CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Village of Wish-ram.- Roguery of the Inhabitants.- Their Habitations.- Tidings of
Astoria.- Of the Tonquin Massacre.- Thieves About the Camp.-A Band of Braggarts-
Embarkation.- Arrival at Astoria.-A Joyful Reception.- Old Comrades- Adventures of
Reed, M'Lellan, and M'Kenzie Among the Snake River Mountains.- Rejoicing at Astoria.
0F the village of Wish-ram, the aborigines' fishing mart of the Columbia, we have given
some account in an early chapter of this work. The inhabitants held a traffic in the
productions of the fisheries of the falls, and their village was the trading resort of the
tribes from the coast and from the mountains. Mr. Hunt found the inhabitants shrewder
and more intelligent than any Indians he had met with. Trade had sharpened their wits,
though it had not improved their honesty; for they were a community of arrant rogues
and freebooters. Their habitations comported with their circumstances, and were
superior to any the travellers had yet seen west of the Rocky Mountains. In general, the
dwellings of the savages on the Pacific side of that great barrier were mere tents and
cabins of mats, or skins, or straw, the country being destitute of timber. In Wish-ram, on
the contrary, the houses were built of wood, with long sloping roofs. The floor was sunk
about six feet below the surface of the ground, with a low door at the gable end,
extremely narrow, and partly sunk. Through this it was necessary to crawl and then to
descend a short ladder. This inconvenient entrance was probably for the purpose of
defense; there were loop-holes also under the eaves, apparently for the discharge of
arrows. The houses were large, generally containing two or three families. Immediately
within the door were sleeping places, ranged along the walls, like berths in a ship; and
furnished with pallets of matting. These extended along one half of the building; the
remaining half was appropriated to the storing of dried fish.
The trading operations of the inhabitants of Wish-ram had given them a wider scope of
information, and rendered their village a kind of headquarters of intelligence. Mr. Hunt
was able, therefore, to collect more distinct tidings concerning the settlement of Astoria
and its affairs. One of the inhabitants had been at the trading post established by David
Stuart on the Oakinagan, and had picked up a few words of English there. From him,
Mr. Hunt gleaned various particulars about that establishment, as well as about the
general concerns of the enterprise. Others repeated the name of Mr. M'Kay, the partner
who perished in the massacre on board of the Tonquin, and gave some account of that
melancholy affair. They said Mr. M'Kay was a chief among the white men, and had built
a great house at the mouth of the river, but had left it and sailed away in a large ship to
the northward where he had been attacked by bad Indians in canoes. Mr. Hunt was
startled by this intelligence, and made further inquiries. They informed him that the
Indians had lashed their canoes to the ship, and fought until they killed him and all his
people. This is another instance of the clearness with which intelligence is transmitted
from mouth to mouth among the Indian tribes. These tidings, though but partially
credited by Mr. Hunt, filled his mind with anxious forebodings. He now endeavored to
procure canoes, in which to descend the Columbia, but none suitable for the purpose
were to be obtained above the Narrows; he continued on, therefore, the distance of
twelve miles, and encamped on the bank of the river. The camp was soon surrounded
by loitering savages, who went prowling about seeking what they might pilfer. Being
baffled by the vigilance of the guard, they endeavored to compass their ends by other
means. Towards evening, a number of warriors entered the camp in ruffling style;
painted and dressed out as if for battle, and armed with lances, bows and arrows, and
scalping knives. They informed Mr. Hunt that a party of thirty or forty braves were
coming up from a village below to attack the camp and carry off the horses, but that
they were determined to stay with him and defend him. Mr. Hunt received them with
great coldness, and, when they had finished their story, gave them a pipe to smoke. He
then called up all hands, stationed sentinels in different quarters, but told them to keep
as vigilant an eye within the camp as without.
