These ready-made sea-candles—little dips wanting only a wick that can be added in a minute—are easily transformed by heat and pressure into liquid. When the Indian drinks instead of burning them, he gets a fuel in the shape of oil, that keeps up the combustion within him, and which is burnt and consumed in the lungs just as it was by the wick, but only gives heat. It is by no mere chance that myriads of small fish, in obedience to a wondrous instinct, annually visit the northern seas, containing within themselves all the elements necessary for supplying light, heat, and life to the poor savage, who, but for this, must perish in the bitter cold of the long dreary winter.
As soon as the Indians have stored away the full supply of food for the winter, all the fish subsequently taken are converted into oil. If we stroll down to the lodges near the beach, we shall see for ourselves how they manage it. The fish reserved for oil-making have been piled in heaps until partially decomposed; five or six fires are blazing away, and in each fire are a number of large round pebbles, to be made very hot. By each fire are four large square boxes, made from the trunk of the pine-tree. A squaw carefully piles in each box a layer of fish about three-deep, and covers them with cold water. She then puts five or six of the hot stones upon the layers of fish, and when the steam has cleared away, carefully lays small pieces of wood over the stones; then more fish, more water, more stones, more layers of wood, and so on, until the box is filled. The oil-maker now takes all the liquid from this box, and uses it over again instead of water in filling another box, and skims the oil off as it floats on the surface.
A vast quantity of oil is thus obtained; often as much as seven hundredweight will be made by one small tribe. The refuse fish are not yet done with, more oil being extractible from them. Built against the pine-tree is a small stage, made of poles, very like a monster gridiron. The refuse of the boxes, having been sewn up in porous mats, is placed on the stage, to be rolled and pressed by the arms and chests of Indian women; and the oil thus squeezed out is collected in a box placed underneath.
Not only has Nature, ever bountiful, sent an abundance of oil to the redskin, but she actually provides ready-made bottles to store it away in. The great seawrack, that grows to an immense size in these northern seas, and forms submarine forests, has a hollow stalk, expanded into a complete flask at the root-end. Cut into lengths of about three feet, these hollow stalks, with the bulb at the end, are collected and kept wet until required for use. As the oil is obtained, it is stored away in these natural quart-bottles, or rather larger bottles, for some of them hold three pints.
Some fifty years ago, vast shoals of eulachon used regularly to enter the Columbia; but the silent stroke of the Indian paddle has now given place to the splashing wheels of great steamers, and the Indian and the candle-fish have vanished together. From the same causes the eulachon has also disappeared from Puget’s Sound, and is now seldom caught south of latitude 50° N.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROUND-FISH, HERRINGS, AND VIVIPAROUS FISH.
The Round-fish (Coregonus quadrilateralis).—Sp. Ch.: Colour, yellowish-brown, paler on the sides and belly than on the back; scales bright and glittering, each edged with a narrow border of dark-grey; cheeks, fins, and tail, a deeper tint of the same colour as that on the back; head one-sixth of the length (without the caudal); mouth very small, under-jaw shorter than the upper—no teeth perceptible.
This fish has a very wide geographical range, being found as far north (according to Sir J. Richardson) as the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers, east of the Rocky Mountains, and latitude 49° N. the western side; how much farther they range north of 49° I had no opportunity of judging.