The Channel Continued
Thus Confined For The Space Of About Half A Mile, When The Rock Ceased.
We Passed A
Single Indian hut at the foot of it, where the river
again enlarges to the width of two hundred yards,
And at the distance
of a mile and a half stopped to view a very bad rapid; this is formed
by two rocky islands which divide the channel, the lower and larger
of which is in the middle of the river. The appearance of this place
was so unpromising that we unloaded all the most valuable articles,
such as guns, ammunition, our papers,. etc., and sent them by land,
with all the men that could not swim, to the extremity of these rapids.
We then descended with the canoes, two at a time; though the canoes
took in some water, we all went through safely; after which we made
two miles, stopped in a deep bend of the river toward the right,
and camped a little above a large village of twenty-one houses.
Here we landed; and as it was late before all the canoes joined us,
we were obliged to remain this evening, the difficulties of the navigation
having permitted us to make only six miles."
They were then among the Echeloots, a tribe of the Upper Chinooks,
now nearly extinct. The white men were much interested in the houses
of these people, which, their journal set forth, were "the
first wooden buildings seen since leaving the Illinois country."
This is the manner of their construction:
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