marriage into the husband's family, where she resides until increasing numbers oblige them to seek another house. In this state the old man is not considered as the head of the family, since the active duties, as well as the responsibility, fall on some of the younger members. As these families gradually expand into bands, or tribes, or nations, the paternal authority is represented by the chief of each association. This chieftain, however, is not hereditary; his ability to render service to his neighbours, and the popularity which follows it, is at once the foundation and the measure of his authority, the exercise of which does not extend beyond a reprimand for some improper action.

The harmony of their private life is indeed secured by their ignorance of spirituous liquors, the earliest and most dreadful present which civilization has given to the other natives of the continent. Although they have had so much intercourse with whites, they do not appear to possess any knowledge of those dangerous luxuries, at least they have never inquired after them, which they probably would have done if once they had been introduced among them. Indeed, we have not observed any liquor of an intoxicating quality used among these or any Indians west of the Rocky Mountains, the universal beverage being pure water. They, however, sometimes almost intoxicate themselves by smoking tobacco, of which they are excessively fond, and the pleasures of which they prolong as much as possible, by retaining vast quan

tities at a time, till after cireu, lating through the lungs and stomach, it issues in volumes from the mouth and nostrils. But the natural vice of all these people is an attachment for games of hazard, which they pursue with a strange and ruinous avidity. The games are of two kinds. In the first, one of the company assumes the office of banker, and plays against the rest. He takes a small stone, about the size of a bean, which he shifts from one hand to the other with great dexterity, repeating at the same time a song adapted to the game, and which serves to divert the attention of the company, till having agreed on the stake, he holds out his hands, and the antagonist wins or loses as he succeeds or fails at guessing in which hand the stone is. After the banker has lost his money, or whenever he is tired, the stone is transferred to another, who in turn challenges the rest of the company. The other game is something like the play of ninepins : two pins are placed on the floor, about the distance of a foot from each other, and a small hole made behind them. The players then go about ten feet from the hole, into which they try to roll a small piece resembling the men used at draughts; if they succeed in putting it into the hole, they win the stake; if the piece rolls between the pins, but does not go into the hole, nothing is won or lost; but the wager is wholly lost if the chequer rolls outside of the pins. Entire days are wasted at these games, which are often continued through the night round the blaze of their fires, till

the

the last article of clothing, or even the last blue bead is won from the desperate adventurer.

In traffic they are keen, acute, and intelligent, and they employ in all their bargains a dexterity and finesse, which if it be not learnt from their foreign visitors, may show how nearly the cunning of savages is allied to the little arts of more civilized trade. They begin by asking double or treble the value of their merchandise, and lower the demand in proportion to the ardor or experience in trade of the purchaser; and if he expresses any anxiety, the smallest article, perhaps a handful of roots, will furnish a whole morning's negociation. Being naturally suspicious, they of course conceive that you are pursuing the same system. They, therefore, invariably refuse the first offer, however high, fearful that they or we have mistaken the value of the merchandise, and therefore cautiously wait to draw us on to larger offers. In this way, after rejecting the most extravagant prices, which we have offered merely for experiment, they have afterwards importuned us for a tenth part of what they had before refused. In this respect, they differ from almost all Indians, who will generally exchange in a thoughtless moment the most valuable article they possess, for any bauble which happens to please their fancy.

These habits of cunning, or prudence, have been formed or increased by their being engaged in a large part of the commerce of the Columbia; of that trade, however, the great emporium is the Falls, where all the neigh

bouring nations assemble. The inhabitants of the Columbian plains, after having passed the winter near the mountains, come down as soon as the snow has left the valleys, and are occupied in collecting and drying roots, till about the month of May. They then crowd to the river, and fixing themselves on its north side, to avoid the incursions of the Snake Indians, continue fishing, till about the first of September, when the salmon are no longer fit for use. They then bury their fish and return to the plains, where they remain gathering qua mash, till the snow obliges them to desist. They come back to the Columbia, and taking their store of fish, retire to the foot of the mountains, and along the creeks, which supply timber for houses, and pass the winter in hunting deer or elk, which with the aid of their fish, enables them to subsist till, in the spring, they resume the circle of their employments. During their residence on the river, from May to September, or rather before they begin the regular fishery, they go down to the Falls, carrying with them skins, mats, silk grass, rushes and chappelell bread. They are here overtaken by the Chopunnish, and other tribes of the Rocky mountains, who descend the Koos kooskee and Lewis's river, for the purpose of selling beargrass, horses. quamash, and a few skins which they have obtain ed by hunting, or in exchange for horses with the Tushepaws.

