TRIP THROUGH NACHES PASS, 1841 



The party now branched off at right angles to their 

 former route, Lieutenant Johnson heartily sick and tired 

 of his friend Tidias and his people. Two more of the 

 Indians here left them. The country they entered, 

 after passing a ridge about six hundred feet high, was 

 quite of a different aspect, forming long sloping hills, 

 covered with a scanty growth of pines. Many dry 

 beds of rivulets were passed, and the soil of the hills 

 produced nothing but a long thin grass. There are, 

 however, some small valleys where the growth of grass 

 is luxuriant, the pines are larger, and the scenery 

 assumed a park-like appearance. 



From the summit of one of the hills, a sketch of 

 Mount Rainier, and of the intervening range, was 

 obtained. 



On the top of the ridge they fell in with a number of 

 Spipen Indians, who were engaged in digging the cam- 

 mass and other roots. The latter were those of an 

 umbelliferous plant, oblong, tuberous, and in taste 

 resembling a parsnep. The process used to prepare 

 them for bread, is to bake them in a well-heated oven of 

 stones ; when they are taken out they are dried, and 

 then pounded between two stones till the mass becomes 

 as fine as corn meal, when it is kneaded into cakes and 

 dried in the sun. These roots are the principal vege- 

 table food of the Indians throughout Middle Oregon. 

 The women are frequently seen, to the number of 

 twenty or thirty, with baskets suspended from the 

 neck, and a pointed stick in their hand, digging these 

 roots, and so intently engaged in the search for them, 

 as to pay no attention whatever to a passer-by. When 

 these roots are properly dried, they are stored away 

 for the winter's consumption. This day they made 

 only fifteen miles, in a northern direction. 



On the 2d of June, they reached the Yakima, after 

 having crossed a small stream. The Yakima was too 

 deep for the horses to ford with their packs, and they 

 now for the first time used their balsas of India-rubber 



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