at all ornamented.

The Chopunnish Indians have very few ornaments; for their life is
painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn
their subsistence. During the summer and autumn they are busily occupied
in fishing for salmon, and collecting their winter store of roots. In
the winter, with snow-shoes on their feet, they hunt deer over the
plains; and, towards the spring, they cross the mountains to the
Missouri, for the purpose of trafficking for buffalo-robes.

In descending the _Kooskooskee_, the travellers had many opportunities
of observing the arrangements of the Indians for preserving fish,
particularly salmon, which are here very abundant. In some places,
especially in the Columbia, the water was so clear, that these fish were
seen at the depth of fifteen or twenty feet. During the autumn, they
float down the stream in such numbers, that the Indians have only to
collect, split, and dry them. Scaffolds and wooden houses, piled up
against each other, for the purpose of fishing, were frequently
observed. Indeed fish are here so abundant, that, in a scarcity of wood,
dried salmon are often used as fuel.

A considerable trade is carried on in dried fish, which is thus
prepared. The salmon, having been opened, and exposed some time to the
sun, is pounded between two stones; then packed in baskets, neatly made
of grass and rushes, which are lined and covered with salmon-skins,
stretched and dried for that purpose. In these baskets, the pounded
salmon is pressed down as hard as possible. Each basket contains from
ninety to one hundred pounds; seven baskets are placed side by side, and
five on the top. They are then covered with mats, and corded; and then
again matted, thus forming a stack. In this manner the fish is kept
sweet and sound for many years.

The Koo-koos-kee is greatly augmented by the junction of Lewis's river
from the south; and the united streams, after flowing a considerable
distance, fall into the still larger flood of the Columbia. At their
junction, the width of the Columbia is nine hundred and sixty yards.

The Indians, in this part of America, are called _Solkuks_; and seem to
be of a mild and peaceable disposition, and to live in a state of
comparative happiness. Each man is contented with a single wife, with
whom he shares the labours of procuring subsistence, much more than is
usual among savages. What may be considered as an unequivocal proof of
their good disposition