble to milk his cows, except for the household. All
the farmers who have stuck by their business and been even
half industrious are now rich. Rough enough, too, are some
of them, Tike County' men, as they say, — real backwoods-
men who have fallen into pleasant places.*
"My fourth day I was to have arrived at the house of
Mr. Applegate at Youcalla, but having taken a nap and a
bath by the way, and crossed the Callapooya mountain,
the dividing ridge between the Willamette and Umpqua,
I only arrived in the valley of the latter just at nightfall,
and missed the house. Finding out my mistake at a house
several miles beyond, as it was already late, I found a nice
oak grove, turned out my horse to graze, made a splendid
fire in a hollow tree and a capital bed of my blankets and the
big leather saddle cover, ate two soda biscuits, and turned
in for the night. Next morning, I rode back to Youcalla,
to breakfast. Mr. Applegate was of the emigration of 1843,
and is a man of remarkable intelligence and energy. He
looks like a backwoodsman, but thinks like the most culti-
vated. He has nearly confirmed my partially formed in-
tention of settling in this country. His farm is a pretty
meadow, completely encompassed by hills covered with
grass, which serve as a range for the cattle that form his
wealth. The neighborhood of the mines makes every farm-
ing product valuable."
"Fort Vancouver, July 11.
"I cannot now take time to describe my day with Mr.
Applegate, my trip to Scottsburg, with sail down the
Umpqua to the mouth, my journey up the river again by
another route to Winchester, whence want of time pre-
See note on "Pikes," page 15.
HUDSON'S BAY HOSTS. 267
vented me from going to the mines. I returned another
way, down the left bank of the Willamette, through the
beautiful Yamhill country, diverged across the Tualatin
plains and the Skapoose Mountains, to the town of St.
Helens on the Columbia, and stopped by the way to ascend
the Chehalem Mountain, whence there is a noble panorama
of the plains and the snow peaks, worthy of the Alps. If
I had a home, a wife, and something to fix me to a local hab-
itation, I should most certainly establish myself here in
Oregon. But until I have some such tie I shall probably con-
tinue a rolling stone. I have now considerable experience
of the way to get on in this coimtry, and, if I could decide
to be stationary, could make a small fortune in six months.
I am now at the Hudson's Bay Company's place, where I am
always at home. The exploring expeditions to meet Major
Stevens* on the Northern Route are just starting. I should
have joined one of them if I had been upon the spot when
they were organized, but now do not think it best. I have
never felt better. I close in Portland, in splendid weather."
To his brother William:
"Vancouver, July 12th, 1853.
"My deaf Brother: — I wish you could see the great
'brick' of these parts. Governor Ogden of the H. B. Co.,
and other minor bricks of the same;' — certainly the nicest
set of men whom I have had the good fortune to know, free
* Major Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who had been appointed by President
Pierce as the first Governor of Washington Territory, and who was
coming west through the Dakotas and through Montana, at the head
of a large expedition, exploring a route for the "Northern Railway."
Stevens had won his major's rank by brilliant fighting at Chapultepec,
in the Mexican War. He resigned from the Army in March, 1853, to
accept the governorship, but returned to it, with the rank of Colonel,
in 1861. Distinguished service in the field characterized his Civil War
record until his death at the battle of Chantilly, September 1, 1862.
The subordinate expedition of Captain Geo. B. McClellan, acting
under General Stevens's orders to survey the Cascade Range for a
practicable pass for the Railway, left Vancouver late in July.
258 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
and hospitable, full of fun and good sense. This Oregon is
a noble country ! The summer climate is almost perfection,
and the winter, though rainy, not severe or disagreeable.
It offers a grand field for a man who is either a world in
himself, or who can have his own world about him. There
are very few enlightened or educated men here, so that one
might want society; yet any man who unites sense to educa-
tion can do anything he pleases. It would take but little
GEN. ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS.
First Governor of Washington Territory.
to induce me to give up the old country and live here, but
my unhappy, unsettled disposition is always in the way.
Look me up a charming young woman, who has no objec-
tion to a red beard, and can do anything, from preaching
to dancing the polka, from making a cocktail to running a
steam engine; marry her by proxy, and lock her up till
demand. Boston is said to be a good place, and so look
around for me there. If I return this summer, it will be
with the intention of coming out again with a plan formed
on my knowledge of the country and its capabilities.
OVERLAND TO OLYMPIA.
259
"Take care of Mother and the girls, and begin as soon as
you can to buy desirable bits of land in New Haven. I
rely much upon you for the duties which a man at home can
perform."
"Fort Nisqually, Puget Sound, July 23, 1853.
"Dear Mother: — I am still on the move, as you see.
Who knows where I shall stop? My last was from Van-
couver, We went down the Columbia that morning in a
PETER SKEEN OGDEN.
Noted Explorer and Hudson's Bay Factor at Fort Vancouver.
small steamer, which deposited us among blood-sucking
mosquitoes at Monticello, a village near the mouth of the
Cowlitz River. Captain Howard and I took possession of
the room of the H. B. Co.'s resident, and were glad to be
awakened at midnight by Lieutenant Trowbridge,* who
*William P. Trowbridge, of the United States Engineers ; afterwards
professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan and later pro-
fessor of engineering successively at Yale and Columbia.
260 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
was left by the steamer, and came down in a rowboat. He
goes up to make tidal observation on the Sound. Next day
we went up the Cowlitz, thirty miles in a canoe, with four In-
dians to paddle or pole. The stream flows through forests
thick as those of the tropics, and buzzing with mosquitoes;
the forests are rich, but almost gloomy in their solitude;
fir trees principally, some maples, alders, poplars, and other
water-loving trees. Very rapid current, and progress
something like two miles an hour.
"The Indian lodges of the better class are entirely above
ground, built of boards, and with a small oval hole to squeeze
through for a door in the gable end; dimensions, about 20
feet by 12 feet by 15 feet (to peak of roof). They are
sometimes fitted up with bunks like a ship; mats, baskets,
pots, pans, etc., according to the wealth of the owner.
Of a chief here you would perhaps say he is worth so many
blankets; they hardly go as high as horses in this quarter.
All understand the Chinook jargon, the most comical of all
languages, in which I am becoming expert. Their dress is a
shabby mixture of the aboriginal with the white.
"At the Cowlitz head of navigation, we spent a tedious
next day, waiting for horses until evening, when we rode out
to Jackson's prairies, eight miles. We passed the H. B.
Co.'s beautiful Cowlitz farms, rich with ripe grain.
Over the trees that belted the river, nearer than ever
rose graceful St. Helens, and now first clearly seen, the im-
mense bulk of Rainier, the most massive of all, — grand,
grand above the plain! Mr. Jackson is an old settler, and
has a splendid farm. All the scanty population is alive
with hopes and questions about the great Railroad and the
exploring parties. Every man is confident it must come
through his place. Plenty of blackberries, huckleberries,
and raspberries; last very fine. Indians dry many for food.
Next morning rode through a country of mixed prairies and
timber land, — grand forests of cedar trees; a yew tree like
the English; a gigantic tree laurel, evergreen. Indians
MOUND PRAIRIE. 261
smoke the aromatic leaves. Prairies are still rich and al-
ready claimed by scanty settlers; dry and dusty.
"Stop and noon at Ford's; thence, in the cool of the hot-
test of days, ride till midnight by moon, fifty-two miles to
Olympia. Fom* miles from Ford's are the 'Mound Prairies,'
spotted with small round mounds — at first just distinguish-
able, and becoming on other prairies as we go on fifty feet
in diameter, and ten to fifteen feet high, covering an im-
mense tract. The 'Mound Prairie' is marked by a mound
of another class, fifty feet or much more in height, almost
perfectly regular, like the Marietta mound, with some large
trees upon it. A Yankee has built a house on the apex, and
intends to make a nursery of trees on its fertile sides.
"About 11 p. m. the sound of a cascade announced our
arrival near Olympia, at the head of the Sound. We could
just see a pretty little fall, the mills, and the expanse of the
great inland sea. A few houses make Olympia a thriving
lumbering village, cleared from the woods, with stumps in
the main street. Plenty of 'Ostend' oysters and large,
queer clams.* Puget Sound terminates here in a point,
spreading below to a great lake with low banks, thick with
firs. Tide rises nearly twenty feet, water clear; but low
tide leaves a great mud flat below the place. Stopped there
*The native oysters of the Sound are small and not unlike in flavor
to those of the British Channel, which Winthrop has in mind. They
are greatly esteemed by epicures, but fashion has dictated the trans-
planting of seed of the larger eastern oysters from the Atlantic coast
beds. These ripen perfectly, but do not propagate, in the shallow bays
at the head of the Sound and on the coast.
The clams of Puget Sound have a wide reputation for their abund-
ance and excellence. The "large, queer clams" mentioned by Winthrop
are the "geoducks," which weigh several pounds, and are edible.
The Puget Sound clam was the subject of a celebrated bon mot by
the late Francis W. Cushman, of Tacoma, representative in Congress
and the wit of the lower house. Cushman was a Republican, and his
best speeches were in support of the tariff. "Our friends the enemy,"
he said in one of these, "are welcome, if they wish, to return to the lean
panic years of the Nineties; but as for me and my constituents, we want
no more hard times. We remember too well those sad years on Puget
Sound, where we had nothing to live upon but clams. When the tide
was out the table was spread. We dug clams, and ate clams, till our
stomachs rose and fell with the tide!"
262
CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST,
a day. Next morning Trowbridge and I, leaving Captain
Howard to bring up the traps, started in a noble clipper of
a canoe* for Steilacoom, the United States fort. Paddled
along against the tide. Indians took it easy; shot a duck
and a polecat; pulled up a gigantic purple starfish; made a
vocabulary of the Snooquamish language. Had a jolly
time. Splendid sheet of water, with islands and nooks of
bays. Mt. Rainier hung up in the air. Landed 9 p. m.;
walked two miles through the woods to the barracks;
Olympia in the Sixties.
waked officers; supper, and to bed. Barracks in a dry, bar-
ren plain; scanty trees. To-day walked over to Fort Nis-
qually — a Hudson's Bay Company farm and station.
Dr. Tolmie, in charge, going to Vancouver Island to-morrow,
invited me to go; probably shall, and perhaps join the other
party there.
♦What Winthrop means by "a noble clipper of a canoe" is made
plain by an existing manuscript, written by Edward Huggins, the Hud-
son's Bay factor, and entitled: "A Perilous Canoe Trip from Fort
Nisqually to Alki Point, in 1852." This document, indeed, describes
the very canoe in which Winthrop journeyed with Dr. Tolmie to Vic-
VICTORIA. 263
"These disjointed words have been by violent efforts
written in a small house where the thermometer is at 90°."
"Victoria, Vancouver Island, Aug. 15th.
"Dear Mother: — I can hardly represent to myself the
summer life at home, the dusty streets, quenched by an oc-
casional shower, to the joy of the party assembled in the
porch, just out of reach of the sprinkles; the delicious even-
ings, just cool enough to restore after the sultriness of the
glaring day, with open windows and music, or a moonlight
walk; the crush of Commencement; the after calm. To me
toria. It was a dug-out, large enough to carry three tons of cargo and
eight men, and stanch enough to ride out a severe March gale.
Mr. Huggins's narrative recalls the magnificent distances between
settlements, when the villagers of Alki (now part of Seattle) had to send
thirty miles for supplies. He relates that early in March, 1852, word
was brought to Nisqually that Messrs. Denny, Maynard, Bell, Terry,
and Lowe had established themselves at Alki Point, and were in need of
provisions. Dr. Tolmie agreed to sell them a hundred bushels of pota-
toes at a dollar per bushel.
"I was directed," says Mr. Huggins, "to convey these vegetables
in our large mail canoe, to their destination. The canoe had been obtained
from northern Indians, Haidas, I think, who lived on Queen Charlotte
and adjacent islands. It had been a war canoe. We used it to convey
passengers and mail between Nisqually and Victoria. Sometimes these
passages would occupy as long as eight days, since no attempt would be
made to cross the Straits during the blowing of a stiff wind. Mrs.
Huggins once made a trip in this canoe in 1853 with Theodore Winthrop,
the celebrated author and soldier."
The remainder of the manuscript is given to an account of this
adventurous trip down the Sound, in the face of a storm.
Supplementing Mr. Huggins's reminiscences, the following para-
graphs from Pioneer Days on Puget Sound, by Arthur A. Denny, founder
of Seattle, further indicate the importance of the canoe to the existence
of the first settlements:
"We obtained our mail from Olympia, the nearest postofiice, by a
canoe express, for which service we hired * * * to make weekly
trips between Seattle and Olympia. All were required to pay twenty-
five cents a letter, and nearly all subscribed something in addition to
support the express. * * *
"We travelled almost entirely by canoe, and never expected to make
the trip from Seattle to Olympia in less than two days. In the Winter,
I have frequently been three days, and camped on the beach at night.
In after years, I paid as high as ten dollars steamer fare to Olympia,
and when it got down to six dollars we thought it very reasonable.
It always cost me more than that amount by canoe, when travelling
alone with an Indian crew."
264 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
a year passed without a winter seems to have no right to
a summer, and I am hardly conscious of its having come and
gone. The weather here just now is like a New England
October, the days warm and cloudless, but the nights so
cool that two blankets do not come amiss, A heavy smoke
from the burning woods casts a haze over everything, as
in our Indian summer. The arm of the sea upon which
Victoria is looks beautiful in the sunny afternoon, with the
smoke just obscuring the rocky, too barren shores, and veil-
ing the white houses of the village.
"Since I last wrote, I have, besides cruising about the
island, taken a trip over to the American shore to the coal
mines on Bellingham Bay, — Captain Howard's coal mines.
I took a large clipper canoe, and five Indians with one
wife, provisions, etc., and started one fresh blowing morning,
when they thought it something of a risk to go. It looked
squally at first, but I soon got confidence in my vessel,
which went nobly over the heavy swells, just on the safe
side of danger, — the Indians highly excited as the seas
struck her. We crossed a somewhat dreaded traverse be-
tween this and a neighboring island, and then gently glided
along among the small islands of the archipelago. Every-
where the Indians were salmon fishing, sometimes with a
small flat net, extended between two large canoes, and some-
times singly, in great fleets of little canoes, trolling with the
line fastened to a paddle. My Indians were of the Nook
Lummi tribe, and were in good spirits, as they were going
to visit their friends.* Like all on this coast, they were a
careless, jolly, happy race, amusing themselves with jokes
and me with songs, some of which were pretty and original.
*Winthrop, who spent some days among this tribe at Bellingham
Bay and Fraser River, uses two forms for their tribal names: "Nooh
Lummi" and "Nook Lummi. The former, as Dr. C. M. Buchanan
informs me, "is the Lummi way for Lummi." But the Indians south of
the Lummis are of different linguistic stock, and when they attempted
to reproduce the 'Nooh-Lummi,' the strongly aspirated 'h-h' evolved
into an interference sound. Winthrop was correct in using both forms,
but he heard one among the Lummis and one among their neighbors."
ki^
i^^HKh^Mffi
BBH^HaMBIHi^^^^^^ft
HHHH^HlV^^I
W
o
J
•- 1
Q 2
z ^
FESTIVE SIWASH. 265
I tried to write down the notes of one, and on laying down
my paper, one of them, with a quizzical face, pretended to
be able to sing it, the rest roaring with laughter. We
sailed and paddled by turns, getting on pretty well, though
impulsively, for if one stopped to speak or light his pipe, all
stopped; and the canoe naturally followed their example.
"Toward evening we landed in a deep, quiet, solitary,
tarn-like cove, walled in by rocks and overhung by great
pine trees. As the canoe entered, thousands of ducks rose
from the water, and flew screaming about; but the door
was shut by the canoe; when we fired, the whole place was
alive with echoes. As we landed, a young Indian stepped
on the cover of a box to jump ashore, and spHt it; whereupon
the owner of the box and he became 'silex,' or in the sulks;
the former wrapped himself up in his blanket toga, as the
dying Caesar might have done, and lying down in the bot-
tom of the boat, refused to be comforted; neither of them
would eat anything, like a pair of pouting children. After
a while they relaxed, and were very glad to get some prog
the others had put away for them. It was a capital evening,
and my kibobs of fresh mutton relished amazingly. Then
in the dim evening and by the starlight we floated on, some
paddling and some sleeping; and made the destined shore
about midnight. Next morning I found that by some mis-
understanding we had come to the wrong part of the Bay, —
rather, were not in the Bay at all. Our course then was in-
land, up a good-sized river, thickly shrouded with almost
tropical vegetation. Presently we came to an Indian
salmon weir, a high framework of poles reaching across the
stream, and serving also as a light foot-bridge. At inter-
vals, wicker-work shields are suspended in the water, and
just against them, baskets, like a lobster pot; the salmon,
rushing up stream, is met by the shield, and turning, falls
into the pot. This fishery belonged to one of my men, and
as we came, an Indian was just taking a noble salmon out;
we accepted the invitation to breakfast, and such a kettle
266 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
of fish! of which a mighty portion was first served out to
me, sitting in state on a mat-covered dais, in a hut neither
clean nor well ventilated. Hurrah for savage life!
"P. S. — I close this August 22nd, at Nisqually, returned
from below, and regretting that I cannot catch the mail with
a complete letter."
A bill for Winthrop's purchases from the Hudson's Bay Company at
Fort Nisqually,— blankets for the Duke of York, Olyman Siwash,
and the Fishy, and supplies for his Cascade trip:
6 Pin Blankets 2M pts. BMB $18.00
Yi yd. Appleton Sheeting 10
6 Tongues 1 . 50
Rope 50
1 Pack Saddle 5.00
2 Loaves Bread 1 . 00
Paid Indian 1 . 00
Expenses of sending for Indian (guide) 3 . 00
Fort Nisqually, Aug. 23rd, 1853. $30.10
Rec'd payment
Edward Huggins
^ yd bag & cord $1 . 00
Flannel shirt 2 . 00
Cotton do 1 . 00
Thread 12
Socks 75
"Dalles, Aug. 31, 1853.
"My dear Mother: — I arrived here to-day across the
mountains from Nisqually, after an adventurous and rather
arduous journey of seven days, in the course of which I was
pretty much thrown on my own resources, my Indian guide
having left me to shift for myself in the middle of a great
prairie. I have no time to give a full account. I start
to-morrow for the Salt Lake, with the mail carrier, and shall
leave there October 1st for home, likewise with the mail.
Write me to St. Louis, so that I will have news on my ar-
rival. No false start this time I hope !
"I am in much haste to make my preparations for the
morrow. Captain Brent has just returned, and gives me
an excellent account of his trip."
III.
WINTHROP'S NORTHWESTERN JOURNAL.
Two memorandum books survive, partly filled with notes which
Theodore Winthrop made during his stay in Oregon and Washington.
