ite
touched at seeing Yeomans's son take the flag from his dead sister's
grave, and plant it on the beach at high-water mark, as if it were a
kind of participation, on the part of the dead girl, in the joy of the
occasion.

OCTOBER 5, 1865.

Flocks of crows hover continually about the Indian villages. The most
proverbially suspicious of all birds is here familiar and confiding. The
Indian exercises superstitious care over them, but whether from love or
fear we could never discover. It is very difficult to find out what an
Indian believes. We have sometimes heard that they consider the crows
their ancestors. It is a curious fact, that the Indians, in talking,
make so much use of the palate,--_kl_ and other guttural sounds
occurring so often,--and that the crow, in his deep "caw, caw," uses the
same organ. It may be significant of some psychological relationship
between them.

III.

Indian Chief Seattle.--Frogs and Indians.--Spring Flowers and
Birds.--The Red _Tamahnous_.--The little Pend d'Oreille.--Indian
Legend.--From Seattle to Fort Colville.--Crossing the Columbia
River Bar.--The River and its Surroundings.--Its Former
Magnitude.--The Grande Coulee.--Early Explorers, Heceta, Meares,
Vancouver, Grey.--Curious Burial-Place.--Chinese
Miners.--Umatilla.--Walla Walla.--Sage-Brush and
Bunch-Grass.--Flowers in the Desert.--"Stick"
Indians.--Klickatats.--Spokane Indian.--Snakes.--Dead Chiefs.--A
Kamas-Field.--Basaltic Rocks.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY,
November 5, 1865.

We saw here a very dignified Indian, old and poor, but with something
about him that led us to suspect that he was a chief. We found, upon
inquiry, that it was Seattle, the old chief for whom the town was named,
and the head of all the tribes on the Sound. He had with him a little
brown sprite, that seemed an embodiment of the wind,--such a swift,
elastic little creature,--his great-grandson, with no clothes about him,
though it was a cold November day. To him, motion seemed as natural as
rest.

Here we first saw Mount Rainier. It was called by the Indians _Tacoma_
(The nourishing breast). It is also claimed that the true Indian name is
_Tahoma_ (Almost to heaven). It stands alone, nearly as high as Mont
Blanc, triple-pointed, and covered with snow, most grand and
inaccessible-looking.

We have a great laurel-tree beside our house. It looks so Southern, it
is strange to see i