Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/20



12 O. B. SPERLIN

up. He had told them that he was going down the Tacooche Tesse to the sea. Suddenly he began a retrograde movement, to take a short-cut to the Pacific. His unheralded change of mind and the poor work of his interpreters came near costing him dearly. Harmon 55 among the Babines writes, "They came to meet us armed; they offered no offense, but showed that they could defend themselves." Franchere 56 records that McKay and Montigny when attacked by the Cowlitz "dis- played a friendly sign to the astonished natives, and invited them to land for a friendly talk; to which they immediately assented." Then the Astorians learned that the Cowlitz were at war with the Kreluits (Skilutes) ; and for the Kreluits the attack had all the while been intended. Eraser, 57 returning to the Hacamaughs, thought that their attitude had changed, and that they were treating him coldly, until he learned that they were actually starving, and the degree of famine caused the disagreeable gloom which had so forcibly attracted his notice. Meares's 58 longboat under Duffin was attacked by natives prob- ably at Nitinat, in 1788; but soon afterwards Duffin learned that these natives claimed Tatooche for chief, and Meares learned that Tatooche was at war with Wickananish, who was Meares's closest ally among the Indians. The Nitinats, there- fore, were at war with Meares in about the same way that the Japanese are at war with the Turks in the present war. Observe how, in these inimical cases, misunderstanding plays such a large part. " Misunderstanding through ignorance of the idiom may bring the most fatal consequences," writes Espinosa 59 of the Galiano and Valdez expedition. Hoskins 60 says on the same subject, "Too often it is the case that sailors when no officer is with them, from their ignorance of the lan- guage, either miscomprehend the natives or the natives them;

55 Journal: p. 282.

56 Narrative: p. 107.

57 Journal: pp. 213, 214.

58 Voyages: Appendix IV.

59 Sutil y Mexicana: p. 20.

60 Narrative: p. 38.