The first begins with some notes regarding the mouth of the Columbia
River, and substantially repeating the letter to his mother of April
29. The rest of the matter in this book is comprised of a detailed ac-
count of his trip from Fort Vancouver to The Dalles, where he was
stricken with smallpox. This account follows:
"Fort Vancouver, May 9. — Left the Bank at 10:45 a. m.
in the Multnomah. Fitzwilham remained behind for
the Allan. For a couple of hours the banks continue low
and wooded, as about Vancouver. We pass some wooded
islands, come into a lake-like expanse of the river, above
which the mountains close up the view. Mt. Hood becomes
more distinct, though the lower part of it is shut off more by
the hills. The southern snow slope is much smoother than the
north, — broken only once by a crest of rock; the northern
slope is much varied. The day is splendid; the wind up
stream; and steamer making six or seven miles an hour.
The hills gradually draw up and hide the summit of Mt.
Hood, and presently descend steep into the river with no
valley. Little Cape Horn is a remarkable precipice of
basalt, sheer for one hundred and fifty feet, then with a
slope, and up three hundred more; the basaltic structure
strongly marked, especially at the water. Cascades on
both sides the river. The mountains close the end of the
river finely, but are bare except of fire-killed stalks of fir.
Canoes float down the long bows like clipper ships. A
268 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
beautiful cascade falls two hundred and fifty feet down a
wall of rock into a wild chasm with pines.
"The mountains now leave the right bank a little; on the
left they continue wild and sterile. Many cascades. All
trap, precipitous above, debris below. On the right bank,
a remarkable truncated cone sprinkled with trap called
Castle Rock. Here the sweep of the river is very fine.
Castle Rock has a strongly marked crystalization. On
the up side is a remarkable face with Roman nose.
"At the Cascades. — The salmon fishery has fairly be-
gun, and thousands of fish are hanging up to dry on all the
Indian huts. Boys, men, and women carry four or five on
their backs; an Indian horseman has two big ones slung by
the head behind the saddle, with tails tied together.
"About 4 p. m. we arrived at the lower landing, and soon
the stuff was out of the steamer and the tents pitched.
We stopped aboard the boat and had a jolly time. The spot
was a lovely one, a meadow where the bold and picturesque
trap cliffs on that side of the river retire; opposite, high,
bold mountains, one nearly 3,000 feet. At evening, the
advancing and retreating outlines of the mountains on the
left, coming almost precipitously down, were very striking.
Castle Rock stands up in the center of the valley like a feudal
tower, which it would have been the site of, on the Rhine or
Danube. The trap cliff above shows a fine pyramidal
structure with the front fallen off,* as does one above, from
the front of which projects another small pyramid. The
river rushing and roaring by, the lofty mountain, the dark
pine, the bare sticks, the soft meadow, the cottonwood trees
and shrubs, even the factory house behind the log house,
*The upper cliflf referred to here is doubtless what is now known as
the North Abutment of the "Bridge of the Gods." The range here
cut by the Columbia ends abruptly in Table Mountain, rising 4,100
feet above sea level. This is fabled in Indian legend as part of the great
natural bridge which the natives believe once spanned the river, and the
destruction of which by the angry Tyhee Saghalie, chief of the gods,
dammed the stream at the Cascades.
A PORTAGE RAILWAY. 269
the tents and soldiers, and the splendid sky and sunset,
made a glorious scene. Just at this spot the river is narrowed
to perhaps half a mile, and is not unlike some parts of the
Susquehannah and Danube. The bank is grassy, and at
this stage of water about fifteen feet high. Below, the
shore is a beach covered with stone. Here was an Indian
lodge and a couple of their beautiful canoes with the pro-
jecting bow and shells inserted; sticks stretched across.
The captain of the Multnomah, being a trump, gave us first-
rate fare; and I got a piece of beef and soft bread, which
served us nicely.
"May 10. — Early in the morning I walked over with
Captain Brent to Mr. Chenoweth's, about two miles along
the bank of the river.* He made better arrangements
about the transport of the stuff of the troops, and I went on
with him to an Indian village beyond to get men. He has
a nice house and site, with a delicious spring of water
under the bank a short distance off. Here the river foams
round large rocks. The road thus far is good enough, but
beyond there are steep and bad places, but nothing impassable.
Back in one very retired and thickly wooded spot, where there
are forest trees besides pine; a sort of cemetery with a struc-
ture of boards is rude but interesting as a relic; a crudely
carved idol upon one side. At the terminus of the board
railway there are some picturesque crags of broken trap.
*Francis A. Chenoweth, who in 1850 settled with several friends
on the north bank of the Columbia at the lower Cascades. Cheno-
weth was a man of parts and worth. He was speaker of the first legis-
lature of Washington Territory, and later one of the territorial justices.
In 1851, he and his associates built the first portage tramway at the
Cascades, a frail affair consisting of wooden rails laid on planks, with
an equipment of rolling stock totalling one small car and two mules.
This primitive railway is remembered by many persons still living,
whom it assisted to reach their future homes. Among these is Mr.
Clarence B. Bagley, of Seattle, who came west with his parents in 1852.
Mr. Bagley tells me that after their lares and penates had been carried
over the four-mile tramway, the family travelled on down the river
with Chenoweth in a scow which he operated for the conveyance of
new settlers, who were then pouring into the lower Columbia Valley
in great numbers.
270 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
The rail goes through thick woods to an open spot on a hill,
where are the lodges of an Indian village filled with salmon,
fresh and dry, decorating them with red tapestry. Indians
lie about, hardly alive, their long black hair daubed in grease.
"Returning, I went back to the landing; and about 2 p. m.,
after a dispute with Sandy, who refused the boat to Mr.
Chenoweth's Indians, we got them off in two boats. They
shot the first rapid finely and we marched along. At
Chenoweth's, I turned off to find a duck pond. After wan-
dering a little in the pines, I came to the big black swampy
pool; saw a few ducks, and fired once, but out of range.
The chain of trap crags with broken precipitous fronts here
on the right bank is grand. Our heavy boats had a hard
tug up, but arrived at the railroad about 6: 30, and we spent
the night in Mr. Jones's house, a wild spot among the rocks.
Salmon were plenty, and after supper we turned in on the
floor. On account of the gorge of the mountain, the winds
draw through uniformly up or down stream. There are
about one hundred and fifty of the Cascade Indians. Slavery
exists among them in an easy form.
"Wednesday May 11. — The transportation of anything
is difficult here, but particularly of so much stuff as we were
obliged to have. They commenced about nine o'clock on
the railroad, and made five trips, a distance of one and one
quarter miles. The railroad is a convenient but simple
affair, a roadway of two boards with a square rail on each
side. There was only one small car dragged by two mules
and held back by one man.* We sent likewise two loads
with ten oxen over the highway, which is bad. Just at this
spot, you command a fine sweep down the river and the
*While we are with Winthrop at the Cascades, it is interesting to
recall that out of the feeble tramway and Chenoweth's scow grew the
great transportation system of the Columbia. Chenoweth and his
friends, after the Indian wars in the Fifties, purchased two small steam-
boats. On the south side of the river, a rival company built a second
tramway, also operating a steamer in connection with it. Competi-
tion continued until, in 1859, J. C. Ainsworth, then a steamboat cap-
tain, consolidated the two concerns into the Union Transportation
CAPTAIN SOM-KIN.
Chief of Indian Police, Umatilla Reservation.
TRANSPORTATION ON THE COLUMBIA. 271
rapid current. Mr. Jones's house is among the rocks and
pines, rough and romantic. He came from Indiana last
year. His wife does not like being so far away, but finds
it healthy. We all walked over to the houses above the
portage. Just at the swiftest part of the principal rapid
the Indians were fishing on a rude platform or staging,
such as I had seen below. One man stands out on a board
across the swiftest part they can reach, just below a plunge,
and with a dip net attached to a long pole thrusts it down
as deep as he can, beginning up stream and pushing down.
In the course of fifteen minutes we saw five large salmon
caught, killed by a couple of hard raps over the noddle while
they were entangled in the net, and taken ashore by sluggish
fellows in waiting. The largest thus far may weigh fifty
pounds. It is a simple but sure way of taking them. They
save all possible parts and the huts were filled with dried,
and drying ones, richly colored. Perhaps this exclusive fish
diet is one thing that causes the race to dwindle. This vil-
Company, which was soon enlarged under the name Oregon Steam
Navigation Company, to embrace all the steamboat interests from
Celilo to Astoria, with property in boats and docks appraised at $172,500.
No assessment was ever levied on the stockholders of this well-organized
monoply, who within a few years divided more than $2,500,000 in pro-
fits,' after expending a still larger sum from the proceeds in developing
their property.
From this promising beginning, thanks to gold discoveries in Idaho
and the rush of miners, cowboys and adventurers to the "Inland Empire,"
grew some celebrated western fortunes. Absorbing the tramways, the
company built two portage railroads, one around the Cascades on the
north bank of the Columbia, the other from The Dalles eastward around
Celilo Falls; and in spite of some competition, reaped vast returns during
the great era of steamboating. The river was alive with steamers, which
seldom carried fewer than two hundred passengers, while receipts from
passengers and freight often ran to fifteen or eighteen thousand dollars
for a single trip between Celilo and the head of navigation on the Snake.
From Portland to Lewiston the fare was $60, meals and berths extra.
The journey was made in three steamers and over the two railways,
and occupied three or four days.
The Oregon Navigation Company was bought in 1879 by Henry
Villard and his associates for $5,000,000. The Oregon Railroad and
Navigation Company, organized by them, built a railway along the
south bank, abandoning the famous portage road on the north side,
the route of which is now traversed by the Spokane, Portland and Seat-
tle Railway. See Lyman: The Columbia River, 2S1S.
272
CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
lage was in a charming spot, with a little pond back of it;
there were six or eight houses. Just as we were taking sup-
per in the large upper room of the store Fitzwilliam arrived.
"Saturday, May 14. — We left camp at 5:45. Showery
and blowing fresh. Arrived at the Dalles, 9 p. m.
Middle Blockhouse at the Cascades of the Columbia.
Built by Captain Henry C. Hodges in 1855.
Here the entries in the first memorandum book cease, owing to the
writer's illness; and we have nothing further in the way of a diary until
August, when Winthrop resumes his notes in a small buckskin-covered
book, which he seems to have carried with him throughout the remainder
of his stay in the West. Save for a break of eight days at Salt Lake, the
notes in this volume are continuous till after he had passed the Rocky
Mountains, on his way home. These notes were hastily written with
a pencil, in a minute hand, and are now occasionally undecipherable.
Often they are fragmentary, — mere scraps of information picked up
from whites or Indians, bits of native lore, words from the different
Indian languages, facts about the development of the country, prices
of town lots in the new paper cities, and fragments of Chinook jargon.
THE CHINOOK JARGON. 273
Here we meet Hamitchou, the Nisqually medicine-man, and from
him get an outline of the Hiaqua Myth, told at length in Chapter Seven
of "The Canoe and The Saddle." Much other matter illuminating and
supplementing the book is set down. The notes made on his homeward
trip, between The Dalles and Salt Lake, vividly picture a portion of
what was then called "the Great American Desert," but now, with
railways and irrigation, is fast becoming rich and populous. Daily
he meets caravans of immigrants, some of which are to traverse his
recent route over the Naches Pass.
"Victoria, Vancouver Island, August 4, 1853: — A good
motto from Martial: Hominem pagina nostra sapit, — 'our
page has a flavor of mankind.'
"Town lots of 66x132 feet sell at $50, and in undesirable
location larger at same price. Seventy-seven town lots
registered.
"Indians of the North — divide. Little difference be-
tween children of nature and slaves of civilization. Ham-
itchou told me he was hyas tyee of our crew, 'Mastou' and
'Unstou' or 'Hahal' (the handsome).* Hahal thinks that
good men when they die go nobody knows where, and are
happy; but the bad, disembodied, are forced to haunt their
old abodes, and with the same appetites as during life.
They prowl about camps, while others are asleep, stealing
the fragrance of food. Each of these Indians has his daimon,
guardian spirit, called 'tamanoiis' — one or more different
animals, or objects in nature, trees, etc. A-Wy said salmon
was his tamanoiis because it made him sick one evening.
"Chinook jargon contains many words of the Nootka Sound
Indians, and probably existed before the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. Vancouver found it already spoken. Wives are
worth all along ten blankets, and then friends steal and re-
sell the blankets. The old fellow's wife has gone off; now
he wants his blankets back.f
*" 'Halhal' is probably the plural form of the Indian word for good,
— meaning 'good-good,' or very good (either in looks or otherwise)."
— Dr. C. M. Buchanan.
tEast of the Cascades, the Indians were horsemen, and their wealth
consisted chiefly of horses. But on the Sound, where horses were few,
274 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
"Dr. Tolmie told the Indians at Squally that I wanted
to go up Mt. Rainier to see Tamanous (as Moses and other
seers did). There was a peculiar kind of shell money which
they say (Cook or) Vancouver brought to the country. A
wise old man, who killed many elk, made a sort of pick of
their horns and went to the top of a high mountain to find
some of this money, which Tamanous gave him to under-
stand was there. He arrived at the top and found a great
lake with much otter, but giving no thought to these he set
himself to digging this wampum or hiaqua. He dug twenty
strings of it and started down the mountain, a rich man.
(But riches take to themselves wings, etc.) On his way
down, he was overtaken by a violent snow-storm, and was
in danger of death. To propitiate the tamanous, angry, he
threw away one string after the other (the Indian described
this with action), but the storm did not abate until he had
cast away the very last. He then returned sadder and
wiser, sure that the tamanoiis of the mountain did not wish
his hoards to be taken. Work up artistically.* The su-
perior civilization and rum of the whites makes these mild
savages their satellites. Mt. Rainier and some of the other
snow peaks are called Tacoma' by the Indians, f A large
body of water, as the Sound, is called 'Whulge'; its inhabi-
tants, Whulgeamish. Our crew names: 1. 'Unstou' or
'Hahal'; 2. 'Mastou,' or La Hache; 3. Khaadza; 4. Sna-
whay-lal; 5. A-A-whun, short A-wy; 6. Ai-tu-so, a Haida;
7. Nackatzout, a Luckibo or wolf, Haida; 8. Paicks. Women:
the poorer siwashes counted their wealth by blankets. In each district,
the price of wives was figured in the common medium of exchange. See
pp. 205 and 260.
*It is thus apparent that Winthrop was planning a book about
the West, when he wrote down this outline of the Hiaqua Myth, which
he later "worked up artistically" in Chapter VII. of "Canoe and Saddle."
fSnowden's inference that Winthrop learned the Indian name for
the mountain from his guide, Loolowcan, is evidently incorrect, as it
here appears that he had heard the word in use among the Indians on
the Sound, before he met the frowzy son of Owhi.
SIWASH NAMES. 275
1. Tlai-whal; 2. Smoikit-um-whal (Smoikit meaning chief);
Sudzilaimoot, term of reproach.
"Dual: Nitika, we two; Mitika, you two, Cascade
language. Chillewhaletin is a chief's name; Skai-ki, the
blue jay; Entoia, my love or true friend, Haida. Chill-
hailam, a dangerous savage chief. We camped on Whid-
bey's Island at Sch-itl-sch-itl or Burnt Elder Leaves. Kin-
slai, how d'ye do? Haida. Wow-we-allah, name of chief.
Kut-kidd-mantz, Haida. Nikitz, not. Nikitz-aam, not
good. Naas, long. Soolila, Cowalitsh for push on, make
haste. Haida, general name for all the northern tribes.
"Tribes on the west side of the Sound: 1. Stichasamish
(at Olympia); 2. Lehawamish; 3. Laughsnamish ; 4. S'hotle-
mamish; 5, S'homamish.
"East side (Whulgeamish): 1. Squallyamish ; 2. Puyal-
lopamish; 3. Pachnawamish (or vulg. Dinsamish); 4. Sin-
ahomish; 5. S'kywamish; 6. Snoquallymeuwh; 7. Skagit
(Whidbey); 8. Kikkyaloose; 9. Swlaguamish; 10. Nuatel-
amish; 11. Nooh-Lummie.*
"The Indians troll for salmon, fastening the line to the
paddle. Near the point where we stopped, or Kowitchin
village, Doctor vaccinated and got Kamas from Hahal's
mother. We saw a regatta-like assemblage of canoes troll-
ing for salmon,
"Dr. Toimie's first legend. — Once upon a time there were
five brothers, whose father was dead; four being fine grown
men, the fifth younger. In some way they had excited the
displeasure of a sorcerer, who determined upon revenge.
Knowing that they were going seal fishing, he made a seal
of cedar wood, enchanted it, and placed it upon a rock near
where they would fish. The first brother threw his spear
*Dr. Buchanan has furnished me with the following, as being the now
generally accepted forms for some of the tribal names at which Winthrop
had to guess — phonetically: "4. Snohomish; 5. Skaywhahmpsh,
or Skykomish; 6. Snoqualmie; 8. Kikiallis, at head of Camano Island,
near Utsaladdy; 9. Stillaguamish; 10. Nook-whah-chah-mish, or up-
per Skagit (river).
276 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
into the seal without effect, the seal only diving and coming
up. The second, third and fourth did the same. They at
once saw that something was wrong, and on the seal run-
ning off with all their spears in it, they urged their younger
brother to return home and take care of their mother,
since, following this strange destiny, they might never see
home again. The seal swam far, far away, towing the frail
and leaky canoe. Waves and sea, monsters, terrible birds,
storms, etc. At last, near a wild, unknown shore, the seal
SEATTLE IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES.
Founded in the year of Winthrop's visit to the Sound, Seattle is not mentioned
by him. A little later Gov. Stevens suggested it as the ter-
minus of the Paciflc Railway.
disengaged itself, and hurrying away unhurt was lost to
view. The brothers landed and dismally waited in terror
for what the future might bring forth. Presently they saw
a canoe approaching, with a little, old, dwarfish, deformed
man in it, who had only one eye. As he came near the
shore, he stopped his canoe and began diving. Each time
he dived he brought up an enormous salmon. The hungry
brothers, seeing so much good provender near, were anxious
for a share; and while the old fellow was diving, they watched
the chance and stole a fine salmon, which they began cook-
SIWASH BOATMEN OF WHULGE.
"No clipper that ever creaked and rumbled heavily
along the ways, and rushed as if to drown itself in its
new element, staggering under the intoxicating influence
of a champagne bottle cracked on the rudder-post by
a blushing priestess, — no such grand result of modern
skill ever surpassed in mere model the canoe I had just
chartered for my voyage to Squally. Here was a type
of speed and grace to which the most untrammelled
civilization has reverted, after cycles of junk, galleon
and galliot building."
—Chapter 11.
