Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/90

84 84 JOURNAL OF DAVID DOUGLAS. the Umptqua tongue, I trust to find no difficulty in con- versing with this my only companion. Wednesday, the 18th. I set off this morning, proceeding due south, and crossed the river five miles from an encamp- ment of Indians, where there were two lodges and about twenty-five souls, mostly women, the wives of Centrenose, who is chief of the tribe inhabiting the upper part of the Umptqua River. They very courteously brought me a large canoe, in which I embarked, and swam the horses at the stern, holding their bridles in my hand. My guide proving less conversant with the language of the people than I had expected, my intercourse with these Indians was but limited. They gave me nuts of Corylus, with the roots of Quamash, and a sort of meal prepared from the roots of a Syngenesious plant already in my possession, mixed with the roasted and pulverized nuts of the Myr- taceous tree before mentioned. A decoction of the leaves and tender shoots of this tree is by no means an unpala- table beverage. Soon after a herd of small deer sprang off before me, and I shot a female through the vertebrae, when she in- stantly dropped. Since leaving Fort Vancouver, I have often seen these creatures run several hundred yards be- fore falling, after a ball has gone through the heart. No fording place appearing here, nor for a considerable dis- tance, I began making a raft, which blistered my hands fearfully, and proved, after all, too small ; so that I closed the day's toil by kindling a fire and roasting some of my venison for supper. Thursday, the 19th. Finding my hands in such a state that I could not proceed with my raft, I wrote a note to Mr. McLeod, then nine miles distant, informing him of my situation, and sent it by my Indian guide, during whose absence I took my gun and went out to the chase. I soon after wounded a very large buck, but in the eager-