Most Of The Party Sauntered Along The Shore; For The Ruins Were
Overgrown With Tall Nettles, Elder Bushes, And Prickly Rubus Vines
Through Which It Was Difficult To Force A Way.
In company with the
most eager of the relic-seekers and two Indians, I pushed back among
the dilapidated dwellings.
They were deserted some sixty or seventy
years before, and some of them were at least a hundred years old. So
said our guide, Kadachan, and his word was corroborated by the
venerable aspect of the ruins. Though the damp climate is
destructive, many of the house timbers were still in a good state of
preservation, particularly those hewn from the yellow cypress, or
cedar as it is called here. The magnitude of the ruins and the
excellence of the workmanship manifest in them was astonishing as
belonging to Indians. For example, the first dwelling we visited was
about forty feet square, with walls built of planks two feet wide and
six inches thick. The ridgepole of yellow cypress was two feet in
diameter, forty feet long, and as round and true as if it had been
turned in a lathe; and, though lying in the damp weeds, it was still
perfectly sound. The nibble marks of the stone adze were still
visible, though crusted over with scale lichens in most places. The
pillars that had supported the ridgepole were still standing in some
of the ruins. They were all, as far as I observed, carved into
life-size figures of men, women, and children, fishes, birds, and
various other animals, such as the beaver, wolf, or bear.
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