INDIAN LEGENDS. 277
ing. As soon as the old chap perceived his loss, which he
did at once, he lifted his forefinger to the horizon, and, be-
ginning at the east, traced around until he came where the
robbers were cooking this plunder. He then went to them
and forced them by the same magic under whose dominion
they still were to follow him to his village of similar dwarfs,
where they were kept prisoners. A war soon arose between
the birds and the dwarfs, and the birds darted their feathers
at the dwarfs. After a bloody contest, the dwarfs were
victorious but were unable to draw out the feathers from
their wounds. The brothers performed for them this
service, and in return a whale was despatched to carry them
home. He went wallowing and dashing along, and they
were rather astonished at this novel way of travelling. The
power of the inimical sorcerer, however, was still against
them; and soon the whale, under his influence, sank and left
them in the water. Each brother was turned into a gram-
pus, an animal which has ever since helped the Indians in
their seal fishing, and is sacred among them.
"An Indian version of St. George and the Dragon. —
There was a terrible monster breathing fire and flame which
ravaged the whole country. He had his abode in pathless
wilderness. A mighty tamanous man determined to sacri-
fice himself for his country. He marched to meet the dragon,
provided with a bow and plenty of arrows. As he approached
the lair of the beast, he planted these arrows at convenient
distances apart in the ground; then, marching up, he dis-
charged the first with no effect. The monster pursued him
and received flying shots from each one of the arrows at
its station. But the monster's hard hide resisted any such
blows, and our medicine-man, using his tamanous power,
was compelled to turn himself into a little fish, which the
pursuing dragon at once swallowed. Our friend, not liking
these close quarters, resumed his own shape and cut his
way through, thus relieving the country of his adversary.
The dragon's skin, when cut off, covered four prairies.
278 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
"Story of Mars and his Indian wife. — Once upon a
time, Mars thought he would take unto himself a wife
from among the children of men. Watching a time when
the women were picking berries and had lain down to sleep,
he stole the fair Tlaiwhal (or Plaiwhal). (Describe her and
the despair of her lover.) She was surprised to find her-
self in another planet, and disposed to resist her celestial
lover, who was, however, very much like men on earth,
as was his abode like unto the earth. She waited awhile,
and at last a child was born to her. One day Mars, being
away, she searched about and found a trap door in the bot-
tom, and saw her native village. It was far, far away.
But there are no obstacles to the bold; so she made a roi)e
of hazel-bush withes, and fastening it securely, let herself
and her child down. Mars besought her to return, but, be-
ing unable to persuade her, he tore his hair, and there was a
shower of shooting stars. He then determined to get the
child, if not the mother; and called in the blue-jay, or Skai-
ki, as his ally. The child was in his cradle under the charge
of his grandmother, a garrulous old dame; and the blue-jay,
engaging her in conversation, took his chance and whipped
out the boy, substituting for him a bit of rotten wood ('an
image made of punk')- He then flew away with him to his
father. In time, the boy became the Sun.
"A chief among the upper-country Indians was very
generous and gave away blankets and other presents to the
people. Whenever his supply ran out, he made a feast,
at which a particular dish figured. Any one who dipped his
hand into this dish, was forced to pay him a blanket.
"Start for Nooh Lummi, Sunday, Aug. (14?), at 10
a. m. Victoria Indians call the Olympian Mountains
'S'ngazanelf .' When I first saw Mr. Todd's place, with a
glowing wheat field extending like a golden lawn down to the
water, it gave a favorable first impression of the country.
"Talk of a gondola! It can bear no comparison either in
form or motion with the canoe. Approach of Nooh Lummi
KULSHAN. 279
canoe, with fine looking man, wife and child. Our Indians,
coming from Squally, tried to propitiate the wind by odd
lures, pretending to give bits of meat, etc., and by backing
water with paddles. North of Bellenna, we passed between
point of Ninganit. After the rough crossing, rough it was,
we fall upon a wild bold shore against which a grand roaring
surf was beating. Purple rocks, pines rather poor, fire had
swept the underwood — large arbutuses (madronas?). In
a heavy surf Indians fishing for salmon. Passing through
the strait, we open upon a bay sprinkled with small islands,
and surrounded by good hills. Indian name of Mt. Baker
is 'Kulshan.'* In the distance are the fine, misty mountains
of Vancouver Island. Some of the small islands have the
pines brushed up from their bare foreheads on the side to-
ward the wind. We land, and get water in a beautiful
spot. The noblest of arborvitae cedars cast a deep, druidical
shade over the little spring. Thick reeds and bushes. The
Lummi songs are very fine. We put into a beautiful
parallelogram of a rocky cove, with a spring near the water;
rotten rocks, trees upon thick vegetation. We sail just at
dark, leaving our fire gleaming over the bay. The birds
have been driven away by our shots. The sea heaves
gently up to the dark twilight. Some sleep, some paddle;
occasionally the sail is hoisted. A few stars are seen through
the clouds. At 11:30 we come to the flat at the mouth of
the river, and disembark on a swampy bit, where two men
have a log house and a fishing place. They answer our
shots.
"Daylight, Monday, Aug. (15?), we start up the whitish-
muddy river, which overflows its banks. Almost tropical
vegetation borders the stream; above some fine timber.
*" 'Kulshan' is a Lummi word indicating that the summit of the
peak has been damaged, or blown off by an explosion ('just as if shot
at the end,' as one Indian explained it). This word is used of other
things damaged or supposed to be damaged in a similar manner, and it is
not limited at all in its use to Mt. Baker. The term does not mean
'The Great White Watcher,' or 'The Shining One,' as commonly inter-
preted." — Dr. C. M. Buchanan.
280 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
Salmon frame, twenty nets across the stream. A double
basket, one turns the fish back, the other catches him.
Lodge padrone gives a salmon breakfast. Nook-sa-ak*
tribe lives near Kulshan. A child in the Indian lodge
found her way to my pocket; horrid papa took her off.
Another one at Victoria was as pretty as a delicate Italian,
so that I was tempted to throw myself at her feet and offer
blankets for her heart and hand. It is always interesting
to talk with these clear-headed, independent-judging men
of the Indian outposts. General Todd says Mt. Baker was
active in 1852, sending up flame and smoke for several
days. There was an earthquake in October. The Indian
women admired my red whiskers. I had to say that civ-
ilized young ladies do not share in this opinion.
"Sunday, Aug. 21. — Leave in Captain Howard's boat for
Port Townsend, at 8 a. m.; a calm pull against tide. After-
noon clear. See Mts. Baker and Rainier. Encamp on
Smith's Island. Two fires and moon rising, with a broad
way over the water. A star near horizon looks like a comet.
The bluff above Port Townsend is bold and fine, and the
harbor capital. Horrid set of Indians, drunken and quar-
relsome. After a great deal of difficulty and jealousy, I
got a leaky canoe through the Duke of York, and started.
He gave me some liquor for one of the Indians in the bow,
which I threw out, and offended him so much that he wanted
to turn back, and pretended to do so. The Klalam name of
the Sound is 'K'u'K'lults.'
"Monday, Aug. 22. — Is the first day really clear, and
as I go up the Sound with a fresh breeze and fair tide, the
summits of Olympias are very fine in outline, the snowy
ones just marked by a glitter. Several tops sprinkled with
snow in the Cascades are visible; at sunrise these were noble.
"Tuesday, Aug. 23. — Indians are insufferably tedious,
to a man in a hurry. Moonlight, starlight, and red dawn
*" 'Nook-sa-ak,' — 'Nook' or 'Nooh,' the people belonging to 'Sa-ak,'
which is the edible root of bracken or fern." — Dr. C. M. Buchanan.
START FOR THE MOUNTAINS. 281
splendid over the smooth waters. At sunset and sunrise,
Olympias noble. Opening Puyallop Bay, Rainier was
gi-and beyond words, a perfect ideal of a mountain; lifted
a little by mist and towering above all the land and along
the smooth water. Old Duke of York, or Chitsmash, has
plenty of teapots, and two daguerreotypes of himself.
"Owh(eh)high is chief of the Klickatats, Loolowcan
his son. Mr. Huggins's efficient aid hurried up matters
nicely. Owhigh fine; he wore a shirt stained with red. The
young Indians wore, broad beaded bands like an order.
One was very handsome and very interesting, a Spokan.
A fine set ! Grand old fellow, Owhigh. These Indians im-
pressed me by their thoughtful faces.
"Owhigh visits me again. Gravely smokes a pipe, and
says, solemnly: 'My son has no shirt,' etc. Fugue by Spokan
and others.
"Wednesday, August 24. — We started from the Fort
about 3 p. m., and at 5:45 passed a fine lake, then over a
fine but dry prairie, by another lake, and across a broad,
dry plain.*
"At Montgomery's house (siwash 'Cumcumli'); we find
him not at home. His squaw takes good care of us. My
Indian boy is disheartened, but I bully and persuade him
to go on.
"Thursday, August 25. — We start at 6:30 a. m., through
open woods, by a trail down the steepest hillside, zigzag;
come to the prairie valley of Puyallop ; buy twenty potatoes
*The remarkable gravel prairie over which Winthrop traveled in
this first afternoon's ride out from the Fort, and which impressed him
so greatly by its beauty, as it still more impresses others who visit
it in its present state, is a great outwash plain, built of glacial debris
by the Nisqually and other rivers. Several hundred square miles in
area, it is dotted with lakes that draw their water supply by subter-
ranean streams from the near-by snow-peak, and it is now fast becom-
ing forested with park-like groups and even groves of handsome young
evergreens and oaks. Prior to Winthrop's time, however, the Indian prac-
tice of burning the prairie to promote the growth of grass for the deer
had kept down the forest. When he saw it, sixty years ago, this plain
was almost treeless, but deep in grass, — a range for the droves of cattle
282 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
at an Indian lodge; cross and recross the stream for some
time. Rainier was very fine on leaving the Fort, and where-
ever openings in the forest gave a view. We cross a hill
and come to Hayward's prairie, then by a bad road to Wil-
liamson and McConnell's place, — a fine spot with splendid
grass; then through burnt woods, crossing the river, to a
grassy prairie, where the view of Rainier is even grander.
We stop to give our horses a bite at the foot of a pine hill,
and go on to a clear stream to sleep. My Indian guide
finds a cap, and we meet his brother. They have a jolly
time.
"Friday, August 26. — Start early. Terrible pack up
hill and down;* strike the road and follow, but lose it near
the White River. Cross the river several times; pack gets
wet. Magnificent woods — arborvitae. These straight,
branchless trees are like our (word undecipherable). The
Indian trail is very bad, blocked with logs everywhere.
The road is bad, but better. It is very pleasant to see
white men's handiwork. Occasionally, in crossing the river,
we had fine glimpses of splendid timbered hills.
"Kamaiakan is the first, and Tuaiash (or Tuaiuse) the
ordinary, chief of the Klickatats.
which the Hudson's Bay Company's branch at Fort Nisqually bred
and marketed.
The lakes which Winthrop mentions in the same paragraph were
probably those we now call American and Spanaway, the largest of
many beautiful forest-rimmed lakes within a few miles of Tacoma.
The steep hillside which he descended was that of "McKinley Hill,"
on which the south part of the present city is built, overlooking the
Puyallup Indian Reservation and the broad tide-level "prairie valley"
which the Puyallup River has constructed at the head of Commence-
ment Bay, the Tacoma harbor (Winthrop's "Puyallop Bay").
*The hills crossed in this Friday morning's ride were those between
the present towns of Sumner and Buckley, and the "road" which Win-
throp mentions was part of the clearing which the white settlers on
the upper Sound had opened in 1850 toward the Naches Pass, and
somewhat improved shortly before his visit. Here Winthrop finds it
"bad," but preferable to the Indian trail, with its windfalls. Later
in the day, as his afternoon entry shows, and as he has told us in Chap-
ter V. of "Canoe and Saddle," he found it ending in the hopeless tangle
and "slashings" of a first clearing through the forest, at the foot of the
steep slope of several thousand feet leading to the pass.
LIKE A SWISS ALP. 283
"2 p. m. — Meet Hodges.* Evening; Loolowcan wants to
turn off to the trail. I keep on the road, which ends about
nightfall. No blazes to guide us. I see a fire, and come to
the road-makers' camp; picturesque scene, among the lofty
trees, by the rushing stream. In ancient times, these would
have been robbers.
"Saturday, August 27. — The road ended, and we climbed
by the trail up terribly steep hills, with the first grand view
of Rainier, the summit of which, seen at this angle, is sad-
dle-like, and perhaps smoking, with a huge cavity below, f
The high buttresses of the snow-peak are covered with the
profoundest forest that one can conceive.
"The splendid prairies on top of the pass are like a Swiss
Alp after late snows. From here on, the road is very bad,
— hardly well blazed, — with a steady descent, occasionally
over little mountain grass prairies. I pick up an exhausted
United States horse, fallen under a log. Encamp late on
Sowee's prairie. I had shot four fine grouse, which were
spoilt dried, Indian fashion, before the fire. Find water
in a little swamp.
"Sunday, August 28. — Start at 5 a. m. Valley of the
Nachchese becomes more open; fine grass, with scattered
yellow pines; rather desolate. Sometimes the mountains
*Lieut. Henry C. Hodges, the "Lieut. H." of Chapter V. of "Canoe
and Saddle."
tThe saddle in the summit line, as Winthrop saw it, is the dip be-
tween North Peak ("Liberty Cap") and Crater Peak, the actual sum-
mit of the mountain. The "huge cavity" referred to is the vast cirque
which Carbon Glacier has sculptured deep in the north side of the peak,
— the largest mountain-side amphitheatre in the United States, south
of Alaska, now occupied by a glacier. It is nearly three miles in width,
and the face of the ice-stream lies more than a thousand feet below
the bordering ridges. The glacier has cut so far back toward the heart
of the snow-peak that its head-wall is now almost perpendicular, — a
cliff a mile high, and far too steep to hold snow, over which avalanches
fall daily from the summit ice-cap to the glacier below. Viewed from
the alpine "parks" on either side of it, this glacier presents the most
noteworthy spectacle in the entire circuit of the mountain, which em-
braces more than a score of great glaciers and the canyons they have
cut through the high plateau that supports this noblest of extinct vol-
canoes. See the views from Pyramid Peak.
284 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
came very near, making a canyon of the valley; and we
were then obliged to take to the hills. Early, came to a
deep, cool, green pool in the river; water clear, differing from
that of White River, on the west side, which was muddy
white. Sometimes these hills become too steep for vegeta-
tion, and their slopes are rock slides, along which the ter-
rible path leads among the wildest scenes imaginable, with
gigantic, precipitous, ragged, burnt cliffs overhead. The rocks
are of the richest red brown. The sky is brilliant. Minter
starts up from under a bush.* Noon; horses eat pea-vines.
McClellan rides up well. Descending the valley, the plains
become broader, covered with fine bunch-grass. Just at
evening, come upon Captain McClellan's camp, in a very
wide plain. Now we ride fast, among hills that are great
rolling masses without forest, and by the side of the river
rushing over its rocks. Splendid immensity of landscape.
It is an unfinished world, this; and when the next great
convulsions come, who knows what places we shall take?
The sun set clear, and the light of evening was grand over
the broad view. A bear is seen by my guide, who follows.
At 9:30, we encamp just on the river; sleep on the stones.
The wind blows a gale. Picturesque fire; wild night.
"Monday, August 29. — The beautiful light of morning
shows a bold crag opposite, broken and precipitous; the
rushing stream is superb, and the country open. As we
go on, in the fresh morning breeze, the hills retire, break
into ranges. See a horse hobbled, my guide calls, and a
shabby Indian in an old brown coat appears. The old
rascal tries to persuade Loolowcan to go off with him,
which, in the middle of the broad plain, no path to me known,
he is very ready to do. At last, on condition of my engaging
a horse at Weenas to bring him back, he comes on. We
cross the range, f see American camp, and go to Indian
lodge. Master asleep, his wives searching children's heads
*J. F. Minter, a civil engineer attached to the McClellan survey.
tThe high, barren hills between the Naches and Wenas valleys.
THE DALLES AGAIN. 285
for fleas and lice. The master has plenty of horses, but
wants a fabulous price. Guide proves treacherous, and not
disposed to go. At last, tired of talking, I determined to shift
for myself, and started for the United States camp. Loolow-
can demanded his pay. I refused. He rejoined: 'Wake nika
memloose.' I found Mowry* in camp buying potatoes and
salmon of Indians. Started alone for the priests'; lost my
way, but met the same old Indian of the morning. He offered
to put me on the road, when up came two boys I had been
talking with, and consented to go for a dirty shirt I had on.
Remarkable good luck, for with my tired horses, which I
was with difficulty driving, I might not have arrived till
night, if I had found the place at all. Another boy joined,
and we cantered along over two ranges of hills, bare; across
two broad valleys, recrossing the Nachchese lower down.
At 5 p. m., arrived at the pretty spot on the Atinam where
the priests have their little cabin and hut. My difficulties
made known, they at once volunteer assistance, and send
our boys in search of Camaiockkan. He was supposed
to be near by, but messengers did not find him.
"Tuesday, August 30. — Next morning I despair but at
the word, lo a savage in Lincoln green arrives, Camaiockkan
himself; not so remarkable in appearance as Owhigh, and
darker, but a more reliable face. His coat was made of
the Hudson's Bay Company's fine green cloth, and put
together all in patches. A few minutes put him au courant
de Vaffaire, and he sent off for one of his young men who
had just returned from Wasco. The hospitality of the priests
and a chat in French made the time pass pleasantly, malgre
my anxiety. They told me of a man (perhaps a runaway
soldier) who started across the mountains alone, on foot,
without prog or ammunition. The Indians saw a white
man's track in the trail, no horse, and were astonished.
Hyas tamanous ! They followed up and found him lying
fLieut. Sylvester Mowry, Third Artillery, U. S. A., of the McClel-
lan expedition.
286 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
in a state of extreme exhaustion. They asked: 'Where do
you come from?' 'Walla Walah/ ' Where are you going?'
— 'Walla Walah.' etc., etc. Always the same reply; like
the American who, in Paris, could answer nothing but
Meurice's Hotel. Making nothing of him, they lifted him
upon a horse — he could hardly sustain himself — and took
him to the priests, who cared for him and despatched him
to the Dalles.
"Presently arrives from a journey Ferdinand, known
to the priest, and a very sociable, good sort of a fellow. He
promises to go, if the other will not. The other not coming,
the priest lent his mare to be taken to the village or camp,
and left, if the guide consented to go with me; I giving him
one of mine if not. Find no camp, and we leave the mare in
a meadow and press on. First over a lofty, rough mountain,
with rough, trap pebbles; then across long plains; fresh
streams with bushy bottoms, some oak timber; tracks of
bear, who had come down to inquire into the state of the
acorn crop. Fine day, but very hot and horses tired. After-
noon, tremendous ascent, zigzag, and view over all the rough
country behind; no distant mountains on account of smoke
or mist. Then open country, with pines again, good road
and fine grass. So along till nightfall, when lightning and
thunder, settling into a mild drizzle and too dark to see the
road except by the flashes. We guide steadily and uner-
ringly on, with an occasional whistle between us. At 9 : 30,
very dark, and in the woods. Ferdinand wanted to stop. We
set a tree on fire. I would not unpack, but crouched under
my horse blanket. It was dismal, dark, wet, and unpleas-
ant very. I lay under a tree, or watched by the fire in hopes
the weather would clear, and we could go on. But we could
not until dawn, when our tree fell with a crash.
