On the 20th of January, Mr. Hunt
took leave of these friendly Indians, and of the river on which
they encamped, and continued westward.
At length, on the following day, the wayworn travellers lifted up
their eyes and beheld before them the long-sought waters of the
Columbia. The sight was hailed with as much transport as if they
had already reached the end of their pilgrimage; nor can we
wonder at their joy. Two hundred and forty miles had they
marched, through wintry wastes and rugged mountains, since
leaving Snake River; and six months of perilous wayfaring had
they experienced since their departure from the Arickara village
on the Missouri. Their whole route by land and water from that
point had been, according to their computation, seventeen hundred
and fifty-one miles, in the course of which they had endured all
kinds of hardships. In fact, the necessity of avoiding the
dangerous country of the Blackfeet had obliged them to make a
bend to the south and traverse a great additional extent of
unknown wilderness.
The place where they struck the Columbia was some distance below
the junction of its two great branches, Lewis and Clarke rivers,
and not far from the influx of the Wallah-Wallah. It was a
beautiful stream, three-quarters of a mile wide, totally free
from trees; bordered in some places with steep rocks, in others
with pebbled shores.
On the banks of the Columbia they found a miserable horde of
Indians, called Akai-chies, with no clothing but a scanty mantle
of the skins of animals, and sometimes a pair of sleeves of
wolf's skin. Their lodges were shaped like a tent, and very light
and warm, being covered with mats and rushes; besides which they
had excavations in the ground, lined with mats, and occupied by
the women, who were even more slightly clad than the men. These
people subsisted chiefly by fishing; having canoes of a rude
construction, being merely the trunks of pine trees split and
hollowed out by fire. Their lodges were well stored with dried
salmon, and they had great quantities of fresh salmon trout of an
excellent flavor, taken at the mouth of the Umatilla; of which
the travellers obtained a most acceptable supply.
Finding that the road was on the north side of the river, Mr.
Hunt crossed, and continued five or six days travelling rather
slowly down along its banks, being much delayed by the straying
of the horses, and the attempts made by the Indians to steal
them. They frequently passed lodges, where they obtained fish and
dogs. At one place the natives had just returned from hunting,
and had brought back a large quantity of elk and deer meat, but
asked so high a price for it as to be beyond the funds of the
travellers, so they had to content themselves with dog's flesh.
They had by this time, however, come to consider it very choice
food, superior to horse flesh, and the minutes of the expedition
speak rather exultingly now and then, of their having made a
famous "repast," where this viand happened to be unusually
plenty.
They again learnt tidings of some of the scattered members of the
expedition, supposed to be M'Kenzie, M'Lellan, and their men, who
had preceded them down the river, and had overturned one of their
canoes, by which they lost many articles. All these floating
pieces of intelligence of their fellow adventurers, who had
separated from them in the heart of the wilderness, they received
with eager interest.
The weather continued to be temperate, marking the superior
softness of the climate on this side of the mountains. For a
great part of the time, the days were delightfully mild and
clear, like the serene days of October on the Atlantic borders.
The country in general, in the neighborhood of the river, was a
continual plain, low near the water, but rising gradually;
destitute of trees, and almost without shrubs or plants of any
kind, excepting a few willow bushes. After travelling about sixty
miles, they came to where the country became very hilly and the
river made its way between rocky banks and down numerous rapids.
The Indians in this vicinity were better clad and altogether in
more prosperous condition than those above, and, as Mr. Hunt
thought, showed their consciousness of ease by something like
sauciness of manner. Thus prosperity is apt to produce arrogance
in savage as well as in civilized life. In both conditions, man
is an animal that will not bear pampering.
From these people Mr. Hunt for the first time received vague but
deeply interesting intelligence of that part of the enterprise
which had proceeded by sea to the mouth of the Columbia. The
Indians spoke of a number of white men who had built a large
house at the mouth of the great river, and surrounded it with
palisades. None of them had been down to Astoria themselves; but
rumors spread widely and rapidly from mouth to mouth among the
Indian tribes, and are carried to the heart of the interior by
hunting parties and migratory hordes.
The establishment of a trading emporium at such a point, also,
was calculated to cause a sensation to the most remote parts of
the vast wilderness beyond the mountains. It in a manner struck
the pulse of the great vital river, and vibrated up all its
tributary streams.
It is surprising to notice how well this remote tribe of savages
had learnt, through intermediate gossips, the private feelings of
the colonists at Astoria; it shows that Indians are not the
incurious and indifferent observers that they have been
represented.
