The Hills As We Passed
Were High, With Steep, Rocky Sides, With Pine And White Oak,
And An Undergrowth Of Shrubs Scattered Over Them."
Leaving the Friendly village, the party went on their way down the river.
Four miles below they came to a small and rapid river which they called
the Cataract River, but which is now known as the Klikitat.
The rapids
of the stream, according to the Indians, were so numerous that salmon could
not ascend it, and the Indians who lived along its banks subsisted on what
game they could kill with their bows and arrows and on the berries which,
in certain seasons, were plentiful. Again we notice the purchase of dogs;
this time only four were bought, and the party proceeded on their way.
That night, having travelled thirty-two miles, they camped on the right
bank of the river in what is now Skamania County, Washington. Three huts
were inhabited by a considerable number of Indians, of whom the journal
has this to say: -
"On our first arrival they seemed surprised, but not alarmed,
and we soon became intimate by means of smoking and our favorite
entertainment for the Indians, the violin. They gave us fruit,
roots, and root-bread, and we purchased from them three dogs.
The houses of these people are similar to those of the Indians above,
and their language is the same; their dress also, consisting of robes
or skins of wolves, deer, elk, and wildcat, is made nearly after
the same model; their hair is worn in plaits down each shoulder,
and round their neck is put a strip of some skin with the tail
of the animal hanging down over the breast; like the Indians above,
they are fond of otter-skins, and give a great price for them.
We here saw the skin of a mountain sheep, which they say lives among
the rocks in the mountains; the skin was covered with white hair;
the wool was long, thick, and coarse, with long coarse hair on the top
of the neck and on the back, resembling somewhat the bristles of a goat.
Immediately behind the village is a pond, in which were great numbers
of small swan."
The "mountain sheep" mentioned here are not the bighorn of which we have
heard something in the earlier part of this narrative, but a species of wild
goat found among the Cascade Mountains. The "wildcat" above referred to is
probably that variety of lynx known in Canada and most of the Northern States
and the Pacific as the loup-cervier, or vulgarly, the "lucifee."
On the last day of October, the next of the more difficult rapids
being near, Captain Clark went ahead to examine the "shoot,"
as the explorers called the place which we know as the chute.
In the thick wood that bordered the river he found an ancient
burial-place which he thus describes: -
"It consists of eight vaults made of pine or cedar boards
closely connected, about eight feet square and six in height;
the top covered with wide boards sloping a little, so as to convey
off the rain.
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