"Wednesday, August 31.— Dismally we started, and
rode up and down in the rain, being as cold as possible.
I rode as fast as the tired horse could go. Prairie hens
rose. At last to open country again, — a great real prairie,
H ^ 5
ai5
THE DALLES AGAIN. 287
with the high mountains in the distance. A band of Indian
horses and an Indian tearing along to lasso one ; picturesque
sight. The plain seemed endless. At last we reach the
last mountain and over the crest see the Dalles, far off.
Down the steep mountain to the wildest and most striking
cliffs yet seen, and marking the formation much more than
anything on the other side, and worth the journey to see.
We came down by a chasm to the borders of the river and
rode on to the lower ferry, where there was no boat. My
patience was nearly exhausted and I rode back to opposite
the town where I fired and hailed. Two Indians came in a
canoe, and the tired horses swam across. Hurrah ! ! ! Sev-
enth day of my journey, and the thirty-first of August.
"Much of the country passed through at the end of the
trip would be highly suitable for cattle; the numerous fine
streams all have small fertile bottoms for cultivation.
The Yakimah Indians are a large tribe, Clickatat a small
branch of same family. The Yakimah language is regular.
Freres D'Herbomez and Pandosy do not think they are ac-
complishing much in training the Indians. Owhigh and
his band are famous for horse stealing, and two of mine
are probably stolen horses. He is a sort of Romulus, and
all the evil-disposed come to him.
"Dalles looked familiar, except for two new houses and
more tents. River low. Odgen, McKinley (or McHenry),
and Brent here. Saw Plummer at once, and made my ar-
rangements. Sammis (?) lent me a horse as far as Olney's,*
and thence I was to have one to the Agency, where their
horses are very bad. My saddle and other things complete.
Sell my gun to Montgomery for $40. Draw $300, and we
get away on Thursday, September 1, at 2 p. m., for Salt
Lake; pass two or three emigrant wagons. Plummer
entertains me with an odd recital of his adventures. At
Olney's we find a large number of emigrants with cattle,
*Nathan Olney, interpreter and Indian agent, living near The
Dalles, who later came into great prominence during the Indian wars.
288 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
etc. White tents picturesque sight with the train winding
down the long hill. Find Nathan Olney a fine fellow.
Rough set the emigrants, of which more hereafter. Beauti-
ful evening. They play poker all night, while I go up to sleep.
"Friday, September 2. — Emigrants begin to get under
way about seven. The people are a rough, slangy set.
We don't start on account of rain. Many have friends who
have gone out to meet them. A man comes to sell a fiddle.
A tremendously tall fellow, who has walked nearly the
whole way, came in to hire a horse for the last ten miles,
and is laughed at. They all come from some out-of-the-way
place in Missouri. Indian tamanoiis manifestations like
our spiritual rappings; a few are faithful, some laugh and
deceive. Fandangoes; some sensual dances are found among
all nations; ours the ballet. After the people had slept off
the effects of the night, we got horses. Mr. Olney was so
kind as to provide me and make no charge, and we started
about 5 p. m. We met a few wagons on the long hill; look-
ing over the country, the whole face appeared to be covered
with small mounds like those at Dalles. We come down
upon the Columbia again, its valley the very type of deso-
lation in the angry-looking evening. The Falls* are a slide
down a ledge of trap rocks, and are confined to a very nar-
row channel; above extends the same open country and
bare crags. The Deschutes is a rapid stream. Stake our
horses, and sleep at the ferry house, having made five miles,
fifteen in two days. A pleasant man Olney has given me,
but I am very sore from Newell's horse. So ends.
"Saturday, September 3. — Trouble in finding horses.
Start at 9, in drizzling rain. The poncho of my blanket
shows the advantage of being beforehand. In about six
miles we leave the Columbia and turn up among the bare,
rolling hills, up and down, with a bleak view rendered doubly
so by the chilly day. No green thing in sight, — nothing
but the autumnal hue of the broad view. From time to
♦Celilo Falls of the Columbia.
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OVER THE LONELY LAND. 289
time we passed trains, all looking more or less done up, but
plodding on in hope soon of reaching the promised land.
Names on wagons; foot travellers. At two p. m. we found
a large train from Mississippi stopped on a hill top, and we
got some bread and molasses of them. They were keeping
jolly in the rain and cold. Paid 50 cents. Women travel,
and even children, fresh and jolly. Little child with yellow
mane looking out of the side of a wagon. Men rough
and thin, with rough beards, some half shorn, but few really
grown.* We then galloped steadily on, and at 3:20 reached
John Day's River, twenty-six miles down a long, rough,
rocky hill. It is quite a stream, clear and rapid, with a
little brush wood in the bottom. Several trading posts and
camps give life to the scene as we look down from a very
steep hill which may be avoided by longer road to the right.
We kept our steady lope, but above the rain was harder and
had been; hence on arriving at the flat above the spring,
six miles, the road proved very heavy and continued so.
On, over the lonely land; stop at two large emigrant camps.
They do not want to keep us. Night comes, but we hurry
along, and down a hill see lights in the valley of Willow
Creek. Pass on to Webster's camp, and get supper; go to
Tompkins' and chat with men and women. Coarse but
genuine Webster appears to be, and hospitable. The gen-
eral impression I get is that the emigrants are not so good
a sort of people as the more liberal Oregonians. The emi-
grants come out with their homespun notions of economy,
* Snowden gives some interesting figures that suggest the great
volume of overland migration at this period, though not for the year of
Winthrop's trip. He quotes the count made at Fort Kearney, on the
Platte River. At this fort, which was on the main route to the Rockies,
the record for the year 1852, up to July 14, was 18,856 men, 4,270
women, and 5,590 children. "Among them were four men with wheel-
barrows, several with pushcarts, while a few others carried all their
worldly possessions, including pick and shovel, on their shoulders.
There was probably an equal number passing on the north bank of the
Platte, who could not be seen from the fort, and still other thousands
were coming by sea, around Cape Horn, and by way of the isthmus.
Most of these were undoubtedly going to California, but part of them
would come to Oregon." — History of Washington, III., 152.
290 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
which they can not honestly carry out, and often try to, dis-
honestly. Men some time in Oregon or California, get
a look of up-to-snuff, which these new arrivals have not.
We got fresh beef at Webster's. It clears during the night.
"Sunday, September 4. — A splendid morning when I
wake. P. is just off after the horses, which he does not find
till late. We got away at 9. More trains to-day, — trains of
twelve wagons. This is a fine day and warm. Mt. Adams
and Mt. Hood are on the horizon, old friends to bid adieu
to. The landscape is limitless, like the sea. A boy asks
if I am just from Oregon. Some remark on our fast riding.
A man asks, 'You from Oregon?' 'Yes.' 'Do you know
Adams?' Children trudging along after the wagons; women,
sometimes on horseback, help drive. See a great pair of
booted lubberly legs sticking out of wagon behind. Some
of these people are perfectly black with dust. We ride
fast. My legs are horribly chafed from the wet ride on
other side, and I am obliged to bear against the stirrups.
Butter Creek running fast in spots, and dry in others. Meet
Captain Thompson; arrange for Olney's horse, which has
brought me admirably, and on to Agency over a great plain
of the Umatillah. Find Williams in the little frame house
of the Agency. Supper. Buy a hide lariat for $5. Cross
the river here at a perfectly dry sink, and on by dark to
camp at Collins', with whom I turn in and get a good sleep.
"Monday, September 5. — The horses could not be found,
and additional are required for me; the men were des-
patched off in search. All day occupied in this. Emi-
grants coming in all day. I washed a shirt, etc., and bathed
in the Umatillah; not too cold. Horses come in. At sun-
set we just see Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. Sugar, 50
cents a pound. Flour, 50 cents. Liquor, $2 a pint. In-
dians admire my Jiat ribbons.
"Tuesday, September 6. — More horses to be found. We
delay and get packs, etc., — rather make-shiftings — ready,
and start at eleven. Long level reach of 16 miles; 827
CARELESSNESS! 291
wagons this morning at the Agency. Come to Mr. McKay's,
a fine fellow. He makes me a whip lash. Brook Owens, a
very handsome man from Flathead country, hospitably
disposed, and a nice spot on the Umatillah. Tm-ner rides
in with Olney's saddle. I give him $25 and mine, he en-
tirely refusing to give up the stolen goods. I am all right
with my new rig, and ride off gaily. We follow up in the vale
of the stream, still passing trains. A man who has been
foolish enough to shave has his lips all cracked, as do others.
Camp on open hillside. Hobble horses and cook supper.
Whole distance for the day, twenty-four miles. Have
passed one hundred wagons, total nine hundred and twenty-
seven.
"Wednesday, Sept. 7. — Night perfectly beautiful and
clear. Got up at dawn, 4:20. Deliciouslycool, not cold. Start
at 6:40. Leave Umatillah and in six miles come to the base
of the Blue Mountains, bare and smooth. Capital road
up first stretch, through open piae timber. Morning,
passed forty-one wagons and many persons on foot and
horseback. P. M., sixteen miles down a steep hill to Grande
Ronde River, rapid and clear. Large number of emigrant
white wagons and groups of cattle make a picturesque
scene. Up a very steep hill road to the left. Good grass
on the highlands. I take the lead, and we travel fast. As
evening comes, beautiful blues and purples come over the
mountains, and the pines grow deeper in color. Dust
around the train glows golden. (Elisha said of the bare
stretch beyond McKay's: 'The man who made this country
forgot the timber and water. He either forgot it, or it was
d — d carelessness.') Down a long hill, and up another;
and come in sight of the Grande Ronde Valley. In the cool
of evening, with the soft light of the setting sun over the
broad yellow plain, it looks like a great dry lake, or a vast
crater bed; and the hills around might once have been the
walls of a volcano, a particularly steep mountain to the left,
dominant over the whole, with a crag at the top. The course
292 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
of Grande Ronde River is traced out by a narrow belt of
small timber. It is a beautiful sight. There is, however,
no picturesqueness in these broad views. This is an admir-
able spot for colonization; fine grass and water, timber
distant on hillsides. To the eye, the valley appears six
miles wide, eighteen long. Very little snow in winter
but for weak settlers there might be trouble with Indians.
The Cayuse make their headquarters here and some Nez
Perces. We meet a good many, and a large band of horses.
SHE-CA-YAH; a Cayiise Chief.
Descending to the Grande Ronde, down the long, steep
hill, we find sixteen wagons encamped. We camp after
sunset, 6:30, a little apart. Dark comes, and it is a little
trouble to manage. Whole distance for the day forty-
seven and one-half miles. Wagons to-day, one hundred;
total, one thousand and twenty-seven.
"Thursday, Sept. 8. — Fine night and capital sleep;
morning just cool enough to make one lively. Off at seven,
and ride hard, round close to hills on right, over perfect
level with fine grass all the way. Stop at White and Gee's
camp; I get a capital dinner of beef, cooked to a turn; also
SNAKE RIVER. 293
coffee. Several Indians come. Gee has bought fifty cattle
at $20. Leave at 11:20, and keep along on highland with
good grass and many little springs and streams; then over
level highland, with distant Snake River peaks on the left,
scant of snow, and the high, bold Blue Mountains on the
right, to a branch of Powder River; and then seventeen
miles to Powder River, rapid and clear. Digger Indians,
with large fresh salmon, look very wild. Toward evening
we make a long gallop over the plain, and then through
high grass in search of McGillivray's camp. When we
arrive at 5:30, in all forty-one miles, we find people camped,
twenty wagons, or for the day sixty-three. A fine sunset
over the mountains. Sup with the camp and chat with the
emigi-ants. Total wagons to date, 1090. Total distance
from Dalles, 235 miles. Powder River slough furnishes
good grass and water.
"Friday, Sept. 9. — Beautiful night and sunrise lovely
over the mountains. We start at 6:30, over a long sage-
brush moor with bare hills to the right, and Snake River
Mountains, very like Cairngorm, to the left. The country
has the general look of the barren part of Scotland. Jake
and I search for camp and prepare dinner, 12:30; 30 long
miles and 60 wagons. Camp by a rapid of Burnt River,
in cotton-wood, with good grass. I should have thought
our plainsmen the slangiest people in the world if I had
not heard young Oxford and the Boulevard flaneurs. Our
Pacific language is crisped by Spanish. Long noon, and
start at 3 :10. Showers in distance, and fine clouds. Among
the high bare mountains of Burnt River. We cross the
stream several times, and at sunset turn off up a little creek
and camp. Afternoon, kill a rattlesnake. I am quite
sick and wretched. Capital water but little grass. The
mountains are like great waves of the sea, overhead, just
touched by rising sun.
"Saturday, 10. — Cool morning and fresh wind. We start
at 7, and down the valley, crossing the river several times
294
CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
in 10 miles; come to a poor brackish spring, then to miser-
able, barren, sage-moor country, and shocking dust. I am
feeling miserable, and have eaten no breakfast. At 11:15,
come to nice cool spring and a little grass. We have had a
sight of Snake River valley, bare of vegetation. At 5:45
camp upon Malheur River. Little spring upon the brink;
little grass and no wood. Sheep come in. We camp with
spww>
<^'Y' '5
HAL-HAL-TLOS-SOT : THE LAWYER.
Head Chief of the Nez Perces; a wise and trustworthy friend to the whites.
people who are behindhand and somewhat discouraged.
They cook for us. Sheep make a row all night. I am sick;
the spring was the cause. The air all day has been tainted
with dead cattle. I ride a big cream horse; call him Om-
nibus, a lumbering beast.
"Sunday, Sept. 11. — Leave Malheur camp at 7, and ride
over desolate moors of sage to Snake River and Fort Boise;
fifteen miles without water or grass. The river is 1,200 or
1,500 feet wide; the horses swim and we ferry. Train of
THE DESERT. • 295
emigrants arrive and cross rather kla-hyam (good-bye).
Ferriage, $5. Large band of Nez Perces; not very fine, nor
are their horses. Fort Boise was washed away this spring,
and they are building a new one out of the old adobes. The
old Fort in ruins is like a low shed; serves for a trade shop.
The river banks are low, and above scantily- wooded. We
stop all day with Mcintosh. I am better for the rest, but
very sick. The emigrants stop on the other side of the river,
and fiddle. Indians come and go.
"Monday, Sept. 12. — Ride over barren, flat sage moors
till we strike Boise River. Ford the river. A Shoshone,
fine-looking Indian, joins us. Total, thirty-five miles. Night
very fine. The fires on the mountains run about like squad-
rons of an army.
"Tuesday, Sept. 13.— Am still wretchedly ill. Thin
young Indians bring in salmon and suckers. Snake River
all along is cotton-wooded, and there are pretty good grass
hills on the right banks; a broad sage moor is on the left
bank. Camp in sand on bank — fifteen miles. After dinner,
cross the river, over the hills to the north; keep on our way
over rough hills, with groups of rock that might be pictur-
esque if they were less desolate. The famous short trip of
the boys, Jake and Elisha, was made in thirteen days from
the Agency to Salt Lake City. Late, we come to little
stream issuing from marshy hillside. Threatening weather.
I am very sick. Eat half a square inch of bread, and am
desperate. Fire of wagon boxes.
"Wednesday, Sept. 14. — Only sprinkling of rain in night.
Late start — hot day — ride under range of craggy trap
hills; 15 miles to a fine stream. Meet 4 wagons; get a little
laudanum and a cholera powder, with some saleratus and
dried apples. An old fellow talks in a way that would frighten
timid man. One mile beyond, \i>e camp, up the hill by
a grand gushing spring; capital water and a little grass.
Make good bread. I feel a little better. Twenty-three
miles — start at 2:20 p. m. Meet an Indian driving 3 oxen,
296 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
which we claim and take. Camp on fine stream, with plenty
of grass to right of road. Feel better. Forty- three miles.
"Thursday, Sept. 15. — Still a little better; 25 drops
laudanum. Good start; leave road and take trail. In six
miles, strike Snake River. Deep, with flat banks, — nothing
but bushes. All the country for last three days has been
desperately desert, with only a few sage fowl. We leave
the cattle with an Indian. Get dry salmon, and camp on
the river, 17 miles, on a spot with a little grass. P. M.,
start and ride steadily, leaving river. Always over sage and
desolate country, up and down by trail; at last strike old
wagon road near a crossing. Just at sunset come down
upon a gushing stream. Moonrise just as we camp; wild
night and showers. Feel a little better. Thirty-seven miles.
"Friday, Sept. 16. — Morning lowering; always some
anxiety about horses. Indians, seven or eight, bring sal-
mon and otter skin. I give a shirt for a salmon, having
no powder. We start late and ride four miles to the river.
Indians on other side, after long bother, bring over a ferry
boat and we cross, sending boy over with horses. Give
Indians flour. Very bare country. River flows through
a depression in the surface about 250 feet deep, a rift in the
trap. We ride till near eight and come down to Rock
Creek. Total for the day, 41 miles.
"Saturday, Sept. 17. — Rainy when we get up and make
breakfast, but with good appetites we are reasonably jolly.
Ride in drizzling rain, with hills in sight on the right. Noon,
weather partially clears; windy and showers. My seat is
very painful, but far less than other trouble. Leave camp
and ride fast. Weather clears; strong wind. Cross sage
moors, and strike Snake River, which still runs in a canyon.
No river can be seen at short distance. Total for day, 46
miles. Sun sets clear and cold. Wake up several times.
Moon splendidly brilliant, but almost too cold to look out
of blankets.
"Simday, Sept. 18. — Dawn cold and clear; ice in coffee
FAST, HARD RIDING. 297
pot; hearty breakfast and splendid, bracing air. Come to
Snake River again. Mountains to the north all covered with
snow, and Goose Creek hills sprinkled. Very pleasant
warm nooning, and feel better. Ride till after sunset, and
camp just as moon rises. Sunset was glorious, with clear,
broad light over the great level stretch. All jolly, and
horses travelling well. Total, 41 miles. We are just below
the ford of Snake River, and on the bank. Tomorrow,
Fort Hall.
"Monday, Sept. 19. — Poor grass for horses. Morning
cold but very clear and fine. Along the river the country
improves. A little less sage and more hills with bunch-
grass. Noon on the river. I am very sore; take a bath.
