Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/264

254 cept some ounces of chocolate, which I carried in my pocket. This canoe was so much larger and more commodious than my own, that I had succeeded in bargaining for the loan of it, and I attribute my preservation to the strength of the boat and dexterity of the Indians; by which, though the sea repeatedly broke over us, we reached the shore in perfect safety, and encamped at sunset near Knight's River, in Baker's Bay. In the evening I gave the two chiefs a dram of well-watered rum, which pernicious liquor they will, generally speaking, make any sacrifice to obtain. I found, however, an exception in my new guide; on my enquiring the reason of his temperance, he informed me that some years ago he used to get drunk, and become very quarrelsome; so much so, that the young men of the village had to take and bind him hand and foot, which he looks upon as a great disgrace, and will taste spirits no more. In lieu of drinking, however, I found him an expensive companion, from his addiction to tobacco. So greedily would he seize the pipe and inhale every particle of smoke, that regularly five or six times a day he would fall down in a state of stupefaction. In self-defense I was obliged to smoke, when I found that my mode of using the Indian weed diverted my companion as much as his had me. "Oh," cried he, "why do you throw away the food? (smoke). See, I take it in my belly."

The following day, during the whole of which the rain fell in torrents, we made a small portage of four miles over Cape Disappointment, the north point of the Columbia, to a small rivulet that falls into the ocean, twelve miles to the northward. I found the labour of dragging my canoe, occasionally over the rocks, stumps, and gulleys that intercepted our way extremely trying, especially as my knee became more and more stiff and troublesome from the damp and cold. On reaching the bay, I proceeded along it for a few miles, when the thick fog obliged me to encamp under a shelving rock, overshadowed with large pines, a little above tide mark. After a comfortless night I resumed my journey at daylight, and having been disappointed of procuring any salmon at