Sacajawea Was Immediately Introduced To Her, In Hopes That,
Being A Snake Indian, They Might Understand Each Other; But Their Language
Was Not Sufficiently Intelligible To Permit Them To Converse Together.
The Indian Had A Gun With A Brass Barrel And Cock, Which He Appeared
To Value Highly."
The party had missed the Multnomah River in their way down,
although this is one of the three largest tributaries
of the Columbia, John Day's River and the Des Chutes being
the other two.
A group of islands near the mouth of the
Multnomah hides it from the view of the passing voyager.
The stream is now more generally known as the Willamette,
or Wallamet. The large city of Portland, Oregon, is built
on the river, about twelve miles from its junction with
the Columbia. The Indian tribes along the banks of the Multnomah,
or Willamette, subsisted largely on the wappatoo, an eatable root,
about the size of a hen's egg and closely resembling a potato.
This root is much sought after by the Indians and is eagerly
bought by tribes living in regions where it is not to be found.
The party made great use of the wappatoo after they
had learned how well it served in place of bread.
They bought here all that the Indians could spare and then
made their way down the river to an open prairie where they
camped for dinner and found many signs of elk and deer.
The journal says: -
"When we landed for dinner, a number of Indians from the last
village came down for the purpose, as we supposed, of paying us
a friendly visit, as they had put on their favorite dresses.
In addition to their usual covering they had scarlet and
blue blankets, sailors' jackets and trousers, shirts and hats.
They had all of them either war-axes, spears, and bows and arrows,
or muskets and pistols, with tin powder-flasks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 219 of 362
Words from 66235 to 66555
of 110166