The day is splendid; warm sun but bracing air. At last
the valley of the Snake opens wide, with cotton-wood
bottoms, and a small brown spot appears in distance. We
ride fast; descend hill and ford deep Portneuf, then a branch
of same, and over a long grassy meadow to the old adobe
fort. I can remember this without description. The view
from the balcony was glorious in its style, this splendid
evening, with broad stretch of glowing sunlight, Italian or
Greek radiance in the air, the blue peaks in the northwest,
and blue hills in south. We were hospitably received,
but in the absence of Mr. Mc A. did not get so much infor-
mation. Captain Grant in charge. Feeling well, and take
a long nap; but blankets on floor are not so soft as on
mother earth.
"Tuesday, Sept. 20. — Elisha goes after prog, and Jake
after horses. I loaf. Indians drying haws, and making
them into mashed cakes. Get dinner, and about 1 p. m.
ride fast. Again ford the Portneuf; across sage moor and up
valley of Bannack. A perfect day, but very warm.
"Wednesday, Sept. 21. — Rise with dawn. Mule has
strayed, but still we get a good start. Leave road, and up
the Bannack between bare hills and over grassy bottom.
Ride very fast. Three antelope take a look at us and depart.
298 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
Thirty-five miles this morning. Afternoon, ride fast down
the valley, which opens wider into an extensive basin sur-
rounded by high bare hills, sprinkled, however, with
shrubby trees. Grass good. Camp just at sunset. Day's total,
60 miles of fast and hard riding. This broad valley, with
its sharp outline of hill frame, forms a striking scene as the
sun goes down and purples the hills; each cutting bold
and bare against the clear, glowing sky. Quite as striking
is the expanse of the landscape when moonlit. The night
is clear and glorious. Some fears of Indians. Today, 'pose
Mormons.
"Thursday, Sept. 22. — My birthday, and a most
propitious morning, brilliant as have been all for some days.
I wake and call the boys about dawn, help cook and we
start with good spines. The valley continues as before;
small swelling ridges seem to divide it into basins. Fine
hills for sheep range on the left, then some steeper wooded.
In the clear air the higher mountains in the distance are very
distinct and near. Ride steadier and faster than ever.
Warm; horses still fresh. Noon across Bear River, 26 miles.
Jake tells story of man eating off his knee who would not take
a thousand dollars for his table. These passes of our moun-
tains are not like the awful chasm of the Naches. We
go on directly under the mountains, which are high here and
bold, and light-colored masses. Join California mail, and
on with eighteen animals, jolly, over good road with occa-
sional bit of stone. The valley improves, and first house or
hut appears, with crop of corn just in. Streams from the
hills cross the road at intervals. At one we find a Dutch-
man's house, and get a feast of watermelons and musk-
melons. Head of Apicius ! what a banquet! Some nice green
spots on the hillside; only shrubs along the stream. The
settlement is a collection of stick huts plastered with mud,
built for protection from Indians like a fort in a parallelo-
gram; it looks worse than a mean Spanish town, but they
have plenty of cattle and hay and full bins. Flour, $6.00.
THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 299
We have at table, beets, corn and potatoes. The village is
on the rising ground below the hills — two terraces on the
mountain-side.
"Friday, Sept. 23. — The active young women bustle
about and give us a capital breakfast. There is a little
more freedom in talk than there would be out of the
Mormon ilihee. We start, seven men strong, about ten
o'clock, and ride along the base of the mountains. Stop
to dine near Willow Creek Fort, and get a good meal, —
tomatoes, steak, and a fathomless boiled pudding. At Wil-
low Creek is a scattering fort (so called). Watermelons and
no pay. Fine cattle; valley widens; across a broad plain,
with more watermelons, to fort of Ogden; cross river and
come to a village with adobes of better style than we have
seen. The afternoon has been splendid, and the fine, craggy
mountains very bold. They appear to be feldspathic gran-
ite, and assume picturesque forms. The boys stop for sup-
per while the California mail goes on. We get not much of a
supper at Earle's. Girl drinks toast to 'Lishe': Two
pretty wives !' No young men appear among the Mormons,
who seem thus far to be just what Jake said, 'the scrubs of
the states.' Ogden is a pleasant-looking place, and the
adobes give it the appearance of an old town. They are
mostly cottages, but a few are two story. Just at dark
we start again and take the mountain road. Fine night,
but my very bad condition makes me melancholy by dis-
comfort. We stray a little, and at last a light appearing
make for it. 'Lishe' gets separated from the party. We
hail, and a man responds, who guides us to the settlement of
Weber. Here we stop with a down-easter, a Maine man
who drove his team to Nauvoo after conversion. He re-
members New England with regret, and I imagine is not
profoundly Mormon. He has only one wife, active, but bad-
tempered, and scolds her badly-managed children. We get
away early in the morning, and riding along under the hills
soon see the Great Salt Lake, brilliantly blue and beautiful
300 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
under the morning sun, the bare shores and mountain is-
lands remind of the Mediterranean.
"Saturday, Sept. 24. — Pass a group of hot sulphur-
ous wells. At every step is a fresh stream gushing from
the hillside; up the steep ascents go the difficult roads of the
wood-cutters. The frosts have just tinged the bushes high
up with red, and they contrast brilliantly with the green.
Soon we come down to the level of the lake, and strike a fine
country, with closer settlements and good adobes. It pre-
sents the appearance not of a new, but of an old agricultural
country in decay, the want of timber preventing good fenc-
ing and neat houses. See some English people, many Welsh,
and a few Germans; but foreigners are naturally not so easily
reached by the doctrine. There is a look of rustic prosper-
ity, however, and good adobe cottages are replacing the mud
and stick structures of their recent yore. But the popula-
tion is strictly a peasantry. Leaving this fine country, we
ride still very fast on the gallop over a gravelly reach, and
come to a hill where a hot, salt, sulphurous spring gushes
out, and the whole air is filled with a vapor from it.
"Turning this hill we come in sight of higher mountains
backing the great stretch of buildings which makes the city
of the Great Salt Lake. The first view of the city is as-
tonishing; indeed, it seems as large as a metropolis. The
system of laying out large lots, each one and a quarter acres,
spreads the town far in every direction, and the streets,
which are laid out as broad as avenues, increase this extent.
We entered by one of these, which is lined with young cot-
ton-wood trees. A fresh stream of water flows through
many streets. The houses have a little shrubbery and
young fruit trees about them. All are adobes. The town
is laid out in squares of ten acres. Each square contains
only eight lots. The lots of the alternate blocks face on dif-
ferent streets. The Indian title not being extinguished in
the country, no land can be sold; but it has been occupied
by settlers, without authority from the United States, each
O =
o =
< ^
o e:
"SHAM SAINTS." 301
settler paying for the survey of as much land as he could oc-
cupy. The town seemed very bustling. There is a general
Methodistical air about the people. There was a glorious
sunset through clouds down upon the west ridge. The
great sweep of the valley is westward, and now the sun makes
a noble horizon."
Of the week which Winthrop spent at Salt Lake City the Journal
unfortunately tells us nothing more. Had he completed the manuscript
of "Canoe and Saddle," this portion of his overland trip might have
been related more fully. In its last chapter, he mentions briefly his
meeting with Brigham Young, the great head of Mormonism, whom
he found to be "a man of very considerable power, practical sense,
and administrative ability." A report of that interview would have
made good reading.
In "John Brent," Winthrop intimates that his time at Salt Lake,
was largely devoted to obtaining the rest of which his exhausting trip
from the Columbia had undoubtedly left him in need. Resuming his
eastward march on October 2, in company with the California mail,
he returned to his daily record; and from this time until his arrival at
Fort Laramie, the brief entries give us glimpses of the country and
people described in the novel. Many of the immigrant caravans which
he meets are made up of recruits for the Mormon Church, and his notes
about these converts are not more favorable than his description in
'John Brent," where he says:
"In the full, ripe October, with its golden, slumberous air, we rode
through the bare defiles of the Wasatch Mountains, wall of Utah on the
east. We passed Echo Canyon and the other straight gates and rough
ways through which the Later-Day Saints win an entrance to their
Sion. We met them in throngs, hard at work at such winning. The
summer emigration of Mormons was beginning to come in. No one
would have admitted their claim to saintship from their appearance.
If they had no better passport than their garb, 'Avaunt! Procul este
■prof anil' would have cried any trustworthy janitor of Sion. Saints,
if I know them, are clean, — are not ragged, are not even patched.
Their garments renew themselves, shed rain like mackintosh, repel dust,
sweeten unsavoriness. These sham saints needed unlimited scouring,
persons and raiment. We passed them, when we could, to windward.
Poor creatures! We shall see more of their kindred anon."
That Winthrop's account of the Mormon recruits as "sham saints"
did many of them little injustice is made clear by the testimony of no
less an authority than Brigham Young himself. Complaining that
assisted immigrants failed to repay advances made to them. Young
said, in 1855: "And what will they do when they get here? Steal our
302 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
wagons, and go off with them to Canada; and try to steal the bake-
kettles, frying-pans, tents, and wagon-covers. They will borrow the
oxen and run away with them, if you do not watch them closely Do
they all do this? No, but many of them will try to do it." And again:
"What previous characters some of you had in Wales, in England, in
Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland! Do not be scared if it is proven in
the Bishop's court that you did steal the poles from your neighbor's
garden fence." In an address in Salt Lake City, September, 1856,
J. M. Grant declared: "You can scarcely find a place in this city that
is not full of filth and abominations."
The Mormon campaign in Europe was then at its height. In 1853,
says Linn, 2,456 converts, recruited from a membership of 30,747 Mor-
mons in the United Kingdom, left British ports bound for Utah. Dur-
ing the fourteen years prior to 1851, according to the report of the
General Conference for that year, more than 50,000 converts were
baptized in England, of whom nearly 17,000 had "migrated from her
shores to Zion."*
We continue with Winthrop:
"Sunday, October 2. — At 11:30, started on a little roan
pony, two Californians packing. The city spread out in
the distance, with a glimpse of the Lake. Up the bench,
and enter the canyon, a real defile through the mountains.
Some bushes still green and bright in color; a perfectly
glorious day, hardly too warm. I am in tip-top spirits.
Up a very high hill, and down. Camp; no grass, but wood
and best of water. Splendid evening, and a jolly camp.
Fourteen miles.
"Monday, October 3. — Sharp frost, and cold night;
not much sleep Charley calls at 2 a. m.; up at daylight;
capital morning; good appetite, and start at 6:45. Up the
mountain, very steep, with view back upon the bare moun-
tains, and a glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley. Then down
a descent longer and more gradual, with small timber; leaves
changed by frost, and the scene rather good. Meet trains,
mostly of English and Welsh, with plenty of women. Sam
Caldwell appears. Noon by spring. Some green English
people come up at 2 o'clock. Four miles to the Weber;
*Linn: Story of the Mormons, 253, 416, 442.
A MORMON DANCE. 303
the valley becomes more picturesque. Cross hill and down
to a valley where the road becomes level. Travel very
fast under the bare hills to the left; the bottom, with scanty
cotton-wood, is like Boise River. Remarkable groups of
worn rocks, like the ruins of a house, set on a hillside. Soon
begin red bluffs, and we turn to the left, sharply up Echo
Creek canyon. The red bluffs of conglomerate, with some
oolite, are very striking; they jut out precipitous, with
gullies between. The highest is about 600 feet, with scanty
cedar bushes on top and side. Some are actually like a wall
of bright red brick. I turn off from the road by a trail
close under the bluffs, very grand; a red light cast over the
scene by the setting sun. On up the valley the bluffs be-
come lower. Just at sunset, we came to a little bench. The
evening is again glorious, and not so cold. Hearty supper;
feeling well and in good spirits.
'Tuesday, October 4. — Trumpet at 4:15. A jolly
crowd always. The long-haired packer is a type; Caldwell
ditto. On beef, bread and coffee, I am well and hearty.
Ride fast up the canyon, and meet a large train of Kin-
kead's; wagons with 4,000 lbs., drawn by 8 and 10 oxen.
Freight is 10 to 15 cents a pound. Pass large train of Brit-
ishers, who look comfortable, the women walking. All
are surprised at my attire. One says: 'You must be going
to be married, with so many colors.' They have the air of
decayed ladies' maids, with the atrocious dresses that I had
wondered at in their mistresses across the water. I give a
yell and rush through. Again a great caravanserai of a
camp, and all press around curiously. Up long hill, and camp
at capital small well spring, with good feed. The look of
the whole country is much better than the Snake River;
little sage, and no dust of moment. Pinto did a nice twenty-
two miles this morning. Started at 1 p. m.; up a hill, and
have view of distant ridge, snowy, fresh; then down a steep
descent and over a splendid road. Always plain; not a tree.
Cross Bear River, very clear and fine, nearly belly deep.
304 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
After crossing, wind among hills, always keeping up pretty-
good speed, and up high hill to camp by a deep spring at
5 o'clock.
"Wednesday, October 5. — Up early to warm. Horses
gone; we all go in search. Off at 10:30, with Sam Caldwell,
and come down to Delaware Camp. Then meet wagons
and plenty of cattle. We ride very fast for an hour, up
and down. See an antelope. Come in sight of Bridger*
bottom. Find detachment of valley troops. A larger camp
of Britishers come in and form a big corral. They look
in good trim, and except the matter-of-course grumb-
ling, seem in pretty good spirits. The women have a look
of shabby gentility, very different from the homespun of
Pike County. They come generally from the Midland coun-
ties of England, and number 500 emigrants. In the evening,
Sam, 'maintain man,' gets up a dance, and they have a
jolly time. There is one very pretty little girl. Hanks
dresses up as Old King Cole. The waltzing keeps up till
late.
"Thursday, October 6. — Capital morning. Cummins,
the captain of the squad, calls in our camp, and makes a
speech; singular mixture of good sense, boasting and fanati-
cism. Calls Walker 'Brother Walker;' stirred up by the
Almighty to revenge their not taking care of themselves,
and to punish if tithes are not paid. Horses gone, and we
do not start till 12. Cross Black's Fork. Camp by Haines
Fork at 8:30; 313^ miles.
"Friday, October 7. — Start early. Shoot at a coyote.
Ride with no water to Green River. Cross at 12:40, Pilot
*Col. James Bridger, a celebrated frontier character, who discovered
the Great Salt Lake in 1824, had built a "fort" or trading post on the
Green River. Orson Pratt, one of the Mormon leaders, describes this
fort as made up of "two adjoining log houses, dirt roofs, and a small
picket yard of logs set in the ground, and about eight feet high."
Bridger had been an old hunter, trapper, and by and by that for-
lorn hope of civiHzation, the holder of an Indian trading post. It was
there that that miserable bungle of an administration more fool, if
possible, than knave, — the Mormon Expedition in 1858, — took refuge.
— Winthrop: John Brent, 360.
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11
LARAMIE PEAK.
305
Knob to right, in desert country. Wind River Mountains
in distance, with slight snow. Great elevation of table-
land gives them less height. Timber on the sides; summit
bare. The desert is grand, fresh, always invigorating and
inspiring. Cross Big Sandy, and ride fast across Little
Sandy. Camp at 10:30 p. m.
"Saturday, October 8. — Country more and more desert.
Twenty miles to Pacific Spring, and commence South Pass,
Carved Seated Figure holding Dish; made of Steatite.
a gradual ascent that an alderman might run up after din-
ner. There is no timber, and the pass is a broad, massive
backbone of a continent. The ascent from Pacific Springs
is very gradual; could trot the whole way, about four miles.
At top is a sort of circular dry basin, with short grass.
The actual summit is hardly perceptible, and we travel
for some time along a sort of table-land. Wind River
Mountains look better on the side. Strike Sweetwater,
clear and fresh. Rising one long hill, and looking back,
the great sweep of country is fine, and the two table-like
306 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
buttes, with break, are striking landmarks. Camp on
Sweetwater.
"Sunday, October 9. — Requires courage to get up these
frosty mornings. Mount a mouse-colored macho, Ratlett. *
Over a long expanse of desolation. The Wind River Moun-
tains show more snow on this side. The road and the coun-
try generally are white with alkali, dazzling the eyes. Macho
requires beating, then goes pretty well. He gives out.
See herd of antelope. Camp at 10 p. m. Beast comes up
in the morning.
"Monday, October 10. — Roll on in wagon, and reach
S. Lajeunesse's fort; forms three sides of a square. Walk
a mile to Devil's Gate. This I shall not forget. On in wagon
through the mountains to right of the Gate, through which
I get a glimpse of the plains beyond. The Indians some-
times drive buffalo down this pass, and kill them in great
numbers. The view here is more than interesting; the gran-
ite ridges break the monotony of the level. The lights
are very fine, as sunset comes on, glorious, and the moon
rises. Camp about seven on Greasewood Creek, near
Independence Rock, a round granite pile, isolated and rising
steep about 100 feet. At Archambault's good log house,
I buy two antelope skins at $1. We had fried antelope for
supper; tough.
"Tuesday, October 11. — Morning fine. Camped at
noon on Fish Creek, fourteen miles from Devil's Gate, which
we can still see. Bridger comes up and talks big; a long
and resultless discussion about Mormonism. On a hard-
trotting iron grey horse, I suffer agonies; up and down
very fast. Call the horse Duretrot. He bounces the bliss
out of me. Nothing can be finer than these nights, and
the broad sweep of soft light over the desert, whose bar-
renness it tones down. We have been rattling down hill
at a slapping pace, and at last, at 10 p. m., the Platte comes
in sight.
* Macho, (Spanish) a he mule. — Standard Dictionary.
POINTS A MORAL. 307
"Wednesday, October 12. — Eph rides on for a horse for
me, and I drive six miles to the bridge. Get prog, but no
swop critter. Hence I take a mule; easy but slow. Down
the Platte Valley, and camp sixteen miles at 11 o'clock,
in an ice cotton-wood grove on the river. The country
begins to realize my idea of this prairie. The Platte is
beautifully blue through the sand. The cotton- woods with
their scanty yellow leaves look quite wintry. Come among
the hills; nothing of notice. Ride with very fine moon at
night. Camp on Little Deer Creek at 11 p. m. I am tired,
but the last mule was prime.
"Thursday, October 13. — Among the Black Hills, up
and down, with sweeping views over the valley, and among
scattered cedars like that of the Naches. Laramie Peak
on the right is a fine, bold mountain, dark with trees. Prai-
rie dotted with herds of buffalo. Buffalo beef same to
other beef that venison is to mutton. I walk along with
pistol, and get within 100 yards of herd. Have first good
view of these animals. Over the rump the hair is lighter,
so as to form a complete stripe division from the short
hair of the quarters. I fire at random; they run, then turn
and look, and turn and look again.
"Friday, October 14. — Start at 8, and drive slowly to
the Fort. The squaws have a party at a buffalo-skin lodge
for Garnett.* Sell my saddle to Francois. Pleasant day
with Garnett; splendid bed, with robes, etc. All very kind
and pleasant. Beautiful sunset."
