Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/250

 to me remarkable on account of its situation, reposing in the midst of a low and swampy ground, as if it had been dropped from the clouds, and seeming to have no connection with the neighboring mountains. On a cornice or shelving projection about thirty feet from its base, the natives of the adjacent villages deposit their dead, in canoes; and it is the same rock to which, for this reason, Lieutenant Broughton gave the name of Mount Coffin.[48]

On the 4th, in the morning, we arrived at a large village of the same name as that which we had passed the evening before, Kreluit, and we landed to obtain information respecting a considerable stream, which here discharges into the Columbia, and respecting its resources for the hunter and trader in furs. It comes from the north, and is called Cowlitzk by the natives. Mr. M'Kay embarked with Mr. de Montigny and two Indians, in a small canoe, to examine the {107} course of this river, a certain distance up. On entering the stream, they saw a great number of birds, which they took at first for turkeys, so much they resembled them, but which were only a kind of carrion eagles, vulgarly called turkey-buzzards. We were not a little astonished to see Mr. de Montigny return on foot and alone; he soon informed us of the reason: having ascended the Kowlitzk about a mile and a half, on rounding a bend of the stream, they suddenly came in view of about twenty canoes, full of Indians, who had made a rush upon them with the most frightful yells; the two natives and the guide who conducted their little canoe, retreated with the utmost precipitancy, but seeing that they would be overtaken, they stopped short, and begged Mr. M'Kay to fire upon the approaching savages, which he, being well acquainted with the Indian character from the time he accompanied Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, and