In what Clark calls "a guggling kind of language spoken mostly through the throat," with much pantomime and some English, conversation was carried on.
"Who are these traders?" asked Captain Lewis.
Old Comcomly, King of the Chinooks, on the north side, and Tyee Coboway, Chief of the Clatsops, on the south bank of the Columbia, tried to remember, and counted on their fingers,—
"Haley, three masts, stays some time," "Tallamon not a trader," "Callalamet has a wooden leg," "Davidson, no trader, hunts elk," "Skelley, long time ago, only one eye."
And then there were "Youens, Swipton, Mackey, Washington, Mesship, Jackson, Balch," all traders with three-masted ships whose names are not identified by any Atlantic list.
The one translated Washington by Lewis and Clark may have been Ockington of the Belle Savage, 1801, or Tawnington, both of whom are known to have been on the coast in those years.
In fact, no complete record was ever kept of the ships that swarmed around the Horn and up the Pacific, in those infant years of our republic, 1787 to 1820. While Europe clustered around the theatre of Napoleonic wars, every harbour of New England had its fur ships and whalers out, flying the Stars and Stripes around the world.
"What do they say?" inquired Lewis, still pressing investigation. Proud of their acquirements, every Chinook and Clatsop in the nation could recall some word or phrase.
"Musket, powder, shot, knife, file, heave the lead, damned rascal!"
No wonder Lewis and Clark laughed, these mother words on the savage tongue were like voices out of the very deep, calling from the ships.