no river probably on the globe, frequented as much, could tell of more disastrous accidents.
At the dalles you enter a barren region, where drift wood is brought into every encampment by the Indians, for which they gladly receive a piece of tobacco in return. In the absence of the savages, the tombs of the dead are sometimes shamefully pillaged by civilized Christian travellers, taking away the very boards that cover the dead bodies, and thus leave them the prey of vultures and crows.
Indians linger on the Columbia as long as a salmon can be caught. Unconscious of the approaching winter, they do not lay in sufficient stock of provisions, and till late in the fall they may be seen picking up the dead and dying fishes which float in great numbers on the surface. In the immediate neighborhood of a camp the air is infected with the scent of {236} salmon in a state of putrefaction; they are suspended on trees, or on scaffolds, and to this unwholesome and detestable food has the improvident Indian recourse, when the days of his long lent commence.
You can scarcely form an idea of the deplorable condition of the poor petty tribes, scattered along the banks of the Columbia, of which the numbers visibly diminish from year to year. Imagine their dwellings, a few poor huts, constructed of rush, bark, bushes, or of pine branches, sometimes covered with skins or rags—around these miserable habitations lie scattered in profusion the bones of animals, and the offal of fishes of every tribe, amidst accumulated filth of every description. In the interior, you find roots piled up in a corner, skins hanging from cross poles, and fish boiling over the fire, a few dying embers; an axe to cut wood being seldom found among them. The whole stock of kitchen utensils, drinking vessels, dishes,
