That night, having travelled thirty-two miles,
they camped on the right bank of the river in what is now Skamania
County, Washington. Three huts were inhabited by a considerable number
of Indians, of whom the journal has this to say:--
"On our first arrival they seemed surprised, but not alarmed, and we
soon became intimate by means of smoking and our favorite entertainment
for the Indians, the violin. They gave us fruit, roots, and root-bread,
and we purchased from them three dogs. The houses of these people are
similar to those of the Indians above, and their language is the same;
their dress also, consisting of robes or skins of wolves, deer, elk,
and wildcat, is made nearly after the same model; their hair is worn in
plaits down each shoulder, and round their neck is put a strip of some
skin with the tail of the animal hanging down over the breast; like the
Indians above, they are fond of otter-skins, and give a great price for
them. We here saw the skin of a mountain sheep, which they say lives
among the rocks in the mountains; the skin was covered with white hair;
the wool was long, thick, and coarse, with long coarse hair on the top
of the neck and on the back, resembling somewhat the bristles of a goat.
Immediately behind the village is a pond, in which were great numbers of
small swan."
The "mountain sheep" mentioned here are not the bighorn of which we have
heard something in the earlier part of this narrative, but a species
of wild goat found among the Cascade Mountains.
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