asta Valley on the north side of
the mountain, wheat, apples, melons, berries, all the best production
of farm and garden growing and ripening there at the foot of the great
white cone, which seems at times during changing storms ready to fall
upon them--the most sublime farm scenery imaginable.

The Indians of the McCloud River that have come under my observation
differ considerably in habits and features from the Diggers and other
tribes of the foothills and plains, and also from the Pah Utes and
Modocs. They live chiefly on salmon. They seem to be closely related
to the Tlingits of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, and may readily have
found their way here by passing from stream to stream in which salmon
abound. They have much better features than the Indians of the plains,
and are rather wide awake, speculative and ambitious in their way, and
garrulous, like the natives of the northern coast.

Before the Modoc War they lived in dread of the Modocs, a tribe living
about the Klamath Lake and the Lava Beds, who were in the habit of
crossing the low Sierra divide past the base of Shasta on freebooting
excursions, stealing wives, fish, and weapons from the Pitts and
McClouds. Mothers would hush their children by telling them that the
Modocs would catch them.

During my stay at the Government fish-hatching station on the McCloud I
was accompanied in my walks along the riverbank by a McCloud boy about
ten years of age, a bright, inquisitive fellow, who gave me the Indian
names of the birds and plants that we met. The water-ousel he knew well
and he seemed to like the sweet singer, which he called "Sussinny." He
showed me how strips of the stems of the beautiful maidenhair fern were
used to adorn baskets with handsome brown bands, and pointed out several
plants good to eat, particularly the large saxifrage growing abundantly
along the river margin. Once I rushed suddenly upon him to see if he
would be frightened; but he unflinchingly held his ground, struck a
grand heroic attitude, and shouted, "Me no fraid; me Modoc!"

Mount Shasta, so far as I have seen, has never been the home of Indians,
not even their hunting ground to any great extent, above the lower
slopes of the base. They are said to be afraid of fire-mountains and
geyser basins as being the dwelling places of dangerously powerful and
unmanageable gods. However, it is food and their relations to other
tribes that mainly control the movements of Indians; and here