gallant and honourable Indian. Several of the party, a majority of whom
were women and children, were sick with chills and fever. The men were
engaged in hunting and jerking deer and elk meat. Throwing our hooks,
baited with fresh meat, into the river, we soon drew out small fish
enough for dinner.

The specimens of Walla-Wallas at this encampment are far superior to
the Indians of California in features, figure, and intelligence. Their
complexion is much lighter, and their features more regular,
expressive, and pleasing. Men and women were clothed in dressed skins.
The men were armed with rifles.

At sunset we put our little craft in motion again, and at one o'clock
at night landed near the cabin of a German emigrant named Schwartz, six
miles below the _embarcadero_ of New Helvetia. The cabin is about
twenty feet in length by twelve in breadth, constructed of a light rude
frame, shingled with _tule_. After gaining admission, we found a fire
blazing in the centre of the dwelling on the earth-floor, and suspended
over us were as many salmon, taken from the Sacramento, as could be
placed in position to imbibe the preservative qualities of the smoke.

Our host, Mr. Schwartz, is one of those eccentric human phenomena
rarely met with, who, wandering from their own nation into foreign
countries, forget their own language without acquiring any other. He
speaks a tongue (language it cannot be called) peculiar to himself, and
scarcely intelligible. It is a mixture, in about equal parts, of
German, English, French, Spanish, and _rancheria_ Indian, a compounded
polyglot or lingual _pi_--each syllable of a word sometimes being
derived from a different language. Stretching ourselves on the benches
surrounding the fire, so as to avoid the drippings from the pendent