ountains
receded, and gave place to beautiful plains and noble forests. While
the river margin was richly fringed with trees of deciduous foliage, the
rough uplands were crowned by majestic pines, and firs of gigantic size,
some towering to the height of between two and three hundred feet, with
proportionate circumference. Out of these the Indians wrought their
great canoes and pirogues.

At one part of the river, they passed, on the northern side, an isolated
rock, about one hundred and fifty feet high, rising from a low marshy
soil, and totally disconnected with the adjacent mountains. This was
held in great reverence by the neighboring Indians, being one of their
principal places of sepulture. The same provident care for the deceased
that prevails among the hunting tribes of the prairies is observable
among the piscatory tribes of the rivers and sea-coast. Among the
former, the favorite horse of the hunter is buried with him in the same
funereal mound, and his bow and arrows are laid by his side, that he
may be perfectly equipped for the "happy hunting grounds" of the land of
spirits. Among the latter, the Indian is wrapped in his mantle of
skins, laid in his canoe, with his paddle, his fishing spear, and other
implements beside him, and placed aloft on some rock or other eminence
overlooking the river, or bay, or lake, that he has frequented. He is
thus fitted out to launch away upon those placid streams and sunny lakes
stocked with all kinds of fish and waterfowl, which are prepared in the
next world for those who have acquitted themselves as good sons, good
fathers, good husbands, and, above all, good fishermen, during their
mortal sojourn.

The isolated rock in question presented a spectacle of the kind,
numerous dead bodies being deposited in canoes on its summit; while on
poles around were trophies, or, rather, funeral offerings of trinkets,
garments, baskets of roots, and other articles for the use of the
deceased. A reverential feeling protects these sacred spots from robbery
or insult. The friends of the deceased, especially the women, repair
here at sunrise and sunset for some time after his death, singing his
funeral dirge, and uttering loud wailings and lamentations.

From the number of dead bodies in canoes observed upon this rock by
the first explorers of the river, it received the name of Mount Coffin,
which it continues to bear.

Beyond this rock they passed the mouth of a river on the right bank