NARRATIVE OF 1856. 199 
At our camp we were visited by Lawyer, who gave us much additional information about 
his tribe and the character of the country. The Nez Percés country is exceedingly well adapted 
to grazing, and is for the most part а remarkably fine, arable country. There аге very extensive 
fields of the kamas, and the Indians lay up large stores of that nutritious and delightful root. 
Wednesday, June 20.—We moved twenty miles to-day and camped at a delightful spring, with 
abundant dry wood near by. The first two miles and a half we went down Snake river. An 
Indian camp was in sight, on the right bank of the river, one mile below, and another on the 
left bank of the river, two miles and a half below our camp. The Indians were collecting their 
horses to go out to the kamas fields northward of Snake river. We then moved up a small 
tributary of the Snake—the water, at the present time, at the lower portion of it, being simply 
in pools, or running short distances—and in four miles reached the table-land ; water, wood, 
and grass being abundant the last two miles. And here I was astonished, not simply at the 
luxuriance of the grass, but the richness of the soil ; and I will again remind the reader that it 
does not follow because the grass is luxuriant that the country is not arable. In a mile and a 
half we reached the divide separating the waters of the Snake from those of the Peluse, which 
divide, so far as the eye could reach, is nearly parallel to the Snake, and about four miles from 
it. In two miles and a half we came to a long and narrow lake ; fields of kamas being in view 
for a long distance. There is running water in the lake, which, however, from time to time, 
sinks into the ground and rises again. Three miles and a half further we came again to running 
water, with luxuriant cotton-wood. This connects with the lake before referred to, and here is 
а most excellent camping place. In a mile and a half, again, wood and water. Іп two miles and 
a half we came to a low divide, and in two miles more reached our camp. On our left we saw 
bands of Indians digging kamas, some three miles distant, who were afterward ascertained to 
be twelve lodges of Peluses, under their chief Quillatose. I will again say, we have been 
astonished to-day at the luxuriance of the grass and the richness of the soil. The whole view 
presents to the eye a vast bed of flowers in all their varied beauty. The country is a rolling 
table-land, and the soil like that of the prairies of Illinois. 
Thursday, June 21.—We moved to-day seventeen miles, and encamped at the right bank 
of the main Peluse river. At our last night's camp the pines of the spurs of the Bitter Root 
were in view, extending to within a mile or a mile and a half of us. We skirted along or passed 
through these pines during this day's journey. The whole country to the westward, as far as 
the eye could reach, was an open plain, the skies clear and the atmosphere transparent ; I say 
again, the whole country was, apparently, exceedingly rich and luxuriant. Iinterrogated very 
closely my pack-master, Mr. Higgins, in reference to the character of the country westward, 
for he had crossed it on two different lines between our present trail and that from the month 
of the Peluse ; and he assured me that the country which my own eye saw to-day, and had 
seen yesterday, was precisely the same country as that found on the westward lines. Pyramid 
Butte was also in view to-day, as it had been yesterday. We took its bearings with a view of 
laying it down upon our map. 
But to resume : in 31 miles we reached the extensive kamas grounds of the Nez Регебв. Неге 
were six hundred Nez Percés—men, women and children—with at least two thousand horses— 
gathering the kamas. So abundant is this valuable and nutritious root, that it requires simply 
four days’ labor for them to gather sufficient for their year’s use. In 2} miles further on we 
struck the great Nez Percés trail, coming from Lapwai, a much larger and more used trail than 
the one we had followed from Red Wolfs ground. Іп one mile we came to water and cotton- 
