Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/112

 Narcissa will have indulged in a little billing and cooing with her husband on the ridge, quite permissable on a bridal tour. Let her tell the story:

"28thThis morn lingered with Husband on the top of the hill that overlooks Grand Round, for berries, untill we were some distance behind camp. Have no distressing apprehensions now the moment we are out of sight of camp for we have entirely passed the dangerous country. Always enjoy riding alone with him, especially when we talk about home friends. It is then the tedious hours are sweetly decoyed away. We decend a very steep hill in coming into Grand Round at the foot of which is a beautiful cluster of pine trees, pich & spruce, but no white pine like what I have been accostomed to see at home Grand Round is indeed a beautiful place. It is a circular plain, surrounded with lofty mountains & has a beautiful stream coursing through it in some places is delightful, & the soil rich, in other places we find the white sand & sage as usual so peculiar to this country. We nooned upon Grand Round River. The Cammas grows here in abundance & it is the principal resort of the Cayouses & many other tribes, to obtain it of which they are very fond. It resembles an onion in shape & colour, when cooked is very sweet, tastes like a fig. Their manner of baking them is very curious. They dig a hole in the ground, throw in a heap of stones, heat them to a red heat cover them with green grass, upon which they put the Cammas & cover the whole with earth, when taken out it is black. This is the chief food of many tribes during winter. After dinner we left the plains & ascended the Blue Mountains. There a new & pleasing scene presented itslf, mountains covered with timber through which we rode all the afternoon, a very agreable change The scenery reminded me of the hills in my native county Steuben."

Camp this evening was at the spring in the timber on the dividing ridge between the watersheds of the Grande Ronde and Umatilla rivers, perhaps not far from Horse-shoe prairie shown on forest reserve maps. After dinner they had traveled northward through Summerville (earlier known as Indian valley) up one of the ridges dividing Phillips creeks; Indian trails through timber always followed the ridges instead of the valleys of

Mode of crossing rivers by the Flatheads and other Indians. -From Mullan'