Toward
evening messengers were sent through the village to call everybody to
a meeting. Mr. Young delivered the usual missionary sermon and I also
was called on to say something. Then the chief arose and made an
eloquent reply, thanking us for our good words and for the hopes we
had inspired of obtaining a teacher for their children. In
particular, he said, he wanted to hear all we could tell him about
God.
This village was an offshoot of a larger one, ten miles to the north,
called Killisnoo. Under the prevailing patriarchal form of government
each tribe is divided into comparatively few families; and because of
quarrels, the chief of this branch moved his people to this little
bay, where the beach offered a good landing for canoes. A stream
which enters it yields abundance of salmon, while in the adjacent
woods and mountains berries, deer, and wild goats abound.
"Here," he said, "we enjoy peace and plenty; all we lack is a church
and a school, particularly a school for the children." His dwelling
so much with benevolent aspect on the children of the tribe showed, I
think, that he truly loved them and had a right intelligent insight
concerning their welfare.
