THE TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON. 355 



ing, but remains on the surface much after the manner of snow. Besides the mist 

 falls vertically and is easily kept off by an umbrella which a man can hold over 

 him without freezing his hands off. It always did seem a waste of labor and 

 fortitude for a person to struggle with freezing hands to keep an umbrella over 

 him in a howling blast of horizontal rain. It is much more sensible to put one's 

 hands in one's pockets and hurry home. 



Happily it is not necessary to do either here. During the summer the ther- 

 mometer rarely reaches 80° F. and the cool nights are highly conducive to sleep. 

 During the winter, while water rarely freezes, the excessive moisture makes the 

 cold much more sensible than an equal temperature elsewhere. Notwithstanding 

 this, everybody is satisfied with the climate ; so much so, indeed, that once here 

 no one wants to leave, or having left there is no one but wants to get back. It 

 is even true that some do not like to go away on a visit for fear they won't get 

 back. 



A slight change of position makes a great difference in climate in this region, 

 for though the above oudines the chmate of the Sound, it does not apply to that 

 of Eastern Washington, which is, however, much more equable than that of any 

 of the States east of the Rocky Mountains. So that with rich land, inexhausti- 

 ble quantities of timber, coal, and iron, all easy of access independently of rail- 

 road construction, it does not require a prophet to see that this same " Sound Coun- 

 try " is destined soon to become one of the richest and most prosperous of regions, 

 as it is now one of the most pleasant. 



The white man in his westward journey around the earth seems to have here 

 reached the jumping-off place and to have been compelled to mingle with the 

 poor savage whom he could drive no further. 



The Indians of Puget Sound belong to the nation of Flatheads, a name derived 

 from their practice of '• flattening" the heads of their young. They bind the 

 child, on its back, firmly to a board with many thongs, one of which passes over 

 the forehead which is protected by a pad. This pad they press from time to time 

 and thus gradually outrage nature. The effect of this operation is to depress the 

 forehead, make more prominent the high cheek bones, elongate the head, broad- 

 en and flatten the lower part of the face, and to effectually stamp out every line- 

 ament of beauty or intelligence. They are such thieves that some merchants 

 will not admit them unless they have some idle clerks to watch them, preferring 

 the loss of their profit to a total loss. 



There are many different tribes of these Flathead Indians, and each tribe 

 has a language of its own. In order to remove the obstacles to trade which this 

 confusion of tongues engendered, the Jesuits many years ago, in the interest of the 

 Hudson Bay Company, made up a compound of all the languages and by intro- 

 ducing a tincture of French, originated what is known as the " Chinook Jargon," 

 or " Indian trade language of the North Pacific Coast," which is now spoken by 

 all the various tribes. 



This language contains 493 words, from which the letter "r" is religiously 

 excluded, which seems to indicate that the Flathead can no more pronounce that 



