Their Teeth
Prematurely Decay, And In Frequent Instances Are Altogether Worn Away.
Their General Health, However, Seems To Be Good, The Only Disorder
We Have Remarked Being Tumors In Different Parts Of The Body."
The more difficult rapid was passed on the second day of November, the luggage
being sent down by land and the empty canoes taken down with great care.
The journal of that date says:
-
"The rapid we have just passed is the last of all the descents
of the Columbia. At this place the first tidewater commences,
and the river in consequence widens immediately below the rapid.
As we descended we reached, at the distance of one mile from the rapid,
a creek under a bluff on the left; at three miles is the lower
point of Strawberry Island. To this immediately succeed three
small islands covered with wood. In the meadow to the right,
at some distance from the hills, stands a perpendicular rock about
eight hundred feet high and four hundred yards around the base.
This we called Beacon Rock. Just below is an Indian
village of nine houses, situated between two small creeks.
At this village the river widens to nearly a mile in extent;
the low grounds become wider, and they as well as the mountains
on each side are covered with pine, spruce-pine, cottonwood,
a species of ash, and some alder. After being so long accustomed
to the dreary nakedness of the country above, the change is as
grateful to the eye as it is useful in supplying us with fuel.
Four miles from the village is a point of land on the right,
where the hills become lower, but are still thickly timbered.
The river is now about two miles wide, the current smooth and gentle,
and the effect of the tide has been sensible since leaving the rapid.
Six miles lower is a rock rising from the middle of the river to
the height of one hundred feet, and about eighty yards at its base.
We continued six miles further, and halted for the night
under a high projecting rock on the left side of the river,
opposite the point of a large meadow.
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