Game was now plenty, and the camp was supplied with
ducks, geese, and venison. Bad weather again set in. The journal under
date of November 22 says:--
"It rained during the whole night, and about daylight a tremendous gale
of wind rose from the S.S.E., and continued through the day with great
violence. The sea ran so high that the water came into our camp, which
the rain prevents us from leaving. We purchased from the old squaw, for
armbands and rings, a few wappatoo-roots, on which we subsisted. They
are nearly equal in flavor to the Irish potato, and afford a very good
substitute for bread. The bad weather drove several Indians to our camp,
but they were still under the terrors of the threat which we made on
first seeing them, and behaved with the greatest decency.
"The rain continued through the night, November 23, and the morning was
calm and cloudy. The hunters were sent out, and killed three deer, four
brant, and three ducks. Towards evening seven Clatsops came over in a
canoe, with two skins of the sea-otter. To this article they attached an
extravagant value; and their demands for it were so high, that we were
fearful it would too much reduce our small stock of merchandise, on
which we had to depend for subsistence on our return, to venture on
purchasing it. To ascertain, however, their ideas as to the value
of different objects, we offered for one of these skins a watch, a
handkerchief, an American dollar, and a bunch of red beads; but neither
the curious mechanism of the watch, nor even the red beads, could tempt
the owner: he refused the offer, but asked for tiacomoshack, or chief
beads, the most common sort of coarse blue-colored beads, the article
beyond all price in their estimation.
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