The warriors were evidently baffled by these precautions, and, having smoked their
pipe, and vapored off their valor, took their departure. The farce, however, did not end
here. After a little while the warriors returned, ushering in another savage, still more
heroically arrayed. This they announced as the chief of the belligerent village, but as a
great pacificator. His people had been furiously bent upon the attack, and would have
doubtless carried it into effect, but this gallant chief had stood forth as the friend of
white men, and had dispersed the throng by his own authority and prowess. Having
vaunted this signal piece of service, there was a significant pause; all evidently
expecting some adequate reward. Mr. Hunt again produced the pipe, smoked with the
chieftain and his worthy compeers; but made no further demonstrations of gratitude.
They remained about the camp all night, but at daylight returned, baffled and
crestfallen, to their homes, with nothing but smoke for their pains.
Mr. Hunt now endeavored to procure canoes, of which he saw several about the
neighborhood, extremely well made, with elevated stems and sterns, some of them
capable of carrying three thousand pounds weight. He found it extremely difficult,
however, to deal with these slippery people, who seemed much more inclined to pilfer.
Notwithstanding a strict guard maintained round the camp, various implements were
stolen, and several horses carried off. Among the latter, we have to include the long-cherished steed of Pierre Dorion. From some wilful caprice, that worthy pitched his tent
at some distance from the main body, and tethered his invaluable steed beside it, from
whence it was abstracted in the night, to the infinite chagrin and mortification of the
hybrid interpreter.
Having, after several days' negotiation, procured the requisite number of canoes, Mr.
Hunt would gladly have left this thievish neighborhood, but was detained until the 5th of
February by violent head winds, accompanied by snow and rain. Even after he was
enabled to get under way, he had still to struggle against contrary winds and
tempestuous weather. The current of the river, however, was in his favor; having made
a portage at the grand rapid, the canoes met with no further obstruction, and, on the
afternoon of the 15th of February, swept round an intervening cape, and came in sight
of the infant settlement of Astoria. After eleven months wandering in the wilderness, a
great part of the time over trackless wastes, where the sight of a savage wigwam was a
rarity, we may imagine the delight of the poor weatherbeaten travellers, at beholding
the embryo establishment, with its magazines, habitations, and picketed bulwarks,
seated on a high point of land, dominating a beautiful little bay, in which was a trim-built
shallop riding quietly at anchor. A shout of joy burst from each canoe at the long-wished-for sight. They urged their canoes across the bay, and pulled with eagerness
for shore, where all hands poured down from the settlement to receive and welcome
them. Among the first to greet them on their landing, were some of their old comrades
and fellow-sufferers, who, under the conduct of Reed, M'Lellan, and M'Kenzie, had
parted from them at the Caldron Linn. These had reached Astoria nearly a month
previously, and, judging from their own narrow escape from starvation, had given up
Mr. Hunt and his followers as lost. Their greeting was the more warm and cordial. As to
the Canadian voyageurs, their mutual felicitations, as usual, were loud and vociferous,
and it was almost ludicrous to behold these ancient "comrades" and "confreres,"
hugging and kissing each other on the river bank.
When the first greetings were over, the different bands interchanged accounts of their
several wanderings, after separating at Snake River; we shall briefly notice a few of the
leading particulars. It will be recollected by the reader, that a small exploring
detachment had proceeded down the river, under the conduct of Mr. John Reed, a clerk
of the company; that another had set off under M'Lellan, and a third in a different
direction, under M'Kenzie. After wandering for several days without meeting with
Indians, or obtaining any supplies, they came together fortuitously among the Snake
River mountains, some distance below that disastrous pass or strait which had received
the appellation of the Devil's Scuttle Hole.
When thus united, their party consisted of M'Kenzie, M'Lellan, Reed, and eight men,
chiefly Canadians. Being all in the same predicament, without horses, provisions, or
information of any kind, they all agreed that it would be worse than useless to return to
Mr. Hunt and encumber him with so many starving men, and that their only course was
to extricate themselves as soon as possible from this land of famine and misery and
make the best of their way for the Columbia. They accordingly continued to follow the
downward course of Snake River; clambering rocks and mountains, and defying all the
difficulties and dangers of that rugged defile, which subsequently, when the snows had
fallen, was found impassable by Messrs. Hunt and Crooks.
