223 



Inclosures for garden-patches were sometimes made by banking up aroxmd 

 them with refuse thrown out in cleaning the ground, which, after a long 

 while, came to resemble a low wall, and, in some cases, as at the old Sno- 

 homish fort on Kwultsehda Creek, they made external ditches, which were 

 filled with pointed stakes and covered over; but these do not belong to the 

 class spoken off. Near the house of Mr. Cameron, at Esquimalt, Vancouver 

 Island, I noticed a trench, cutting off" a small point of rock near the shore, 

 which seemed to have been about six feet deep and eight wide. Governor 

 Douglass informed me that these were not unfrequent on the island ; that 

 they generally surrovmded some defensible place; and that often an escarp- 

 ment was constructed facing the sea, but that the earth was thi-own indis- 

 criminately on either side of the ditch. The present Indians have no tradi- 

 tion of their origin. He supposes them to have been made by their ancestors, 

 and the authors forgotten by their descendants. There are also, near Vic- 

 toria, a number of small mounds, which I was unfortunately unable to visit. 

 Governor Douglass mentioned that one had been dug into without finding 

 anything. Some of the gentlemen of the company supposed them to be 

 kamas ovens. Until an examination has been made, both of these and the 

 works in the Willamette Valley, the question may be considered as still 

 open, whether any works analogous to those of the Ohio Valley and others 

 of the States exist on the Pacific coast.* 



MIGRATIONS. 



The various tribes, as a general thing, claim for themselves to have sprung 

 from the identical country which they now occupy, and their legends, so far 

 as I have been able to collect them, give no account of remote changes of 

 place. A Tsinuk story, related elsewhere, points to a northern origin for the 

 ancestors of the tribe, but not for the people themselves. In reply to direct 

 interrogatories upon the subject, they invariably state that they have always 

 lived where they now do; but this is far less satisfactory than indirect evi- 

 dence, as they are quick at suspecting some object in regard to their lands. 



' In counection with the subject, refeienco may be made hero to the mouiKls noticed by Sir Edward 

 Belcher in parts of the Sacramento Valley, which, he states, were raised by the existing race of Indians, 

 for the purpose of elevating their houses beyond the reach of inundation. Whether such a motive gov- 

 erned the moand-bnilders of Ohio, under any circumstances, I .am uninformed. 



