SMELT-FISHING—GOING OUT TO SEA. 51 
weary smelt-fishermen, in their nude and savage strength, are grouped 
together squatting or leaning about, with their smooth, dark, clean-moulded 
limbs in statuesque attitudes of repose. Dozens of canoes laden with 
bushels on bushels of the little silver fishes, shove off and move silently 
away up the darkling river. The village of Rikwa perched on the shoulder 
of the great bluff, amid the lush cool ferns, swashing in the soft sea-breeze, 
tinkles with the happy cackle of brown babies tumbling on their heads 
with the puppies; and the fires within the cabins gleam through the round 
door-holes like so many full-orbed moons heaving out of the breast of the 
mountain. 
Smelt being small the squaws dry them whole by laying them awhile 
on low wooden kilns, with interstices to allow the smoke to rise up freely, 
and then finishing the process in the sun. They eat them uncooked, with 
sauce of raw salal-berries (Gualtheria shallon), which are very good in Sep- 
tember and October. Let an Indian be journeying anywhither, and you 
will always find in his basket some bars of this silver bullion, or flakes of 
rich orange colored salmon. 
When the ocean is tranquil they paddle out in their canoes a mile or 
more and clamber out on the isolated farralones to gather shell-fish and 
algze for food. It is quite a perilous feat to approach one of these steep, 
rugged bowlders in the open sea, and leap upon it amid the swish and thud- 
ding of the waves. 