Though constantly near to the borders of the river, and for a great part of the time
within sight of its current, one of their greatest sufferings was thirst. The river had worn
its way in a deep channel through rocky mountains, destitute of brooks or springs. Its
banks were so high and precipitous, that there was rarely any place where the
travellers could get down to drink of its waters. Frequently they suffered for miles the
torments of Tantalus; water continually within sight, yet fevered with the most parching
thirst. Here and there they met with rainwater collected in the hollows of the rocks, but
more than once they were reduced to the utmost extremity; and some of the men had
recourse to the last expedient to avoid perishing.
Their sufferings from hunger were equally severe. They could meet with no game, and
subsisted for a time on strips of beaver skin, broiled on the coals. These were doled out
in scanty allowances, barely sufficient to keep up existence, and at length failed them
altogether. Still they crept feebly on, scarce dragging one limb after another, until a
severe snow-storm brought them to a pause. To struggle against it, in their exhausted
condition, was impossible, so cowering under an impending rock at the foot of a steep
mountain, they prepared themselves for that wretched fate which seemed inevitable.
At this critical juncture, when famine stared them in the face, M'Lellan casting up his
eyes, beheld an ahsahta, or bighorn, sheltering itself under a shelving rock on the side
of the hill above them. Being in a more active plight than any of his comrades, and an
excellent marksman, he set off to get within shot of the animal. His companions
watched his movements with breathless anxiety, for their lives depended upon his
success. He made a cautious circuit; scrambled up the hill with the utmost silence, and
at length arrived, unperceived, within a proper distance. Here leveling his rifle he took
so sure an aim, that the bighorn fell dead on the spot; a fortunate circumstance, for, to
pursue it, if merely wounded, would have been impossible in his emaciated state. The
declivity of the hill enabled him to roll the carcass down to his companions, who were
too feeble to climb the rocks. They fell to work to cut it up; yet exerted a remarkable
self-denial for men in their starving condition, for they contented themselves for the
present with a soup made from the bones, reserving the flesh for future repasts. This
providential relief gave them strength to pursue their journey, but they were frequently
reduced to almost equal straits, and it was only the smallness of their party, requiring a
small supply of provisions, that enabled them to get through this desolate region with
their lives.
At length, after twenty-one days of to 11 and suffering, they got through these
mountains, and arrived at a tributary stream of that branch of the Columbia called Lewis
River, of which Snake River forms the southern fork. In this neighborhood they met with
wild horses, the first they had seen west of the Rocky Mountains. From hence they
made their way to Lewis River, where they fell in with a friendly tribe of Indians, who
freely administered to their necessities. On this river they procured two canoes, in
which they dropped down the stream to its confluence with the Columbia, and then
down that river to Astoria, where they arrived haggard and emaciated, and perfectly in
rags.
Thus, all the leading persons of Mr. Hunt's expedition were once more gathered
together, excepting Mr. Crooks, of whose safety they entertained but little hope,
considering the feeble condition in which they had been compelled to leave him in the
heart of the wilderness.
A day was now given up to jubilee, to celebrate the arrival of Mr. Hunt and his
companions, and the joyful meeting of the various scattered bands of adventurers at
Astoria. The colors were hoisted; the guns, great and small, were fired; there was a
feast of fish, of beaver, and venison, which relished well with men who had so long
been glad to revel on horse flesh and dogs' meat; a genial allowance of grog was
issued, to increase the general animation, and the festivities wound up, as usual, with a
grand dance at night, by the Canadian voyageurs. *
*The distance from St. Louis to Astoria, by the route travelled by Hunt and M'Kenzie,
was upwards of thirty-five hundred miles, though in a direct line it does not exceed
eighteen hundred.