Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/101

Rh hands, the father was compelled to give up fishing and betake himself to amusing his babies. Many expedients having failed, he at length found that they were diverted by seeing him pick cavities in the rocks in the form of basins, which they could fill with water or pebbles, and accordingly, as many a patient mother does every day, adapted himself to the taste and capacities of his children, and made any number of basins they required. Wasco being the name of a kind of horn basin which is in use among the Des Chutes, his associates gave the name to this devoted father in ridicule of his domestic qualities; and afterward, when he had resolved to found a village at Winquat, and drew many of his people after him, they continued to call them all Wascos, or basins. To-day the tribe is little known, but the county of which Dalles is the metropolis bears the name once given in derision to a poor, perplexed father for descending to the office of basin-maker for his children.

The original Indian name of the place where Dalles stands was Winquat, signifying "surrounded by rocky cliffs." There are many Indian names attached to points in this neighborhood of poetical significations. "Alone in its beauty" is the translation of Gai-galt-whe-la-leth, the name of a fine spring near town. "The mountain denoting the sun's travel" is the meaning of Shim-na-klath, a high hill south of town, etc.

About three miles above Dalles is a noted fishery of the Indians, as mentioned above, and opposite to it is the site of the Indian village of Wishram, spoken of by the earliest writers on Oregon. No village exists there now—at least not any thing which could well be recognized as such. Like the ancient Chinook, it has dwindled to nothing.