Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/298

 280 T. C. ELLIOTT soil is good; all the cereal gramma and tuberous plants may be cultivated with advantage; and the waters abound in salmon, sturgeon, and other varieties of fish. The natives, in appearance as well as in character, differ essentially from those with us. They are less in stature, more delicately formed, and singular in the shape of the head, which, in infancy, is compressed between two small plates of wood or metal, so as in its growth to obtain the semblance of a wedge. They are inquisitive, cheerful, sagacious, possess fewer of the vices attributed to the savage, and are less addicted to cruelties in war. Scalping is unknown to them ; and a pris- oner suffers the infliction of no other punishment than that of becoming slave to the captor ; but as they neither sow nor reap, an observer cannot easily discern in what the servitude consists. The wants of the one are supplied by his own address in the use of the bow and spear; while those of the other require the same efforts, and equal skill, for their gratification. The language on this side of the falls bears a strong analogy with that of Nootka ; so much so, that, with the aid of a Span- ish vocabulary of the latter, accompanying the voyage of Valdez, I could, notwithstanding the imperfection in this mode of conveying and of obtaining sounds, express my wants and be perfectly understood. I met with several of the natives who had heretofore volunteered on board of some one of our vessels in their fur excursions ; two of whom had acquired a sufficient knowledge of our language to speak it with some ease, and were extremely solicitous to embark with us. I regret that I could not collect sufficient data upon which to ground an estimate of the furs gathered on the Columbia ; it was impossible, for reasons that are obvious. Humboldt has undertaken to number those of the otter taken on the coast and shipped to China, of which he assigns five-sixths to the Ameri- cans. He may be correct as to the quantity, but I doubt whether the proportion be quite so great; as it frequently happens that the English adventurer confides his stock to our countrymen, in order to participate in the benefit of a market, from a direct intercourse with which he is excluded by the laws of his country.