in this
pursuit.

Sometimes we found the Indians so deeply interested in a game they were
playing, that they took no notice of us. It was played with slender
round sticks, about six inches long, made of yew wood, so exquisitely
polished that it had a gloss like satin. Some of the sticks were inlaid
with little bits of rainbow pearl, and I saw one on which the figure of
a fish was very skilfully represented. It is quite incomprehensible, how
they can do such delicate work with the poor tools they have. They use
only something like a cobbler's knife.

They shuffled the sticks under tow of cedar-bark, droning all the time a
low, monotonous chant. It is curious that any thing so extremely simple
can be so fascinating. They will sit all day and night, without stopping
for food, and gamble away every thing they possess. It appeared to be
identical with the old game of "Odd or Even" played by the ancient
Greeks, as described by Plato.

We saw here the great conical hat worn by the Cape Flattery Indians,
similar in form to the Chinese hat; and also some blankets of their own
manufacture, woven of dog's hair.

PORT TOWNSEND, WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
April 4, 1869.

This afternoon we rode past the graveyard of the Indians on the beach.
It is a picturesque spot, as most of their burial-places are. They like
to select them where land and water meet. A very old woman, wrapped in a
green blanket, was digging clams with her paddle in the sand. She was
one of those stiff old Indians, whom we occasionally see, who do not
speak the Chinook at all, and take no notice whatever of the whites. I
never feel as if they even see me when I am with them. They seem always
in a deep dream. Her youth must have been long before any white people
came to the country. When she dies, her body will be wrapped in the
tattered green blanket, and laid here, with her paddle, her only
possession, stuck up beside her in the sand.

We saw two Indians busy at one of the little huts that cover the
graves. They were nailing a new red covering over it. We asked them if a
chief was dead. A _klootchman_ we had not noticed before looked up, and
said mournfully, "No," it was her "little woman." I saw that she had
before her, on the sand, a number of little bright toys,--a doll wrapped
in calico, a musical ball, a looking-glass, a package of candy and one
of cakes, a bright tin pail full of sirup, and two large sacks, one of
bread, and the other of apples.