changed their residences. The ragged mountains on either side support well the historic tale. High, bald summits stand confronting each other, and it requires no effort of the imagination to see the Great Bridge as it is said once to have stood, and to hear rising on the winds, the weird, wild songs of the people at the time of sacrifice.
At the place where this legend had its origin the “Columbia” is crowded by its banks into so narrow a channel that an Indian might, with his sling, make a stone to trace the curves of the ancient arch. The waters rush so swiftly that the keenest sight can scarcely keep the course of timber drift in view. The river’s bosom is smooth above this rapid flow, and, widening, takes the semblance of a lake, in whose depth may be seen the trees that once were growing green, but now to stone have turned; they never move before the breeze; they sway not, nor yet can yield to the gentle currents, still standing witnesses of the legend’s truth.
Midway between the shores an island stands, fashioned and fitted for a burial-ground of the tribes that had oft, in ages past, made use of it at nature’s invitation, and had borne to this resting-place the warriors whose spirits passed up to the happier lands; while the body resting here might wait for the coming of some Great Prophet, who should bid the bones to rise and become part and parcel of human forms, and mingle with those who remain to build the nightly fires and feed the mouldering bodies of their dead, until the great past should be re-born and live again attended by all the circumstances of savage life.
The Birthplace of Indian Legends.
Sitting in the pilot-house of the steamer “Tenino,” beside “McNulty,” her captain, hear him tell how these people come, at certain times, to pay honor to their dead; how, in years gone by, from the “Tenino” he could see the old sachems sitting bolt upright in their wooden graves and calmly waiting, watching, with sightless eyes, for the coming hour foretold before they died; how, with fleshless hands, they clutched the rotting handle of the battle-axe of flint or fishing-spears.
Then see his eye kindle while he tells you of relic-hunters from the East, who came on board the “Tenino” with boxes and lines and other devices for relic-hunting, and requested that he would land them on the shores of this lone island. You will feel the fire of that eye warming your heart towards the dead, and living too, when it declares in full sympathy, with the rich Irish voice, “That while he commands the ‘Tenino’ no grave-robbers shall ever disturb the old heroes who sit patiently waiting for their resurrection. No sacrilegious foot shall leave his vessel’s deck to perpetrate so foul a deed!”
You will honor him still better when you learn that, in his whole-hearted generosity, he declares that “No man shall ever disturb the repose of the congregated dead, on that little island, while he lives, and escape unpunished.”
Brave, fearless captain, many years have you passed daily in sight, and scanned their sepulchres; self-appointed guardian, you have been true to the impulse of a noble heart; you have exalted our opinion of the race you represent; and for your fidelity to the cause of a common humanity, and especially to the race