The remaining entries are very brief and fragmentary. Leaving
Fort Laramie on October 15, Winthrop reached the South Fork of the
Platte on the 18th. Four days later, the party had an exciting experi-
ence in fighting a prairie fire. On the 24th, they crossed the Big Blue
River. The next day brought them to the Black Vermilion, in north-
eastern Kansas. Here the entries stop short, with a characteristic bit
*Lieut. Richard Brooke Garnett, Sixth Infantry, then temporarily
in command at Fort Laramie. During the Civil War, he rose to the
rank of Brigadier General, and was killed at Gettysburg.
308 CALIFORNIA AND THE NORTHWEST.
of philosophy, in which, quite casually, our young author points the
moral of his half-year's excursion into the wild:
" Wheel of new wagon breaks. The lesson of patience
and self-containing may be learnt in these trips."
Winthrop's Grave, in the New Haven Cemetery.
APPENDIX.
A.
WINTHROP'S GREAT MOUNTAIN.
Winthrop's insistence upon the Indian name of the mountain, as
well as his great interest in the mountain itself, makes proper some
notice of the history of the peak. The story recalls one of the most
famous neighborhood rows in the annals of American cities. The quarrel
of St. Louis and Chicago and that between the Twin Cities of Minne-
sota were never more bitter. A well-known humorist, praising the
salubrious climate of Tacoma, declared that the only occupants of
Tacoma cemeteries were Seattle people who, while visiting the "City
of Destiny," had inadvertently alluded to "Mount Rainier!"
The old quarrel has lost its venom. The people of Tacoma find
satisfaction in the growing sentiment among geographers, scholars and
writers everywhere against the historical absurdity of "Mount Rainier;"
those of Seattle, so far as they know the facts, have grown rather ashamed
of that unpatriotic name, and are proposing to compromise by renam-
ing the mountain "Tahoma." Hence it may be possible to tell the
facts about the mountain's names without offense. There are some
misconceptions on each side.
The author's error on page 37 as to the name given by the whites
was not an uncommon one in his time, and has persisted till our own,
even among those who should know better. In his diary and letters,
Winthrop uses "Mount Rainier," the only name then current among
the whites; but his statement on the page mentioned indicates, no doubt,
that he thought "Regnier" the original or proper form. His assertion
that this "perpetuates the name of somebody or nobody" also shows
that he was ignorant of its origin.
The fact which Winthrop had not learned is now known to nearly
everybody in the Northwest. Yet we still hear it asserted that the
name of the British admiral whom the explorer Vancouver honored
was actually "Reginier." A recent scholarly history of the State of
Washington, which in most matters is accurate and trustworthy, even
says that Vancouver himself, in his journal, spells the name in that
310 APPENDIX.
fashion. Such mistakes it may be worth while to correct on authori-
tative testimony, namely, that of Vancouver's journal itself and the
records of the British Admiralty.
Captain Vancouver's account of his great exploration, published in
1798, after his death, under the title "Voyage of Discovery to the North
Pacific Ocean and around the World," tells us that in the spring of 1792,
soon after he sailed up the Strait of Fuca, he discovered "a remark-
ably high round mountain, covered with snow, apparently at the south-
ern extremity of the distant snowy range." Making no inquiry as to
the Indian names, he had already honored his third lieutenant, young
Mr. Baker, by placing his name on the peak which the Indians called
by the splendid name "Kulshan." A few days later, on May 7, he
notes that he has also given a name to the greater peak: "The round
snowy mountain now forming the southern extremity, and which,
after my friend Rear Admiral Rainier, I distinguished by the name of
Mount Rainier, bore N 42 E."
I have examined the several early editions of Vancouver's work,
beginning with the first and including the French reprint, and in none
of them does the spelling "Regnier" appear, either in the text or upon
the maps which accompany it. Examination of British naval histories
and biographical dictionaries also fails to show anything different
from Vancouver's spelling. They indeed mention the well-known
fact that Admiral Peter Rainier's grandfather was Daniel Regnier, a
Huguenot refugee, who fled to England late in the seventeenth century,
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. There he prospered, and
there the family name seems to have been anglicized into "Rainier"
soon after the migration from France, — certainly before young Peter
Rainier, the grandson, entered the Navy, during the reign of George II.
This is established by the following letter from the Admiralty, which
answers my inquiry regarding the name by which he was carried
on the rolls of the Navy, and covers the whole period of his service,
from his enrollment in 1756 to his retirement with the rank of Vice
Admiral in 1799:
"The Secretary,
Admiralty,
Whitehall,
London, S. W. 6th August, 1913.
"Sir,
"In reply to your letter of the 11th ultimo inquiring whether
Admiral Peter Rainier's name ever appears in the Navy records as
Regnier, I am commanded by My Lords Commissioners of the Admi-
ralty to acquaint you that, between the dates of this Officer's entry
into the Navy (1756) and of his promotion to Lieutenant (26th May,
1768), his name appears on the Ship's Books of His Majesty's Ships
"UNDISTINGUISHED BIPEDS." 311
in which he was borne as Rainier and Ranier, and that from the latter
date the name appears in the Sea Officers' List as Rainier.
"The spelling Regnier nowhere appears.
"I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
"J. H. Williams, Esq. W. Graham Greene."
These quotations dispose of the assertion that the mountain was
named "Mount Regnier." Winthrop's mistake seems to have been
an honest one, but for later errors of the sort there is less excuse, as
Vancouver's "Voyage" is in all our public libraries and the passages
cited above have been quoted in nearly every newspaper and maga-
zine published in the West. Those who hope to see the ancient Indian
name restored to our maps — and of these I am one — will not gain
their end by misrepresenting the name given by Vancouver, any more
than those who are interested in tourist travel will induce tourists to
visit the mountain by misstating its height, as some organizations
continue to do, in spite of government surveys, the Dictionary of Alti-
tudes and other well-known authorities.
"Mountains," avers Winthrop, "should not be insulted by being
named after undistinguished bipeds." Whether the man whom Van-
couver bestowed upon this mountain as a godfather for its rechristening
falls in that category must be left to the facts. England's great national
compendium, the "Encyclopedia Britannica," has been unable to find
room for an account of him; even its index fails to mention his name.
Certainly, then, he must be held "undistinguished" in his own land.
In American history, he appears on no field of exploration or progress.
It is not till we reach the footnotes to the chronicles of our infant Navy
that we find him, during the American Revolution, in command of two
British ships of war, with which he captured the brig "Polly," a priva-
teer commissioned, I believe, by the State of South Carolina.
Vancouver's friend, no doubt, was a good fighting man in his day.
Allen's "Battles of the British Navy" (London, 1872) gives this story
of the hard-fought but unequal fight that won Rainier promotion
and such fame as his own day awarded him:
"On the 8th of July, 1788, the 14-gun ship Ostrich, Commander Peter
Rainier, on the Jamaica station, in company with the 10-gun armed
brig Lowestoffe's Prize, chased a large brig. After a long run, the Os-
trich brought the brig, which was the American privateer Polly, to action,
and, after an engagement of three hours' duration (by which time the
Lowestoffe's Prize had arrived up and taken part in the contest), com-
pelled her to surrender. * * * Captain Rainier was wounded by
a musket ball through the left breast; he could not, however, be pre-
vailed upon to go below, but remained on deck till the close of the action.
He was posted, and appointed to command the 64-gun ship Burford."
312
APPENDIX.
It will be remembered, in connection with the names that Vancou-
ver plastered so thickly over our northwestern landscape, that these
were designed to mark his attempted annexation of the country to the
realm of George III. The explorer records his commemoration of the
king's birthday, which he celebrated by "taking formal possession of
ADMIRAL PETER RAINIER.
all the countries we had lately been employed in exploring in the name of,
and for, his Britannic Majesty, his heirs and successors."
Nor can we forget that Vancouver, too, after he had failed to dis-
cover the Columbia River, sent his lieutenant, Mr. Broughton, to
explore it and take possession for the king; and that he then tried to
rob the Yankee sailor, Robert Gray, of the honor of his discovery,
declaring his belief that "subjects of no other civilized nation or state
had ever entered the river before," and that "it does not appear that
Mr. Gray either saw, or was within five leagues of, its entrance." Van-
couver is hardly a fit subject for American hero-worship.
INDIAN PLACE — NAMES. 313
Defenders of the name "Mount Rainier" have made much of the
alleged right of Vancouver, as the discoverer of the mountain, to name
it. A man of Winthrop's patriotism would have been amused by the
sophistry of this argument. Although apparently he was not acquainted
with Vancouver's book, he has not left us in doubt as to his reply to such
a claim made on the explorer's behalf, "Vancouver might name the
northwestern landmarks what he pleased," he would have said, "but
his names, given to establish the British title, cannot bind Americans.
We have repudiated the British claim of sovereignty, based on his
exploration. Equally, we repudiate his right to deprive us of such
unique and significant place-names as 'Tacoma,' 'Kulshan' and 'Whulge,'
given by the primitive Americans who inhabited the land. Our obli-
gation is to our own history. It binds us, first, to preserve the native
names, where these have beauty and worth. In the absence of such
names, if we must call any of our landmarks after individuals, we have
some heroes of our own whose service to the country and the world
entitles them to. this honor."
Without mentioning Vancouver, this is indeed the burden of Win-
throp's argument for the native names. They are unique and beautiful;
they are part of the history of the land; respect to our own environ-
ment and a proper regard for its traditions call upon us to see that they
be not displaced to commemorate "somebody or nobody," be he Smith
or Jones or Brown, — "Mr. Baker," or "Mr. Puget," or "my friend
Admiral Rainier." Winthrop's argument merely anticipated the modern
movement, which is growing in all parts of the country, for the preser-
vation of native place-names. This is a movement inspired alike by
patriotism and by the historic sense, and its value to the country is
more and more commanding the support of thoughtful men everywhere.
The publication of Vancouver's work placed the name "Mount
Rainier" on British maps, from which it was copied upon American
maps for sixty years and more, or until the publication of Winthrop's
book, in 1862. "The Canoe and the Saddle" was the first popular
book to recognize the Indian name for the great mountain of the North-
west, and to call for its restoration. Its appearance here, indeed, is
often said to have been its first use in print. Winthrop has even been
called the inventor of the word "Tacoma." Neither of these statements
is correct. The United States Government anticipated our author
in recognition of the name. One of its gunboats bore it, in the equiv-
alent form "Tahoma," for a year before "Canoe and Saddle" was
published. There is abundant evidence for the authenticity of the
name as an Indian word, and for the fact that it was the Ancient In-
dian name for this mountain.
The new book, however, with its large circulation, made the name
314 APPENDIX.
generally known to the country, and especially gave it a vogue in the
young Northwest. During the next thirty years American and foreign
books of geography and travel increasingly used it, and a long list of
such works might be compiled. Curiously enough, two Washingtons,
the National Capital and the Territory, adopted it, the latter at one
time considering the substitution of it for the name originally selected.
In the District of Columbia, it became the name of a suburb, Takoma
Park. In Olympia, the capital of the Territory, it gave a title to an
early lodge of the Good Templars, and later to a hotel. In 1866 a move-
ment was started to rename the Territory, using the Indian name of
the mountain. This found many supporters in the East, one of the
most active, I am informed, being the eminent lawyer, David Dudley
Field. The movement came to nothing, however, owing to jealousies
born of the founding of a town called Tacoma, and its selection as the
western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway. Had there been no
city of Tacoma, there would doubtless be no "Mount Rainier" on the
map today.
The authenticity of "Tacoma" as the name of the mountain is now
fully established by the investigations of Indian philologists. Occasion-
ally, as I have said, this has been called an invention of Winthrop's;
at other times, it is alleged to be Chinook jargon; and still again the
form "Tahoma" is said to be the correct name for the mountain.
As to the last statement, let it be said at once that "Tahoma" is
just as correct a rendering of the Indian name as "Tacoma," and no
more. Neither form exactly reproduces an Indian's choking, retching
pronunciation of his combination of gutterals, — "Tachk-ho-mah."
Both approximate it more nearly in fact than most of our place-names
of Indian origin resemble their originals. The spelling of all Indian
words is phonetic, of course, and those who know by observation the
defective linguistic equipment of the siwash will understand the diffi-
culty of putting his vocal sounds on paper. Further, different tribal
dialects had different forms of the name in question. The root of them
all is "ko" or "ho," meaning water, snow, — that is, fresh water, as
distinguished from salt water, "hwulch" (Winthrop's "Whulge"). Hence
"Tacoma" and "Tahoma" are merely alternatives of the same word,
just as "Nook Lummi" and Nooh Lummi" mean the same.*
Neither is "Tacoma" a concoction of the Chinook jargon. It is
found in none of the vocabularies, although the similar form "T'kope,"
meaning white, is found there, as also in the Chinook language proper.
This is in fact, practically the same word, because the Indian dialects
frequently interchange the labials b and p with their cousin m.
The charge that Winthrop invented the name was never heard until
* See Dr. Buchanan's explanation, page 264 note.
"THE BEST EVIDENCE." 315
after the little sawmill hamlet Tacoma had won the coveted prize from
its older and larger neighbors, and was selected in 1872 as the terminus
of the long-expected railway. Prior to the coming of the Northern
Pacific and the neighborhood jealousies it bred, no one in the Territory
questioned the authenticity of the name. Thus the Seattle Intelligencer,
on November 23, 1868, announced that the founders of the new town
on Commencement Bay had named it "Tacoma, after the Indian name
of Mount Rainier." This was matter of common knowledge then,
and undisputed.
Winthrop was a genuine and scholarly student of the dialects, and
not an inventor of pseudo-siwash place-names. His advocacy of "Kul-
shan" and "Whulge" was based on fact, and his insistence upon "Taco-
ma" had behind it the general usage of the tribes, and the knowledge
of those white men who studied the Indian speech. The most import-
ant of these investigators was Dr. George Gibbs, the geologist and
ethnologist of the McClellan survey. Gibbs remained in the Territory
until shortly before the Civil War, engaged with the Boundary Com-
mission and in other government service. Then he returned to Wash-
ington D. C, where he organized the ethnological work of the Smith-
sonian Institution. During his stay here, he compiled his "Dictionary
of the Chinook Jargon," which is the basis of all later works of the sort,
and also vocabularies of a score of distinct Indian languages. His
industry and thoroughness are well described by General Hodges and
Colonel Allen.* Our country owes a large debt to this unassuming
but brilliant scientist.
Gibbs's vocabularies furnish what Snowden has called "the best evi-
dence to support Winthrop's representation as to the name." In that of
the VvMnatsha ( Wenatchee) dialect, Gibbs entered: "T'koma, snow-peak,"
and in the Niskwalli CNisqually) list he has: "Takob, the name of Mt.
Rainier."t These definitions exactly coincide with Winthrop's state-
ment (page 36), that "Tacoma" was not only used generically for all
snow-peaks, but emphatically for the greatest of them known to the
siwash tribes. Those who are familiar with the Indian's method of
stretching his limited vocabulary by means of emphasis and prolong-
ation to make a word do unlimited service, will understand that "tako-
ma," pronounced without emphasis, meant any snowy mountain,
while prolonged, "Ta-ko-o-o-ma," it meant the great chief of the moun-
tains. "i
* See Appendix C and D, following.
t The fact, which Gibbs points out, that b and m are often interchanged
makes "Takob" equivalent to "Takom."
% See Dr. Buchanan's explanation, quoted on page 223; also that of General
Hazard Stevens, p. 40 n.
316 APPENDIX.
But other evidence that the Indian name for the mountain was
well known before Winthrop's book was published has recently come
to my attention. In the Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, President
Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy says, on July 15, 1864: "Mr. Faxon,
my chief clerk, is ill, and leaves for New York on the Tacoma." Curi-
ously, Mr, Welles, in this entry, testified to the influence of "Canoe
and Saddle," which he had no doubt read, and which left this form of
the name in his mind. The real name of the vessel referred to was "Ta-
homa." For her record I am indebted to Mr. Charles W. Stewart,
librarian of the Navy Department. Mr. Stewart writes:
"After some search, we find that two vessels have borne the name
about which you inquire: (1) the TAHOMA, 4th-class gunboat, built
at Wilmington, Del., by W. & A. Thatcher; launched Oct. 2, 1861;
commissioned Dec. 20, 1861, and sent to the East Gulf Squadron; (2)
the protected cruiser TACOMA, built at the Union Iron Works, San
Francisco, commissioned Jan. 30, 1904.
"From the Tahoma's log, we learn that on July 16, 1864, Mr. Faxon,
chief clerk of the Navy Department, came on board at the Washington
Navy Yard, whence the vessel went to New York for repairs. The
vessel was sold at New York Oct. 1, 1867, for $13,000.
"We have not found anything of record as to the choice of the name
' Tahoma.' The giving of Indian names to a certain class of vessels
was a custom in the first years of the Civil War, and it became a settled
policy with Assistant Secretary Fox to continue this practice. There
was probably no particular reason for this, except that Indian names
were considered to be exclusively American. In the appendix to 'The
Blockade and the Cruisers,' by Prof. James R. Soley, you will find a
large number of vessels built during the War with Indian names."
Here, then, is testimony to the authenticity of the name from Uncle
Sam, whose character as a witness is seldom impeached. The true
explanation of his use of it is doubtless that given by General Hodges:
"In early days there were ships of our Navy in Puget Sound, and it
is likely the officers knew the name which the Indians gave to Mt.
Rainier, and when opportunity offered that name was selected. A
fine name, too!"*
Thus clearly is the fact established which Winthrop stated, but
which the United States Geographic Board denied, when, shortly after
its organization in 1889, it rejected the Indian name in favor of that
given to honor Vancouver's now forgotten friend. The story of that
ruling has yet to be told. It would not make pleasant reading for those
who employed a young newspaper man of Portland, Oregon, to pose
as an expert, and without reference to existing evidence of the Smith-
sonian publications and other Government records, report against the
authenticity of the Indian name. This man has since told the story,
professed repentance of his performance, and offered to endeavor to
* See Appendix O.
THE GLACIERS. 317
undo the work then done. As to the Government's Geographic Board,
which accepted such a report and ignored the real evidence at hand in
the official files, I leave my readers to form their own opinion.
The purely commercial mind, which sees reason in nothing that does
not bear the dollar mark, asks: "Why dispute about the name of a
mountain?" The answer is: The nation that does not respect its own
history cannot hope to have a history worthy of respect. We should
not have waited for the recent reprimand in this matter from the late
British Ambassador, the Mr. Bryce, one of the many writers who have
preferred to use the Indian name.
