"Solemnly lift their faces gray,
Making it yet more lonely."
One of the captains we sailed with told us that he had at one time a gray eagle he had tamed when young, that often took coasting-voyages with him, leaving the vessel occasionally, and returning to it, even when it had sailed many miles; never, by mistake, alighting on another craft instead of his. Sometimes, when out on a voyage to San Francisco, it would leave the vessel, and return to his house on Port Discovery Bay.
October 15, 1874.
As we were passing along near the shore to-day, in our boat, we saw an Indian woman sitting alone on the beach, moaning, and dipping her hands continually in the water. Her canoe was drawn up beside her. We stopped, and asked her if any one was dead. She pointed to a square box[2] in the canoe, and said, "mika tenas" (my child). She said, afterwards, that she was as tall as I, and "hyas closhe" (so good)!
As the poor Indian mother looked round at the waves and the sky to comfort her, I thought, what is there, after all, that civilization can offer, beyond what is given by Nature alone, to every one in deepest need?
Yeomans, our old Port Angeles friend, called on us to-day. Every year since we left there, he has included us in his annual visit to the Seattle tribes. Each time we see him I think must be the last, he looks so very old; but every autumn brings him back, apparently unchanged. He seems to alter as slowly as the old firs about him. I am surprised always at his light tread; he bears so little weight on his feet, but glides along as if he were still in the woods, and would not have a leaf rustle.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] The crouching position, the favorite one of the Indians in life, is preserved by them in the disposition of their dead.