The stone horses we found so troublesome that we have endeavoured to exchange them for either mares or geldings; but although we offered two for one, they were unwilling to barter. It was therefore determined to castrate them; and being desirous of ascertaining the best method of performing this operation, two were gelded in the usual manner, while one of the natives tried the experiment in the Indian way, without tying the string of the stone (which he assured us was much the better plan) and carefully scraping the string clean and separating it from the adjoining veins before cutting it. All the horses recovered; but we afterwards found that those on which the Indian mode had been tried, although they bled more profusely at first, neither swell nor appear to suffer as much as the others, and recovered sooner, so that we are fully persuaded that the Indian method is preferable to our own.
May 15. As we shall now be compelled to pass some time in this neighbourhood, a number of hunters were sent in different directions, and the rest were employed in completing the camp. From this labour we, however, exempted five of the men, two of whom are afflicted with cholic, and the others complain of violent pains in the head, all which are occasioned, we presume, by the diet of roots, to which they have recently been confined. We secured the baggage with a shelter of grass, and made a kind of bower of the under part of an old sail; the leathern tent being now too rotten for use, while the men formed very comfortable huts in the shape of the awning of a wagon, by means of willow poles and grass. Tunnachemootoolt and his young men left us this morning on their way home; and soon after we were visited by a party of fourteen Indians on horseback, armed with bows and arrows going on a hunting excursion. The chief game is the deer, and whenever the ground will permit, the favourite hunt is on horseback; but in the woodlands, where this is impracticable, they make use of a decoy. This consists of the skin of the head and upper part of the neck of a deer, kept in its natural shape by a frame of small sticks on the inside. As soon as the hunter perceives a deer he conceals himself, and with his hand moves the decoy so as to represent a real deer in the act of feeding, which is done so naturally that the game is seduced within reach of their arrows.
We also exercised our horses by driving them together, so as to accustom them to each other, and incline them the less to separate. The next morning,
Friday 16, an Indian returned with one of them, which had strayed away in the night to a considerable distance, an instance of integrity and kindness by no means singular among the Chopunnish. Hohastilpilp, with the rest of the natives left us to-day. The hunters who have as yet come in, brought nothing, except a few pheasants, so that we still place our chief reliance on the mush made of roots (among these the cows and the quamash are the principal) with which we use a small onion, which grows in great abundance, and which corrects any bad effects they may have on the stomach. The cows and quamash, particularly, incline to produce flatulency, to obviate which we employ a kind of fennel, called by the Shoshonees, yearhah, resembling anniseed in flavour, and a very agreeable food.
In the course of the day two other hunters brought in a deer. The game they said was scarce; but they had wounded three bear as white as sheep. The last hunters who had left us yesterday, also came in to-night, with information, that at the distance of five or six miles, they attempted to cross Collins’s creek, on the other side, where game is most abundant, but that they could not ford it with their horses, on account of its depth, and the rapidity of the current.
Saturday, 17. It rained during the greater part of the night, and our flimsy covering being insufficient for our protection, we lay in the water most of the time. What was more unlucky, our chronometer became wet, and, in consequence, somewhat rusty, but by care we hope to restore it. The rain continued nearly the whole day, while on the high plains the snow is falling, and already two or three inches in depth. The bad weather confined us to the camp and kept the Indians from us, so that for the first time since we left the narrows of the Columbia, a day has passed without our being visited by any of the natives.
The country along the Rocky mountains for several hundred miles in length and about fifty wide, is a high level plain; in all its parts extremely fertile, and in many places covered with a growth of tall long-leafed pine. This plain is chiefly interrupted near the streams of water, where the hills are steep and lofty; but the soil is good, being unincumbered by much stone, and possess more timber than the level country. Under shelter of these hills, the bottom lands skirt the margin of the rivers, and though narrow and confined, are still fertile and rarely inundated. Nearly the whole of this wide spread tract is covered with a profusion of grass and plants, which are at this time as high as the knee. Among these are a variety of esculent plants and roots, acquired without much difficulty, and yielding not only a nutritious, but a very agreeable food. The air is pure and dry, the climate quite as mild, if not milder, than the same parallels of latitude in the Atlantic states, and must be equally healthy, for all the disorders which we have witnessed, may fairly be imputed more to the nature of the diet than to any intemperance of climate. This general observation is of course to be qualified, since in the same tract of country, the degrees of the combination of heat and cold obey the influence of situation. Thus the rains of the low grounds near our camp, are snows in the high plains, and while the sun shines with intense heat in the confined bottoms, the plains enjoy a much colder air, and the vegetation is retarded at least fifteen days, while at the foot of the mountains the snows are still many feet in depth; so that within twenty miles of our camp we observe the rigours of winter cold, the cool air of spring and the oppressive heat of midsummer. Even on the plains, however, where the snow has fallen, it seems to do but little injury to the grass and other plants, which, though apparently tender and susceptible, are still blooming, at the height of nearly eighteen inches through the snow. In short, this district affords many advantages to settlers, and if properly cultivated, would yield every object necessary for the subsistence and comfort of civilized man.
The Chopunnish themselves are in general stout, well formed, and active; they have high, and many of them aqueline noses, and the general appearance of the face is cheerful and agreeable, though without any indication of gayety and mirth. Like most of the Indians they extract their beards; but the women only pluck the hair from the rest of the body. That of the men is very often suffered to grow, nor does there appear to be any natural deficiency in that respect; for we observe several men, who, if they had adopted the practice of shaving, would have been as well supplied as ourselves. The dress of both sexes resembles that of the Shoshonees, and consists of a long shirt reaching to the thigh, leggings as high as the waist, moccasins and robes, all of which are formed of skins.
Their ornaments are beads, shells, and pieces of brass attached to different parts of the dress, or tied round the arms, neck, wrists, and over the shoulders: to these are added pearls and beads, suspended from the ears, and a single shell of wampum through the nose. The head-dress of the men is a bandeau of fox or otter skin, either with or without the fur, and sometimes an ornament is tied to a plait of hair, falling from the crown of the head: that of the women is a cap without rim, formed of bear grass and cedar bark; while the hair itself, of both sexes, falls in two rows down the front of the body. Collars of bears’ claws are also common. But the personal ornament most esteemed is a sort of breastplate, formed of a strip of otter skin, six inches wide, cut out of the whole length of the back of the animal, including the head; this being dressed with the hair on, a hole is made at the upper end, through which the head of the wearer is placed, and the skin hangs in front with the tail reaching below the knee, and ornamented with pieces of pearl, red cloth, and wampum; or, in short, any other fanciful decoration. Tippets also are occasionally worn. That of Hohastilpilp was formed of human scalps, and adorned with the thumbs and fingers of several men slain by him in battle.
The Chopunnish are among the most amiable men we have seen. Their character is placid and gentle, rarely moved into passion, yet not often enlivened by gayety. Their amusements consist in running races, shooting with arrows at a target, and they partake of the great and prevailing vice of gambling. They are, however, by no means so much attached to baubles as the generality of Indians, but are anxious to obtain articles of utility, such as knives, tomahawks, kettles, blankets, and awls for moccasins. They have also suffered so much from the superiority of their enemies, that they are equally desirous of procuring arms and ammunition, which they are gradually acquiring, for the band of Tunnachemootoolt have already six guns, which they acquired from the Minnetarees.