The following account, condensed from "The Mountain that Was
'God,' " may be of interest to those who would know more about Amer-
ica's noblest glacier peak:
"Our stately mountain, in its youth, was as comely and symmetrical
a cone as ever graced the galaxy of volcanic peaks. To-day, while still
young as compared with the obelisk crags of the Alps, it has already
taken on the venerable and deeply-scarred physiognomy of a veteran.
No longer the huge conical pimple which a volcano erected on the earth's
crust, it bears upon it the history of its own explosion, and of its losing
battle with the sun, which, employing the heaviest of all tools, is steadily
destroying it. It has already lost a tenth of its height and a third of
its bulk. The ice is cutting deeper and deeper into its sides. As if to
compensate for losses in size and shapeliness, the mountain presents
the most important phenomena of glacial action to be seen in the United
States.
"In its dimensions, however, it is still one of the world's great peaks.
The area occupied exceeds three hundred square miles. Of its surface
upwards of 32,500 acres, or about fifty-one square miles, are covered
by glaciers or the fields of perpetual snow which feed them. Its glacial
system is the most extensive on the continent, south of Alaska. The
twelve primary glaciers vary in length from three to eight miles, and
from half a mile to three miles in width. There are as many 'inter-
glaciers,' or smaller ice streams which gather their snow supply, not
from the neve fields of the summit, but within the wedges of rock which
the greater glaciers have left pointing upward on the higher slopes.
"That the glaciers of this and every other mountain in the northern
hemisphere are mere pygmies compared with their former selves, is
well known. What their destructive power must have been when their
volume was many times greater may be judged from the moraines
built along their former channels. * * *
"Even now, diminished as they are, the glaciers are fast transport-
ing the mountain toward the sea. Wherever a glacier skirts a cliflf,
it is cutting into its side, as it cuts into its own bed below. From the
overhanging rocks, too, debris falls as a result of 'weathering.' The
daily ebb and flow of frost and heat help greatly to tear down the chffs.
"A glacier's flow varies from a hundred to a thousand feet a year,
depending upon its volume, its width, and the slope of its bed. As
the decades pass, its level is greatly lowered by the melting of the ice.
More and more, earth and rocks accumulate upon the surface, as it
travels onward. At last, in its old age, when far down its canyon, the
318 APPENDIX.
glacier is completely hidden. Only at its snout, where it breaks off,
as a rule, in a high wall of ice, do we realize how huge a volume and
weight it must have, far above toward its sources, or why so many of the
crevasses on the upper ice fields seem almost bottomless.
"These hints suggest how much of the mountain has already been
whittled and planed away. But here we may do better than speculate.
The original surface of the peak is clearly indicated by the tops of the
great rock wedges which have survived the glacial sculpturing. These
rise from one to two thousand feet above the glaciers, which are them-
selves several thousand feet in depth.
"Wherever lava flows occurred in the building of the mountain,
strata formed; and such stratification is clearly seen at intervals on the
sides of the cliffs just mentioned. Its incline, of course, is that of the
former surface. The strata point upward — not toward the summit
which we see, but far above it. For this reason the geologists who have
examined the aretes most closely are agreed that the peak has lost nearly
two thousand feet of its height. It blew its own head off! Such ex-
plosive eruptions are among the worst vices of volcanoes. Every visitor
to Naples remembers how plainly the landscape north of Vesuvius
tells of a prehistoric decapitation, which left only a low, broad platform,
on the south rim of which the little Vesuvius that many of us have
climbed was formed by later eruptions.
"Like Vesuvius, too, Rainier-Tacoma has built upon the plateau
left when it lost its head. South Peak, or Peak Success, and Liberty
Cap, the northern elevation, seen from Seattle and Tacoma, are nearly
three miles apart on the west side of the broad summit. These are parts
of the rim of the old crater. East of the line uniting them, and about
two miles from each, the volcano built up an elevation now known
as Crater Peak, comprising two small adjacent craters. These burnt-
out craters are now filled with snow, and where their rims touch, a big
snow-hill rises — the strange creature of eddying winds that sweep
up through the great flume cut by volcanic explosion and glacial action
in the west side of the peak.
"This mound of snow is the present actual top. Believing it the
highest point in the United States south of Alaska, a party of climbers,
in 1894, named it 'Columbia's Crest.' This was long thought to be the
mountain's rightful distinction, for different computations by experts
gave various elevations ranging as high as 14,529 feet. Even upon a
government map published as late as 1907 the height is stated as 14,526
feet. In view of this variety of expert opinion, the flattering name,
not unnaturally, has stuck, in spite of the fact that the government
geographers have now adopted, for the Dictionary of Altitudes, the
height found by the United States Geological Survey in 1902, 14,363
feet. That decision leaves the honor of being the loftiest peak between
Alaska and Mexico to Mt. Whitney in the California Sierra (14,502 feet).
This, however, will not lessen the pride of the Northwest in its great
peak. A few feet of height signify nothing. No California mountain
masked behind the Sierra can vie in majesty with the lonely pile that
rises in stately grandeur from the shores of Puget Sound." — Williams:
"The Mountain that Was 'God.' " Chap. III.
THE CITIZENS' ROAD. 319
B.
THE "CITIZENS' ROAD," LATER THE "MILITARY ROAD."
The problem of roads was very early attacked by the handful of
whites in northern Oregon. The pioneers in that part of the territory
either came by ship from California or the Columbia, and entering the
Straits of Fuca, sailed up to Steilacoom and Olympia, the first villages
established on Puget Sound; or they came from the Willamette Valley
by boat down the Columbia- to the Cowlitz, up the latter stream to the
head of navigation, and thence overland to the Sound settlements.
By either route the trip was long and costly; and few homeseekers,
after once reaching the Willamette, had money or courage left for it.
Thus arose the demand not only for roads connecting the widely scattered
and slow-growing settlements one with another, but also for a highway
across the Cascade Range to old Fort Walla Walla, the Hudson's Bay
post near the junction of the Columbia and the Snake, — a road that
should encourage "emigrants," as the prospective citizens were pop-
ularly called, to come directly to the Sound, without going first to the
Willamette and lower Columbia.
Several years prior to 1853, the ambitious settlers had begun a road
over the mountains, but actual construction had not proceeded far.
The records kept by the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Nisqually,
with almost every number of the first newspaper north of the Columbia
(The Columbian, established at Olympia in September, 1852), show
the zeal of the pioneers. Thus as early as August 6, 1850, the "Journal
of Occurrences" at the Fort has the following entry: "A party of men
here to-day on their way to cut a road across the mountains to Wally
Wally, the expenses incurred [to be] paid by a subscription among the
settlers. Mr. Robertson, the deserter from Ft. Victoria, was among
the working party."
That spectacle, I take it, can hardly be duplicated among the his-
torical pictures of any other people since Gideon's lilliputian array
against the hosts of Midian. The squad of settlers, supplemented by one
"deserter from Ft. Victoria," going out to battle with the giants of the
northwestern forest, the canyons of the White and Greenwater, and
the wooded heights of the Cascades, in faith that the supply bill will
be paid by their struggling neighbors, is characteristically American.
To a foreign student of the new West, indeed, it might well have seemed
an illustration of "American humor." But to the willing actors, there
was no humor in their confident undertaking. Unfortunately, mountain
highways are not built on faith; and as more substantial support could
320 APPENDIX.
not be had from the infant community, it was three years before the
"road to Wally Wally" advanced much beyond the Puyallup.
Late in 1852, shortly before the passage of the act creating the Ter-
ritory of Washington, Delegate Lane of Oregon, secured an appro-
priation of $20,000 from Congress for the long-desired highway across
the Cascades. Undoubtedly there was real American humor in the size
of this appropriation for so vast an enterprise, — the kind of humor
that Congressional pork-barrel distributions so often illustrate; but
with the strict constructionists opposing every internal improvement,
sturdy "Joe" Lane had a six-months' fight for even this niggardly grant,
until the Democrats discovered a way to sidestep their own constitu-
tional theory, and, assuming that it was required by the Army, voted
the money for a "military road." Although President Fillmore signed
the bill in January, 1853, word reached the Sound that the money
would not be available that year. The Columbian of April 23, therefore,
urged the settlers, in view of the large westward migration expected
during the coming summer, to begin work themselves within thirty
days. On May 7, that newspaper published a call for a meeting two
weeks later. The meeting was held, and two committees were appointed,
one to select the route, the other to provide the outfit. Those present
subscribed $128.00.
The Columbian of June 11 contains a letter from the newly appointed
Governor, Major Isaac I. Stevens, announcing that the $20,000 ap-
propriated had been placed in his hands, with authority to build the road,
and saying: "This labor, together with the exploration of the Cascade
Range, has been entrusted to a vigorous and energetic officer, Capt.
McClellan, who served with gallantry in Mexico, and is distinguished
for his great professional ability." Governor Stevens expresses the hope
that the road will be built this year, to accommodate the incoming
homeseekers.
More than a month passed with no word from or of Captain McClel-
lan, and the settlers determined to wait no longer. About $1,200 was
collected in money, besides many contributions of supplies. On July
10, two parties of men who had agreed to give their labor took the field.
One composed of Whitefield Kirtley, Nelson Sargent and others, crossed
the mountains, to begin at the Yakima and work westwardly; the other,
led by Edward Jay Allen, a young engineer who had come to the coast
the year before, began by improving the six miles of "trail road" built
across the Puyallup in 1850, and then pushed a clearing through the for-
est along the White and Greenwater, to the foot of the range. Winthrop
fell in with their first work near the Puyallup, and in his Journal for
August 25 and 26 good-naturedly damns their achievement with faint
praise: "The Indian trail is very bad, blocked with logs everywhere.
VERY KNOBBY CORDUROY. 321
The road is bad, but better. It is very pleasant to see white men's
handiwork."
Allen, though only twenty-two, was the real head of the road-mak-
ers. Evans calls him "engineer, contractor and soul of the enterprise."
So vigorously was the work prosecuted under his direction that early
in August he was able to write to a friend that besides clearing out the
old road, they had located their route up the White, so as to avoid the
worst hills, and that he had reports of rapid progress of Kirtley's party
across the Cascades. "The Indians," he adds, "say that Captain McClel-
lan, who is now east of the mountains, is coming through on this route."
The east-side party built, before the end of summer, what was called
optimistically a road, leading up the Naches River to its source in the
Pass. Winthrop's account shows that it was no boulevard: "My friends
the woodsmen had constructed an elaborate inclined plane of very
knobby corduroy down the steepest slope. Klale turned up his nose
at it. Oxen might clumsily toil up such a road as this, but quick-footed
ponies, descending and carrying light loads of a wild Indian and an
untamed blanketeer, chose rather to whisk along the aboriginal paths."
West of the Cascades , the other party met greater difficulties. In
the heavier forest along the upper White and on the Greenwater, lit-
tle more was done that summer than to cut a way to the foot of the
steep ridge leading up to the Pass. Here Winthrop found Allen and his
company of prime fellows gathered about their riverside camp-fire
on the evening of August 26. And here he was their guest for the night,
made note of their competency for the job in hand, shared their leader's
blanket and roof of stars, partook of his enthusiasm for the new Com-
monwealth and his breakfast of salt pork, and then, names still un-
known, bade his hosts farewell, and attacked the arete that brought
him to the summit, "La Tete," and the noble view of Tacoma which
inspired one of the best pieces of descriptive writing in American
literature.
Shortly after Winthrop passed, word came to the road camp that
the expected immigration had been diverted to the Willamette. The
fund was exhausted and their supplies had run low. Expecting that
the Congressional appropriation would be available in another year, the
road-makers returned to the Sound, only to learn later that they had
been misinformed, and that a large immigrant caravan was coming up
the Naches. Some of them hastened back to the mountains. There
they found thirty-six wagons slowly toiling up the east slope, where the
Naches had been crossed eighty-six times before reaching the Pass, and
were able to render needed aid in getting them down the still steeper
west side. A route had to be selected and a road made as the party
advanced. Their way is still traceable; indeed, it is the only practicable
322 APPENDIX.
wagon route from the summit down to the Greenwater. Two branches
of that stream flow out of the Pass to a junction near Bear Prairie. Be-
tween their deep canyons a long ridge projects to the west, and down
its sharp chine the wayfarer must clutch and slide. This was the route
of both "Siwash Hooihut" and "Boston Hooihut," — of Indian trail
and white man's road. One may easily discover the tracks worn in the
rocks, the bark torn from aged trees, the remains of stout plugs driven
into giant firs to aid in snubbing the wagons down grades of twenty
to thirty per cent.
"The eastern slope," says Judge Evans, "presented no great diffi-
culties, but through the mountains a trail had been blazed, nothing
more. Over huge logs, bridges of small poles had been constructed,
passable for horses, but obstructions really to wagons. * * * ^q
call it a road was an abuse of language; but over it and by it those immi-
grants of 1853 traveled to Puget Sound. With axe in hand, they and the
road-builders, led by Allen, hewed their way through a mountain gorge.
Some days they accomplished three miles; but they came through with
their wagons, over a road built as they marched."*
James Longmire, one of the best known of the immigrants, left an
account of their overland trip, in which he describes this descent: "One
end of a rope was fastened to the axles of the wagons, the other thrown
around a tree and held by our men. Thus, one by one, the wagons
were lowered gradually a distance of 300 yards, when the ropes were
loosened, and the wagons drawn a quarter of a mile farther with locked
wheels. All the wagons were lowered safely save one, which was crushed
by the breaking of the rope. * * * We made the road as we went
along. We crossed the Greenwater sixteen times and the White six
times." t
In "his interesting reminiscences printed on a later page. Colonel
Allen tells of his completion of this road during the next summer, made
possible by the $15,000 which was left of the appropriation made by
Congress. His account leaves it clear that Captain McClellan, to whom
had been entrusted the expenditure of that fund in road-making during
the summer of 1853, but whose delay in reaching the Columbia and his
masterly inactivity thereafter were only too prophetic of his career in
the Civil War, accomplished nothing that deserves commemoration
by the people of Washington. This is the testimony of Colonel Allen,
of Governor Stevens, whose confidence in his friend was sadly shattered,
of Gen. Hazard Stevens, his father's biographer, and even of General
Hodges, whose valuable recollections, following this article, make what
apologies they may for his superior officer's failures. It is evident from
* History of the Northu'est, I.,3Jfl-2.
iTransactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association for 190k, SJflf.
McCLELLAN'S FAILURE. 323
the testimony of both General Hodges and Colonel Allen that McClellan
built no road; and it is equally well established that he traversed no
passes. Instead of obtaining the data which he was sent here to get,
and which other officers later obtained without serious difficulty under
the more trying conditions of winter, Captain McClellan merely ap-
proached the Naches and Snoqualmie Passes on the east side, and then,
taking the word of Indians, who of course wanted no white men on
their trails, reported to Governor Stevens that the Cascades offered no
practicable pass for a railway because of the great depth of snow. It
is a sufficient commentary on his methods that three trans-continental
railways now cross the Cascades north of the Naches, and a fourth is
likely soon to be built over that Pass.
Captain McClellan's disappointing record in the Territory has been
made the subject of honors quite misplaced. The last Washington Legis-
lature, acting on the tradition that he built the "Military Road," and in-
spired by enthusiasm for a great reputation, named one of its proposed
mountain roads "McClellan Pass Highway." Never was a name more a
misnomer. The route of this road lies through Bear Gap, a pass which
McClellan never saw. He failed the settlers in their hour of need, and
it is a mistake to honor him for building the Naches road, in which
he had no active part. On the other hand, the Legislature, unfortun-
ately, rejected a proposal to name the road in question "Pioneer High-
way," in honor of the men who constructed the only wagon road as
yet built across the Cascades in this State.
Although the road over the Naches Pass was used by many immi-
grants during the years immediately succeeding its construction, on the
whole it proved of far less value to the Territory than its projectors
expected. This was mainly due to the introduction of steamboats on
the Columbia, making it easier for homeseekers to reach the Sound
via that route through the Cascades.
In building the "Citizens' Road," the settlers contributed more
than $6,600 in money, supplies and labor. Governor Stevens urgently
recommended that Congress repay this sum, but his request was ignored.
C.
GENERAL HODGES AND WINTHROP.
Brigadier General Henry C. Hodges, U. S. A., retired, now living
in Buffalo, New York, has favored me with an interesting letter of
reminiscences of Winthrop's visit to the Northwest, of the McClellan
expedition, and of George Gibbs, the famous enthnologist and linguist.
324 APPENDIX.
General Hodges takes issue with those historians who have charged
McClellan with undue delay in starting upon his survey of the Cascade
passes. But he makes it plain that McClellan did not cross the Cas-
cades, and did not reach or explore any pass south of the Naches. Thus
he exposes the historical inaccuracy of the Washington Legislature
in naming a road through a pass which McClellan never saw the 'McClel-
lan Pass Highway.' General Hodges writes:
"My acquaintance with Theodore Winthrop began in April of 1853,
at Fort Vancouver, now Vancouver Barracks, where he was my guest.
His arrival there was about the time Captain Wallen's company of the
4th Infantry, to which I belonged, was preparing to go to Fort Dalles,
Oregon, to reinforce the garrison of that Post, as it was thought by
Major Alvord, commanding, that Indian conditions were not satis-
factory. At the same time. Captain T. L. Brent, Depot Quartermaster,
was preparing to cross the country to Salt Lake City, under orders
from the Quartermaster General of the Army. An arrangement was
made by which Mr. Winthrop was to join Captain Brent's party, en
route to the East. Captains Wallen and Brent, with their commands,
left Fort Vancouver on the same boat. There was no steamboat above
the Cascades, and we did not arrive at The Dalles until late the sixth
day. At Fort Dalles my company went on duty, and Captain Brent
started for Salt Lake, while Mr. Winthrop was quarantined in the quar-
ters of Major Alvord with smallpox. As he had occupied the same
tent with the three officers on the trip, there was some apprehension
the disease might spread. It did not, though; and Winthrop recovered
in due course, but missed his trip across the Plains with Captain Brent.
He went back to Portland, when able to travel.
"Not long after he left Fort Dalles for Portland, my company was
sent back to Fort Vancouver. Here I was detailed on Captain McClel-
lan's survey as Quartermaster and Commissary. The party left Fort
Vancouver in July, going north and east, via Yakolht Prairie, and fol-
lowing an Indian trail that led east of north to the pass in the Cascades
by which we crossed the Range. This is doubtless the route you
took up the Lewis River. We built no road, but merely cleared
the trail, which was much obstructed by fallen timber. We camped on
top of the Cascades for two days at a place called 'Chequoss,' between
Mts. St. Helens and Adams. We then descended into the valley, reach-
ing a river called the 'Topinich.' Then to the Atanum, where Kamia-
kan, Scloom, and Oyehy lived, chiefs of the Yakima nation.* On this
stream was a Roman Catholic mission house in charge of Father Pan-
dozy. Here I bought cattle from Schloom, and jerked the meat. These
Yakima Indians had superb horses. It was said these were the result of
♦Winthrop's "Atlnam," "Kamaiakan." "Skloo" and "Owhhigh."
