t was the Indians of Wallawalla who brought
her to us. We made them some presents to repay their care and pains, and
they returned well satisfied.

The persons who lost their lives in this unfortunate wintering party,
were Mr. John Reed, (clerk), Jacob Regner, John Hubbough, Pierre Dorion
(hunters), Gilles Leclerc, Francois Landry, J.B. Turcotte, Andre la
Chapelle and Pierre De Launay, (_voyageurs_).[AB] We had no doubt that
this massacre was an act of vengeance, on the part of the natives, in
retaliation for the death of one of their people, whom Mr. John Clark
had hanged for theft the spring before. This fact, the massacre on the
Tonquin, the unhappy end of Captain Cook, and many other similar
examples, prove how carefully the Europeans, who have relations with a
barbarous people, should abstain from acting in regard to them on the
footing of too marked an inequality, and especially from punishing their
offences according to usages and codes, in which there is too often an
enormous disproportion between the crime and the punishment. If these
pretended exemplary punishments seem to have a good effect at first
sight, they almost always produce terrible consequences in the sequel.

[Footnote AB: Turcotte died of _King's Evil_. De Launay was a
half-breed, of violent temper, who had taken an Indian woman to live
with him; he left Mr. Reed in the autumn, and was never heard of again.]

On the 18th, we passed _Priest's Rapid_, so named by Mr. Stuart and his
people, who saw at this spot, in 1811, as they were ascending the
river, a number of savages, one of whom was performing on the rest
certain aspersions and other ceremonies, which had the air of being
coarse imitations of the Catholic worship. For our part, we met here
some Indians of whom we bought two horses. The banks of the river at
this place are tolerably high, but the country back of them is flat and
uninteresting.

On the 20th, we arrived at a place where the bed of the river is
extremely contracted, and where we were obliged to make a portage.
Messrs. J. Stuart and Clarke left us here, to proceed on horseback to
the Spokan trading house, to procure there the provisions which would be
necessary for us, in order to push on to the mountains.

On the 21st, we lightened of their cargoes, three canoes, in which those
who were to cross the continent embarked, to get on with greater speed.
We passed several rapids, and began to see mountains covered with snow.

On