Among the miners of the upper country, who had not seen a white woman for a year, I received such honors, that I am afraid I should have had a very mistaken impression of my importance if I had lived long among them. At every stopping-place they made little fires in their frying-pans, and set them around me, to keep off the mosquitoes, while I took my meal. As the columns of smoke rose about me, I felt like a heathen goddess, to whom incense was being offered. The mosquitoes were terrible; but we found our compensation for them in the journey homeward. I remember the entomology used to call the dragon-fly the "mosquito-hawk;" and such dragon-flies I never before saw as we met with near the rivers, especially at the Pelouse. There seemed to be a festival of them there, and one kind of such a green as I believe never was seen before on earth,—so exquisite a shade, and so vivid. There were also burnished silver and gold ones, and every beautiful variety of spotting and marking. A little Indian boy appeared there, dressed in feathers, with a hawk on his wrist,—a wild, spirited-looking little creature.
On Sunday we reached Olympia, and saw the waters of the Sound, and the old headlands again. I had no idea it could look so homelike; and when the mountain range began to reveal itself from the mist, I felt as if nothing we had seen while we were gone had been more beautiful, more really impressive, than what we could look at any day from our own kitchen-door.
As we approached Seattle, we began to gather up the news. It is very much more of an event to get back, when you have had no newspapers, and only the rarest communication of any kind, while you have been gone.
Seattle, the old chief, had died. When he was near his end, he sent word over to the nearest settlement, that he wished Capt. Meigs, the owner of the great sawmill at Port Madison, to come when he was dead, and take him by the hand, and bid him farewell.
We learned that the beautiful Port Angeles was to be abandoned,—Congress having decided to remove the custom-house to Port Townsend,—and that no vessels would go in there. It seemed like leaving Andromeda on her rock. We are going down to make a farewell visit.
VII.
Port Angeles Village and the Indian Ranch.—A "Ship's Klootchman."—Indian Muck-a-Muck.—Disposition of an Old Indian Woman.—A Windy Trip to Victoria.—The Black Tamáhnous.—McDonald's in the Wilderness.—The Wild Cowlitz.—Up the River during a Flood.—Indian Boatmen.—Birch-Bark and Cedar Canoes.
Ediz Hook, October 21, 1866.