THE McCLELLAN SURVEY. 325
mating stallions stolen from the emigrants with the tribes own mares,
which were of a fine quality. From the Atanum we went to the Sim-
coe, the Nachess and Wenass. Here it was determined to reduce the
party. I was sent to Fort Steilacoom, Lieut. Mowry to Fort Dalles, etc.
I went back to the Nachess, and followed that river up to a point where
the newly constructed 'emigrant road' left the river abruptly and began
the ascent. I camped on the summit in the midst of fine and abundant
grass. Mt. Tacoma was in full sight. Two days after, I camped in a
place where there was no grass, and had to tie up my animals. As I
was wTiting up my day's work, Winthrop and his guide rode into my
camp, en route to the Dalles. As he had to push on rapidly to his camp-
ing place, we had time to say little. I did not see him again until De-
cember, 1856. I proceeded to Fort Steilacoom, filled up my 'larder,'
and started back to join Captain McClellan, on the upper Yakima.
When Lieut. MowTy and I rejoined the party, all then went on north
looking into the passes. We crossed the Columbia at old Fort Colville,
went south over the Spokan Plains, crossed the Snake at the mouth of
the Palouse, went up the Touchet to Whitman's Mission, thence to
what is now known as Wailatpu and down the left bank of the Colum-
bia to Fort Dalles, and by steamer to Fort Vancouver. Thus ended a
very interesting work; one I have never forgotten. I am the only officer
connected with it now living.
"I knew George Gibbs well, but do not believe that he and Win-
throp ever met. Gibbs and I occupied the same tent on the survey
expedition and became intimate. After the disbanding of the survey,
he had a tract of land near Ft. Steilacoom, where he built a log house
and lived rather the life of a hermit. It was there perhaps he compiled
his vocabularies of the Indian languages, the Chinook jargon included.
In this work he was an enthusiast and great worker, going to the bot-
tom of anything of that sort he undertook, and was an authority. He
was a brother of General Alfred Gibbs of the Army and classmate of
General McClellan.
"The vocabulary of the Chinook at the back of 'Canoe and Saddle'
shows much industry by Mr. Winthrop. I imagine he obtained it by
questioning the Hudson's Bay Company people, old settlers and the
Indians. It is not so accurate as Gibbs's, however, since Winthrop had
not the time or leisure to give to it. I am not surprised that the Navy
Department named one of it's vessels in 1861 'Tahoma.' In early days
there were ships of our Navy in Puget Sound, and it is likely the officers
knew the name which the Indians gave to Mr. Rainier, and when oppor-
tunity offered that name was selected. A fine name, too! You may
remember one of our vessels was called the 'Monadnock,' from the
mountain of that name in New Hampshire.
326 APPENDIX.
"I always thought Captain McClellan an able man and a zealous
officer. I am of the opinion, too, that Gov. Stevens and he did not
think alike on many points.
"In my own mind I do not believe Captain McClellan delayed
getting to Ft. Vancouver. If I am not mistaken, he was in Texas when
ordered on the survey. For the delay at Fort Vancouver in getting
ready, he was in no way responsible. We had a large pack train, and
the only pack saddles we could purchase were poor, breaking easily
and frequently. Recourse was had to some old dragoon saddles, and
finally we made some, at Yakolht Prairie, a short march from the Fort.
This delayed the start. If any one was responsible, I am the man,
for I was the Quartermaster. But I was not to blame, and don't think
I was ever considered to be dilatory. I have always thought the settlers
deserved great praise for cutting the road through the Nachess Pass,
and it is a hardship that they never were paid for their work.
"Winthrop's trip in Washington Territory was due to a great fond-
ness for adventure and a desire to find out the condition of our Indians.
I wish great success to your new edition of his book. As to the 'Macas-
sar,' there was none in my stores. It may have been in some of the stores
Captain McClellan had to give the Indians. But this is all surmise.
I know nothing of it. The Hudson's Bay Company carried on its busi-
ness at Vancouver to the close, or nearly so, of 1860. Soon after General
Harney assumed command of the Department of Oregon, he began to
annoy the officials of the Company, which gradually removed its stores
to Victoria. When this was done the Fort was abandoned by the Com-
pany. In my early days at Vancouver, there was the most cordial
and pleasant intercourse between the officials of the Company and
the garrison."
COLONEL E. JAY ALLEN'S REMINISCENCES.
Colonel Edward Jay Allen, who was the young engineer and con-
tractor at the head of the road builders in whose camp on the Green-
water Winthrop spent the night of August 26, 1853, is now a highly
respected citizen of Pittsburg, Pa. His active part in public affairs
in the Territory of Washington during the years 1852 to 1855 make
his recollections of Winthrop and the " Citizens' Road " of especial
interest and value:
FRONTIER COURTESIES. 327
"My acquaintance with Winthrop was limited to one delightful
night in the Nahchess Pass, but as I was afterwards secretary to General
(then Captain) McClellan, and as McClellan, George Gibbs and I were
together in the same old shack in Olympia for several months, my
recollections may have some interest.
"A chapter in 'Canoe and Saddle' tells of Winthrop's visit to my
camp in the Nahchess Pass. His description of the camp is very good,
and his description of the scenery of the Pass is worthy of the highest
praise. He bunched us all together as a whole; detail might have im-
paired the rare literary flavor. I personally was red shirted, and a
pair of buckskins about completed my mountain wardrobe. While
I was the possessor of an ill-earned degree, I was negligible as a wood-
chopper; and save for a high appreciation of my grand environment,
I did not fit into the scene. The fine literary sense of Winthrop staged
the camp as a whole, and forgave my own lack of woodcraft, or over-
looked it.
"A nearly all-night talk under the same blanket developed some
tastes in common, and made me cognizant of his subtle companionship
with nature, though I did not suspect his powers of expression. It
was not etiquette, in those days, to ask a man's name when not volun-
tarily given. Indeed, that it was Smith in one locality was no guaranty
that it had not been Jones in another. So I never knew until years
afterward, when I read the chapter in 'Canoe and Saddle,' who had
been my guest of a night. When I went up to New Haven to see my
youngest boy matriculated at Yale, I did not want to go to his apart-
ments before going to the cemetery where Winthrop lies buried.
"At the time of my meeting with Winthrop, the Indians were in
that unrest which some two years later resulted in the Indian war and
the descent of the Klickitats and Yakimas upon the settlements. For
anyone in such a time to be traveling alone seemed strange, and some
of my men, with a distrust not unreasonable, thought we should prevent
his going farther. They had a vague suspicion, which was in the minds
of the early settlers, that the Hudson's Bay Company's people held
relations with the Indians that were inimical to the Americans. Not
all the kind consideration of Dr. Tolmie, at Ft. Nisqually, had removed
this suspicion. Regretfully I accompanied Winthrop on the trail next
morning, feeling that I was losing a link that temporarily connected
me with a fuller civilization. Winthrop's name was unknown then,
and would not have enlightened me had I known it, but there was a
charm in his personality that was sufficient. One does not lose the joy
of the night because he cannot name the stars.
"You say: 'One personage in "Canoe and Saddle," Capt. Geo. B.
McClellan, will, of course, always be a subject of debate.'
328 APPENDIX.
"I had a certain intimacy with Capt. (by brevet I believe) McClel-
lan, arising from my acting as his secretary for some months, and the
intimacy that would come from occupying the same cabin in Olympia.
In the fall of '53, the district was about to poll its first vote. It was
overwhelmingly Democratic. Some enthusiastic friends set up a Whig
ticket on which I was one of the two candidates for the Territorial
Senate. Capt. McClellan told me that he had never voted. If he was
anything, he said he was a Democrat, but he was going to vote for me.
I am compelled to say I do not think McClellan's survey of the Cas-
cades for a railway route was very thorough. When after one sum-
mer of volunteer work by the citizens endeavoring to make a passable
road through the Nahchess Pass, Capt. McClellan gave me the contract
to expend what remained of the $20,000 appropriated by Congress for
that purpose, he suggested that he could make an engineer's examination
of the Pass. I replied that such an examination would exhaust the whole
amount, and then would only demonstrate that it would require at least
$500,000 to construct what would be but a faint approach to a 'Military
Road.' Hence that idea was abandoned.
"I found that $5,000 of that amount had been expended in his gen-
eral examination of the Cascade Range, leaving but $15,000.
"Lieut. Arnold, of what was then called the Dragoons, was de-
tailed to go over the route with me. I think the amount of $15,000 and
a passable road for about 135 miles did not seem to him to have any
close connection with each other. I really forget whether McClellan
was of the party, but think not at that time. He however, came later,
when we had reached a seeming 'impasse,' where the open, if rough. Pass
ended, as all Cascade passes do, in an abrupt mountain closing up the
gap. He said I had done well with what I had expended, but, of course,
I could do nothing to overcome this obstacle. To which, in the heat of
youth, and with some ideas of what would be deemed possible by an
emigrant that would seem besotted ignorance to an engineer, I replied:
'I will make up that almost perpendicular 1,200 feet not only a road that
an emigrant can get down, but one that six yoke of cattle can haul
1,000 lbs. up.' To which he gave a kindly but incredulous shrug of the
shoulders. My difficulty, of course, was not an engineering one, but
simply a matter of finances. I had but a few thousand dollars left.
When he came back later, at my request, we had constructed a road up
which I hauled, with four oxen, 1,500 lbs. It was buttressed up an aver-
age of fifteen feet, and in some places forty feet, with the huge trees
that covered the mountain-side, and was stayed down the mountain,
from tree to tree, with thousands of braces. It was impossible, but we
were ignorant, and not fully conscious of this impossibility; and so we
did it. McClellan stood on the highest point of the buttress and said:
"IMPOSSIBLE, BUT WE DID IT." 329
'Young man, do you know what you have done here? Under the con-
ditions, Napoleon's passage of the Simplon was an engineering feat
no greater than this.'
"I wonder how much of that road exists to-day. It did not seem
to me very extraordinary then, but I was only twenty-two. I am now
in my eighty-fourth year, and have learned that youth and its inability
to recognize obstacles are great factors to success. Some large measure
of McClellan's opinion of our work in the Nahchess Pass went into his
report. I remember looking over a map of his reconnaissance of the
Cascades, and noticed a camp designated 'Hellis-del-ight.' I could not
recognize any Indian dialect in this nomenclature, but McClellan ex-
plained that the camp was an unusually unpleasant one, and that the
name was a disguise for 'Hell's Delight.' I presume that map is on
record in the War Department. It is a testimonial at least to McClel-
lan's sense of humor.
"Concerning the name of our mountain: 'Tahoma,' undoubtedly!
If you are conversant with the Indian pronunciation, you will recognize
that if an Indian heard for the first time the English 'Tacoma,' he would
render it, with his guttural, 'T'homa.'
"I knew George Gibbs well. He was a likeable man and a learned
student. I was with him while he was compiling his Chinook jargon
dictionary. He made it quite complete, but it was less expressive than
would have been one gotten together by illiterate Michael Simmons
of Tumwater. With some one to write out the difficult Indian pro-
nunciations, Simmons would have given the jargon just as it was actu-
ally used. The scholarly Gibbs, I think, could not refrain from treating
it as if it had tense, whereas it had none, and the meaning of a word
was decided by emphasis. This is very apparent in the word 'si-ah,' for
example. This negligently uttered has a different meaning from the
emphatic pronunciation of the word, with the last syllable prolonged.
Then, too, the distinct French, Spanish and English words in the jar-
gon would, in scholarly hands, insist on a meaning closely allied to their
originals; whereas with the greater vulgarism of an illiterate people,
having no written records, the root meanings 'of the best usage' became
greatly corrupted. Gibbs did not sufficiently consider this. The men
like Mike Simmons, who were innocent of all knowledge of tenses and
cases, and entirely untrammeled, and who used Chinook as a necessity
of their daily life, gave it as the Indian rendered it. For my coming
volume, 'The Oregon Trail,' I have in manuscript perhaps the fullest
vocabulary of the jargon yet offered. It is compiled from all the vocab-
ularies to which I could get access, together with the pronunciations as I
knew them. It is likely that in different localities these pronunciations
differed slightly, though not anywhere to my knowledge in what now
330 APPENDIX.
constitutes Washington, — the territory which in 1852, at the Conven-
tion of Monticello, we petitioned Congress to call 'Columbia.'
"A Chinook vocabulary was published by the Columbian, edited by
McElroy and Wiley, the earliest paper, I believe, issued north of the
Columbia.* Others were published later. There were several sources
from which Winthrop might have secured his vocabulary. Certainly
he could have got it at Fort Vancouver. As to the origin of 'Tacoma,' I
have no information, but if Gibbs's Indian vocabularies give the word,
he must be regarded as the best authority.
"I was in Washington Territory from 1852 to 1855. During the
War of the Rebellion, I was on the staffs of Generals Fremont and Sigel,
and afterwards recruited and commanded the 155th Pennsylvania
Volunteers.
"At the time the road through the Nahchess Pass was being built
by citizens of the new Territory, it seemed of great moment. There
was no entrance by land to the Puget Sound country. Immigrants
came to Portland, and from there, in their wagons, could make their
way anywhere south of the Columbia River. But to reach the Sound
they had to go by boat to the mouth of the Cowlitz River, take their
wagons apart, and have them and their contents taken up that stream
in Indian canoes; then, there being no road, drive their cattle up the
rough trail over the hills, till they came to the prairies, and there putting
their wagons together, strike across to 'Whulge.' All this required
money, which few of them had, and involved more adventure, of which
they had all had too much already. Hence few came. But by inter-
cepting the overland trail near Walla Walla and opening up the Nahchess
Pass, a direct road was offered to the Sound. This seemed then of greater
importance than the dream of a railroad, which, admitting its possibility,
the most sanguine deemed might be built in ten years after its begin-
ning. For the highway a ferry would be needed over the Columbia at
Fort Walla Walla. The records of the first Legislative session at Olympia
will show a charter granted to E. J. Allen and Shorly Ensign for such
a ferry, and a scow was with great difficulty built for that purpose. It
is difficult now to conceive how valuable such an inlet would have been
♦The first number of The Columbian was issued on September 11, 1852,
and was printed on an ancient Ramage press that had started nearly every
other printing establishment on the coast. "The governors of Mexico had
used it to print their proclamations before 1S34, when it was taken to Mon-
terey, where for a time it served a similar purpose. In 1846 it went to San
Francisco, where the Star and afterwards the first issues of the Alta California
were printed on it. Finally it moved on up the coast to Portland, where it
served to get out the earlier issues of the Oregonian, and from there the "Mary
Taylor" brought it to Olympia. It was subsequently used by the pub-
Ushers of several other newspapers in the Territory, and finally it found a per-
manent resting place among the most valued relics in the museum of the
State University." — Snowden: History oj Washington, III.. 148.
GLACIER NAMES. 331
to Washington, which had none at all. But it seemed a tangible thing
to me, and into the project I threw the enthusiasm and energy of youth."
E.
•WINTHROP GLACIER" AND OTHER LANDMARK NAMES.
The name of Winthrop Glacier is now happily established by force
of northwestern sentiment, after an attempt at Washington, D. C,
to displace it. It illustrates what I submit is the correct and logical
rule to be adopted in naming our great unnamed landmarks.
The east slope of the mountain's broad dome is covered by a vast
neve, which, in its descent, divides upon the wedge known as "Steam-
boat Prow" into two famous glaciers. One of these feeds the main or
east branch of White River, and has long been named by general north-
western usage "White River Glacier," or more briefly, "White Glacier."
This is the largest glacier in the United States, outside of Alaska; it has
an ice area of about fifteen square miles. Several other names ("Blaine
Glacier," etc.) have been proposed for it, but the original name has stuck.
The other glacier, which feeds the west branch of the White, was long
ago named "Winthrop Glacier," in honor of the brilliant writer who
first led his countrymen to appreciate their noblest mountain.
No other names for these glaciers have ever been current am.ong
those who visit the Rainier National Park. But to make room for the
name of S. F. Emmons, an employee of the Geological Survey who climbed
the mountain shortly after Van Trump and Stevens had shown the
way, the Geographic Board several years ago transferred the name
"White Glacier" to the smaller ice-stream, and dropped "Winthrop
Glacier" from the Government's maps. A united protest, however,
from those who know the mountain best has secured the restoration of
Winthrop's name. It will doubtless remain undisturbed hereafter.
But the Board still insists upon "Emmons Glacier." Professor Emmons
is a reputable geologist, but he has rendered no service in connection
with this peak that is remembered by those who know and visit it;
and the attempt to rename its greatest glacier in his honor, at the ex-
pense of established neighborhood usage, can only result in the con-
fusion of tourists and the irreverent query: "Who is Emmons, and why
'Emmons Glacier'? " Further, this attempt to fasten his name on
White Glacier violates the Board's own rule against naming landmarks
after the living.
332 APPENDIX.
The Geographic Board recently refused to accept the name "For-
syth Glacier," given to the north-side glacier on Mt. St. Helens by the
Mazama Mountain Club and the Washington Legislature to commemo-
rate the finest bit of heroism in the annals of American mountaineering,
— the saving of a human life on that mountain in 1908 by a party of
the Mazamas, led by Mr. Charles E. Forsyth of Castle Rock, Wash., at
the cost of almost incredible hardship and peril to the rescuers. This
was such a public service as ought particularly to be honored in the St.
Helens nomenclature. The reason given for refusing the name proposed
by the Mazama Club and the Legislature was that "the Board dis-
likes to adopt the names of persons still living." A few months later,
the Board placed the names of four "persons still living" on glaciers in
the Rainier National Park! The only one of these persons recognized
by the Northwest as in any way entitled to such honor is Mr. John B.
Flett, the Tacoma botanist, whose work in classifying the remarkable
flora of the mountain "parks" is very properly commemorated in naming
a hitherto unnamed glacier for him. This was done in response to a
local request.
There is a better rule, as geographers in general will no doubt agree,
than that which the Geographic Board proclaims, but violates. In
naming the great natural features of our country which do not already
bear significant Indian names, public service in connection with them
is first of all entitled to recognition. On every ground of patriotism
and public welfare it is important that such service be honored. This
can best be done on the spot where the service is rendered, and often
in the place-names of the district which has profited by it. Indeed,
such service is pretty sure to be recognized and commemorated by
neighborhood sentiment and local usage. The people of a state or
district are certainly entitled to be heard in the matter of their place
names. Important landmarks, of course, should not be burdened with
personal names at random; but the Geographic Board's assumption of
a right to ignore the reasonable request of responsible organizations,
or even of a state through its legislature, and to fix landmark names
arbitrarily, was no doubt not contemplated in its creation.
^xoKN to desk from NvHIcri tov^RROWl
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