the common size, with high cheek-bones;
their noses are pierced, and in full dress ornamented with a tapering
piece of white shell or wampum about two inches long. Their eyes are
exceedingly sore and weak; many of them have only a single eye, and
some are perfectly blind. Their teeth prematurely decay, and in frequent
instances are altogether worn away. Their general health, however, seems
to be good, the only disorder we have remarked being tumors in different
parts of the body."

The more difficult rapid was passed on the second day of November, the
luggage being sent down by land and the empty canoes taken down with
great care. The journal of that date says:--

"The rapid we have just passed is the last of all the descents of the
Columbia. At this place the first tidewater commences, and the river
in consequence widens immediately below the rapid. As we descended we
reached, at the distance of one mile from the rapid, a creek under
a bluff on the left; at three miles is the lower point of Strawberry
Island. To this immediately succeed three small islands covered with
wood. In the meadow to the right, at some distance from the hills,
stands a perpendicular rock about eight hundred feet high and four
hundred yards around the base. This we called Beacon Rock. Just below is
an Indian village of nine houses, situated between two small creeks.
At this village the river widens to nearly a mile in extent; the low
grounds become wider, and they as well as the mountains on each side are
covered with pine, spruce-pine, cottonwood, a species of ash, and some
alder. After being so long accustomed to the dreary nakedness of the
country above, the change is as grateful to the eye as it is useful in
supplying us with fuel. Four miles from the village is a point of
land on the right, where the hills become lower, but are still thickly
timbered. The river is now about two miles wide, the current smooth and
gentle, and the effect of the tide has been sensible since leaving the
rapid. Six miles lower is a rock rising from the middle of the river to
the height of one hundred feet, and about eighty yards at its base.
We continued six miles further, and halted for the night under a high
projecting rock on the left side of the river, opposite the point of a
large meadow.

"The mountains, which, from the great shoot to this place, are high,
rugged, and thickly covered with timber, chiefly of the pine species,
here leave the river on each