THE INTERIOR OF OREGON. 495 



The scalps of enemies are taken in war, and the war-dance is always 

 performed. 



Girls are oifered as wives to the young men by the parents : the 

 ties of marriage are very loose, and wives are put away at pleasure. 

 This privilege is also allowed to the women, which places the two 

 sexes much more on a par than among the tribes west of the moun- 

 tains. 



The medicine men and women are much in repute here. Before 

 any sorcery or divination is performed, they retire to the mountains 

 for several days, where they fast, and where they pretend to have an 

 interview with the waiakin or wolf When they return, they relate 

 the conversation they have had with him, and proceed to effect cures, 

 &c. They are looked upon as invulnerable, and it is believed that 

 balls fired at them are flattened against their breasts. If affronted 

 or injured, they predict death to the offender, and the doom is consi- 

 dered inevitable. They use the same means of extracting diseases 

 that have been before described. 



Wild animals are now comparatively few, when compared with 

 their former numbers. They consist of wolves, large and small, who 

 prowl around the dwellings; lynxes, bears, of the gray, brown, black, 

 and yellow colours, the former of which were the most numerous. 

 Beavers and otters are now both scarce. Rats, both water and musk, 

 are seen in numbers. 



Mr. Hale, the philologist of the Expedition, who was left in the 

 Oregon Territory, passed from Waiila{)tu, the mission station of Dr. 

 Whitman, to Chimikaine and Fort Colville, by the Peluse river, 

 crossing the country over the middle sections of Oregon, about half 

 way betw-een the route the party under Lieutenant Johnson pursued 

 to Lapwai. Mr. Hale describes the country as an upland plain, 

 covered with herbage, but without trees. There were no running 

 streams, but numerous ponds of fresh water. This is the most direct 

 route to Fort Colville, and is that usually chosen by the servants of 

 the Hudson Bay Company. It passes by the Peluse river, and fol- 

 lows its windings. 



The falls upon this river are of some note, and are called Aputaput; 

 and they will hereafter be an object of interest to travellers in this 

 country. The river pours down, in a cataract of foam, through a 

 perpendicular descent of one hundred feet, and is received in a basin, 

 surrounded by basaltic walls, between two and three hundred feet in 



