ninety-pound
pack, supported by a strap across the forehead. Again and again on the
journey Indians confronted Fraser with hostile show of weapons, but the
intrepid trader disarmed hostility by gifts. The Indians declared that
the sea lay only ten 'sleeps' distant. One of the chiefs said that he
had himself seen white men, who were great 'tyees,' because 'they were
well dressed and very proud and went about this way'--clapping his
hands to his hips and strutting about with an air of vast importance.
The Indians told Fraser of another great river that came in from the
east and joined this one some distance below. He had passed the site
of the present Lillooet and was {96} approaching the confluence of the
Thompson with the Fraser. Farther down European articles were seen
among the Indians. It was the fishing season, and the tribes had
assembled in great hordes. Here the river was navigable, and three
wooden dug-outs were obtained from the natives for the descent to the
sea. The voyageurs again embarked, and swept down the narrow bends of
the turbulent floods at what are now Lytton, Yale, and Hope. There
were passes where the river was such a raging torrent that the dug-outs
had to be carried overland. There were places where Fraser's voyageurs
had to climb precipices by means of frail ladders, made of poles and
withes, that swayed to their tread and threatened to precipitate them
into the torrent beneath.

When the river turned sharply west, Fraser could not help noticing that
the Indians became more violently hostile. Far south could be seen the
opal dome of Mount Baker, named by Vancouver after one of his
lieutenants. As they advanced, the banks lowered to reedy swamps and
mosquitoes appeared in clouds. What troubled Fraser most was the fact
that the river lay many miles north of the known latitude of the
Columbia. It daily grew on {97} him that this could not possibly be
the Columbia. The tide rose and fell in the river. The Indian guide
begged the white men not to go on; he was afraid, he said, of the
Indians of the sea-coast. The river channel divided. Natives along
the shore began singing war-songs and beating the war-drum; then they
circled out threateningly round the white men's boats. Signs were seen
of the sea ahead; but the Indians were 'howling like wolves and
brandishing war-clubs,' and Fraser concluded that it would be unwise to
delay longer amid such dangers. To his intense disappointme