From Point Vancouver The River Turned Towards The Northeast, And
Became More Contracted And Rapid, With Occasional Islands And
Frequent Sand-Banks.
These islands are furnished with a number of
ponds, and at certain seasons abound with swans, geese, brandts,
cranes, gulls, plover, and other wild-fowl.
The shores, too, are
low and closely wooded, with such an undergrowth of vines and
rushes as to be almost impassable.
About thirty miles above Point Vancouver the mountains again
approach on both sides of the river, which is bordered by
stupendous precipices, covered with the fir and the white cedar,
and enlivened occasionally by beautiful cascades leaping from a
great height, and sending up wreaths of vapor. One of these
precipices, or cliffs, is curiously worn by time and weather so
as to have the appearance of a ruined fortress, with towers and
battlements, beetling high above the river, while two small
cascades, one hundred and fifty feet in height, pitch down from
the fissures of the rocks.
The turbulence and rapidity of the current continually augmenting
as they advanced, gave the voyagers intimation that they were
approaching the great obstructions of the river, and at length
they arrived at Strawberry Island, so called by Lewis and Clarke,
which lies at the foot of the first rapid. As this part of the
Columbia will be repeatedly mentioned in the course of this work,
being the scene of some of its incidents, we shall give a general
description of it in this place.
The falls or rapids of the Columbia are situated about one
hundred and eighty miles above the mouth of the river. The first
is a perpendicular cascade of twenty feet, after which there is a
swift descent for a mile, between islands of hard black rock, to
another pitch of eight feet divided by two rocks. About two and a
half miles below this the river expands into a wide basin,
seemingly dammed up by a perpendicular ridge of black rock. A
current, however, sets diagonally to the left of this rocky
barrier, where there is a chasm forty-five yards in width.
Through this the whole body of the river roars along, swelling
and whirling and boiling for some distance in the wildest
confusion. Through this tremendous channel the intrepid explorers
of the river, Lewis and Clarke, passed in their boats; the danger
being, not from the rocks, but from the great surges and
whirlpools.
At the distance of a mile and a half from the foot of this narrow
channel is a rapid, formed by two rocky islands; and two miles
beyond is a second great fall, over a ledge of rocks twenty feet
high, extending nearly from shore to shore. The river is again
compressed into a channel from fifty to a hundred feet wide, worn
through a rough bed of hard black rock, along which it boils and
roars with great fury for the distance of three miles. This is
called "The Long Narrows."
Here is the great fishing place of the Columbia. In the spring of
the year, when the water is high, the salmon ascend the river in
incredible numbers. As they pass through this narrow strait, the
Indians, standing on the rocks, or on the end of wooden stages
projecting from the banks, scoop them up with small nets
distended on hoops and attached to long handles, and cast them on
the shore.
They are then cured and packed in a peculiar manner. After having
been opened and disemboweled, they are exposed to the sun on
scaffolds erected on the river banks. When sufficiently dry, they
are pounded fine between two stones, pressed into the smallest
compass, and packed in baskets or bales of grass matting, about
two feet long and one in diameter, lined with the cured skin of a
salmon. The top is likewise covered with fish skins, secured by
cords passing through holes in the edge of the basket. Packages
are then made, each containing twelve of these bales, seven at
bottom, five at top, pressed close to each other, with the corded
side upward, wrapped in mats and corded. These are placed in dry
situations, and again covered with matting. Each of these
packages contains from ninety to a hundred pounds of dried fish,
which in this state will keep sound for several years.** (Lewis
and Clarke, vol. ii. p. 32.)
We have given this process at some length, as furnished by the
first explorers, because it marks a practiced ingenuity in
preparing articles of traffic for a market, seldom seen among our
aboriginals. For like reason we would make especial mention of
the village of Wishram, at the head of the Long Narrows, as being
a solitary instance of an aboriginal trading mart, or emporium.
Here the salmon caught in the neighboring rapids were
"warehoused," to await customers. Hither the tribes from the
mouth of the Columbia repaired with the fish of the sea-coast,
the roots, berries, and especially the wappatoo, gathered in the
lower parts of the river, together with goods and trinkets
obtained from the ships which casually visit the coast. Hither
also the tribes from the Rocky Mountains brought down horses,
bear-grass, quamash, and other commodities of the interior. The
merchant fishermen at the falls acted as middlemen or factors,
and passed the objects of traffic, as it were, cross-handed;
trading away part of the wares received from the mountain tribes
to those of the rivers and plains, and vice versa: their packages
of pounded salmon entered largely into the system of barter, and
being carried off in opposite directions, found their way to the
savage hunting camps far in the interior, and to the casual white
traders who touched upon the coast.
We have already noticed certain contrarieties of character
between the Indian tribes, produced by their diet and mode of
life; and nowhere are they more apparent than about the falls of
the Columbia. The Indians of this great fishing mart are
represented by the earliest explorers as sleeker and fatter, but
less hardy and active, than the tribes of the mountains and
prairies, who live by hunting, or of the upper parts of the
river, where fish is scanty, and the inhabitants must eke out
their subsistence by digging roots or chasing the deer.
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