Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/115

Rh for he had dropped out of the sky with a dead crane and a duck, accompanied by a terrible noise.

The Indians being now convinced that he was a mortal man, and, moreover, having heard the sound of the violin which the negro servant carried with him, became so enamoured with the strangers that they stayed up with them all night, and in the morning collected by hundreds to bid them good-bye.

The Indians had now given them to understand that in a short time they would reach the place which they knew as "Timm." This seems to have been an Indian word for falls. It still appears in the name Tumwater Falls applied to the falls at Celilo on the Columbia. A weird, savage place this proved to be; crags of basalt, thrust through the soil, like clenched hands, seemed almost to grasp the rushing river. Making several portages, the voyagers reached that extraordinary place now called The Dalles, or the "big chute," where all the waters of the Columbia are squeezed into a crack only a hundred and fifty feet in width. The River, in fact, is "turned on edge." The explorers, finding the shore so rough that it was difficult to carry their boats over, steered boldly through that witch's caldron. Though they must have been carried with frightful rapidity through the boiling stream, they reached the end of the cataract without accident. At this point they began to be aware of the fact that they were reaching the sphere of the white traders from the ocean, for they began to see blankets, axes, brass kettles, and other articles of civilised manufacture. The Indians, too, were more saucy, suspicious, and treacherous than those of the upper country.

Being launched upon the calm, deep flood of the