Perhaps I shall scarcely be believed when I affirm that the salmon fish are quarrelsome. I witnessed with surprise the sharp and vengeful bites they mutually inflicted. These two lakes {131} form an immense tomb, for they there die in such numbers as frequently to infect the whole surrounding atmosphere.
In the absence of man, the grey and black bear, the wolf, the eagle, and vulture assemble in crowds, at this season of the year. They fish their prey on the banks of the river, and at the entrance of the lakes;—claws, teeth and bills serving them instead of hooks and darts. From thence, when the snow begins to fall, the bears, plump and fat, resume the road back to their dens in the thick of the forests, and hollows of rocks, there to pass the four sad wintry months in complete indolence, with no other pastime or occupation, than that of sucking their four paws.
If we may credit the Indians, each paw occupies the bear for one moon,(a month,) and the task accomplished, he turns on the other side, and begins to suck the second, and so on with the rest.
I will here mention, en passant, all the hunters and Indians remark that it is a very uncommon incident for a female bear to be killed when with young, and, notwithstanding, they are killed in all seasons of the year. Where they go—what becomes of them during the period {132} they carry their young—is a problem yet to be solved by our mountain hunters.
When emigration, accompanied by industry, the arts and sciences, shall have penetrated into the numberless valleys of the Rocky Mountains, the source of the Columbia will prove a very important point. The climate is
- [Footnote: *bia salmon. At times steamboat navigation is impeded by the immense number
of the fish.—Ed.]
