That Place They Designated
As "Tum-Tum," A Word That Signifies The Throbbing Of The Heart.
One Of These Indians Had A Sailor's Jacket, And Others Had A Blue
Blanket And A Scarlet Blanket.
These articles had found their way
up the river from white traders on the seashore.
On the twenty-first of October the explorers discovered a considerable
stream which appeared to rise in the southeast and empty into the Columbia
on the left. To this stream they gave the name of Lepage for Bastien Lepage,
one of the voyageurs accompanying the party. The watercourse, however,
is now known as John Day's River. John Day was a mighty hunter and
backwoodsman from Kentucky who went across the continent, six years later,
with a party bound for Astoria, on the Columbia. From the rapids below
the John Day River the Lewis and Clark party caught their first sight
of Mount Hood, a famous peak of the Cascade range of mountains, looming up
in the southwest, eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-five feet high.
Next day they passed the mouth of another river entering the Columbia from
the south and called by the Indians the Towahnahiooks, but known to modern
geography as the Des Chutes, one of the largest southern tributaries of
the Columbia. Five miles below the mouth of this stream the party camped.
Near them was a party of Indians engaged in drying and packing salmon.
Their method of doing this is thus described: -
"The manner of doing this is by first opening the fish and exposing
it to the sun on scaffolds. When it is sufficiently dried it
is pounded between two stones till it is pulverized, and is then
placed in a basket about two feet long and one in diameter,
neatly made of grass and rushes, and lined with the skin of a salmon
stretched and dried for the purpose. Here the fish are pressed
down as hard as possible, and the top is covered with fish-skins,
which are secured by cords through the holes of the basket.
These baskets are then placed in some dry situation,
the corded part upward, seven being usually placed as close
as they can be put together, and five on the top of these.
The whole is then wrapped up in mats, and made fast by cords,
over which mats are again thrown. Twelve of these baskets,
each of which contains from ninety to one hundred pounds,
form a stack, which is left exposed till it is sent to market.
The fish thus preserved keep sound and sweet for several years,
and great quantities, they inform us, are sent to the Indians
who live below the falls, whence it finds its way to the whites
who visit the mouth of the Columbia. We observe, both near
the lodges and on the rocks in the river, great numbers of stacks
of these pounded fish. Besides fish, these people supplied us
with filberts and berries, and we purchased a dog for supper;
but it was with much difficulty that we were able to buy wood
enough to cook it."
On the twenty-third the voyagers made the descent of the great
falls which had so long been an object of dread to them.
The whole height of the falls is thirty-seven feet,
eight inches, in a distance of twelve hundred yards.
A portage of four hundred and fifty yards was made around
the first fall, which is twenty feet high, and perpendicular.
By means of lines the canoes were let down the rapids below.
At the season of high water the falls become mere rapids up
which the salmon can pass.
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