第81章

The same method of adornment may be seen among the aborigines of Alaska and other regions of the North Pacific, to-day. The figures are made of small pieces of wood neatly fitted together by inlaying and mortising, without any spike of any kind.

When one reflects that the Indians seen by Lewis and Clark constructed their large canoes with very poor tools, it is impossible to withhold one's admiration of their industry and patience.

The journal says:--"Our admiration of their skill in these curious constructions was increased by observing the very inadequate implements which they use.

These Indians possess very few axes, and the only tool they employ, from felling the tree to the delicate workmanship of the images, is a chisel made of an old file, about an inch or an inch and a half in width.

Even of this, too, they have not learned the proper management; for the chisel is sometimes fixed in a large block of wood, and, being held in the right hand, the block is pushed with the left, without the aid of a mallet. But under all these disadvantages, their canoes, which one would suppose to be the work of years, are made in a few weeks.

A canoe, however, is very highly prized, being in traffic an article of the greatest value except a wife, and of equal value with her; so that a lover generally gives a canoe to the father in exchange for his daughter. . . .

"The harmony of their private life is secured by their ignorance of spirituous liquors, the earliest and most dreadful present which civilization has given to the other natives of the continent.

Although they have had so much intercourse with whites, they do not appear to possess any knowledge of those dangerous luxuries; at least they have never inquired after them, which they probably would have done if once liquors bad been introduced among them.

Indeed, we have not observed any liquor of intoxicating quality among these or any Indians west of the Rocky Mountains, the universal beverage being pure water. They, however, sometimes almost intoxicate themselves by smoking tobacco, of which they are excessively fond, and the pleasures of which they prolong as much as possible, by retaining vast quantities at a time, till after circulating through the lungs and stomach it issues in volumes from the mouth and nostrils."

A long period of quiet prevailed in camp after the first of February, before the final preparations for departure were made.

Parties were sent out every day to hunt, and the campers were able to command a few days' supply of provision in advance.

The flesh of the deer was now very lean and poor, but that of the elk was growing better and better.

It was estimated by one of the party that they killed, between December 1, 1805, and March 20, 1806, elk to the number of one hundred and thirty-one, and twenty deer.

Some of this meat they smoked for its better preservation, but most of it was eaten fresh. No record was kept of the amount of fish consumed by the party; but they were obliged at times to make fish their sole article of diet. Late in February they were visited by Comowool, the principal Clatsop chief, who brought them a sturgeon and quantities of a small fish which had just begun to make its appearance in the Columbia. This was known as the anchovy, but oftener as the candle-fish; it is so fat that it may be burned like a torch, or candle.

The journal speaks of Comowool as "by far the most friendly and decent savage we have seen in this neighborhood."