- tipped mountain, which they identified as that of St. Helen's, seen by Vancouver
from the mouth of the great river; and on the 22d October the Falls themselves were reached, where the Columbia, driven into a narrow channel some forty-five yards wide, with a huge black rock on one side and mighty hills on the other, whirls and boils in a terrific manner. The Indian guides voted this passage impassable for canoes; but, unwilling to undergo either the delay or fatigue necessary to transport the baggage by land, the leaders of the expedition determined to run the risk of shooting the Falls in their frail barks. To their own relief and the intense delight of the Indians the passage was successfully performed, and all dangers seemed now over, when the explorers discovered that the Falls were but the gateway, so to speak, of a yet more formidable impediment to navigation, known as the Great Narrows, where the river for three miles had literally to eat its way through a black rock varying in width from thirty to one hundred yards. Into this terrible passage, however, the canoes entered, and after a struggle, in which the skill and endurance of every member of the party were tried to the utmost, the smooth waters below were entered, and in the numerous seals disporting themselves on either side of the little vessels, the weary explorers read signs that the coast was now indeed near at hand.
The Columbia now gradually widened; on the first day of November the first appearance of tide water was noticed, and about the eighth of the same month the first view was obtained of the Pacific Ocean. A somewhat tempestuous trip of a few days followed this great era in American exploration; but the close of the month found the whole party in the mouth of the great Columbia. The American continent had been traversed for the first time by scientific observers, and the true extent of the American dominion could never again be doubted.
The first week in December was spent in beating about the Pacific coast in search of a suitable refuge in which to pass the winter, and on the 7th a small bay was selected, which was called Merryweather, after the Christian name of Captain Lewis. Here temporary tents were soon erected, and, in the long dreary months which followed, acquaintance was made with the Clatsops, Chinnooks, Killamucks, and other seaboard tribes of the great Columbia family, who, though differing in much, agreed in a remarkable fondness for artificial deformity, especially for the flattening of the forehead. Hence the designation of Flatheads applied to all the tribes dwelling west of the Rocky Mountains by their cousins of the East.