At the Falls, they find the Chilluckittequaws, Eneeshurs, Echeloots, and Skilloots, which last serve as intermediate traders

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or carriers between the inhabitants above and below the Falls. These tribes prepare pounded fish for the market, and the nations below bring wappatoo roots, the fish of the sea-coast, berries, and a variety of trinkets and small articles which they have procured from the whites.

The trade then begins. The Chopunnish, and Indians of the Rocky mountains, exchange the articles which they have brought for wappatoo, pounded fish, and beads. The Indians of the plains being their own fishermen, take only wappatoo, horses, beads, and other articles, procured from Europeans. The Indians, however, from Lewis's river to the Falls, consume as food or fuel all the fish which they take; so that the whole stock for exportation is prepared by the nations between the Towahnahiooks and the Falls, and amounts, as nearly as could estimate, to about thirty thousand weight, chiefly salmon, above the quantity which they use themselves, or barter with the more eastern Indians. This is now carried down the river by the Indians at the Falls, and is consumed among the nations at the mouth of the Columbia, who in return give the fish of the seacoast, and the articles which they obtain from the whites. The neighbouring people catch large quantities of salmon and dry them, but they do not understand or practise the art of drying and pounding it in the manner used at the Falls, and being very fond of it, are forced to purchase it at high prices. This article, indeed, and the Wappatoo, form the principal subjects of trade with the

people of our immediate vicinity. The traffic is wholly carried on by water; there are even no roads or paths through the country, except across the portages which connect the creeks.

But the circumstance which forms the soul of this trade, is the visit of the whites. They arrive generally about the month of April, and either remain until October, or return at that time; during which time, having no establishment on shore, they anchor on the north side of the bay, at the place already described, which is a spacious and commodious harbour, perfectly secure from all, except the south and south-east winds; and as they leave it before winter, they do not suffer from these winds, which, during that season, are the most usual and the most violent. This situation is recommended by its neighbourhood to fresh water and wood, as well as to excellent timber for repairs. Here they are immediately visited by the tribes along the sea-coast, by the Cathlamahs, and lastly by the Skilloots, that numerous and active people, who skirt the river between the marshy islands and the Grand rapids, as well as the Coweliskee, and who carry down the fish prepared by their immediate neighbours the Chilluckittequaws, Eneeshurs, and Echeeloots, residing from the Grand rapids to the Falls, as well as all the articles which they have procured in barter at the market in May.

The accumulated trade of the Columbia now consists of dressed and undressed skins of elk, sea otter, the common otter, beaver, common fox, spuck, and

tiger cat. The articles of less importance, are a small quantity of dried or pounded salmon, the biscuits made of the chappelell roots, and some of the manufactures of the neighbourhood. In return they receive guns (which are principally old British or American muskets) powder, ball, and shot, copper and brass kettles, brass tea-kettles, and coffee-pots, blankets, from two to three points, coarse scarlet and blue cloth, plates and strips of sheet copper and brass, large brass wire, knives, tobacco, fish-hooks, buttons, and a considerable quantity of sailors' hats, trowsers, coats and shirts. But as we have had occasion to remark more than once, the objects of foreign trade which are the most desired, are the common cheap, blue or white beads, of about fifty or seventy to the penny weight, which are strung on strands a fathom in length, and sold by the yard or the length of both arms : of these the blue beads, which are called tia commashuck, or chief beads, hold the first rank in their ideas of relative value: the most inferior kind are esteemed beyond the finest wampum, and are temptations which can always seduce them to part with their most valuable effects. Indeed, if the example of civilized life did not completely vindicate their choice, we might wonder at their infatuated

at

tachment to a bauble in itself so worthless. Yet these beads are, perhaps, quite as reasonable objects of research as the precious metals, since they are at once beautiful ornaments for the person, and the great circulating

medium of trade with all the nations on the Columbia.

THE BELOOCHES.

(From Pottinger's Travels.)

The Belooches, who form the great bulk, or perhaps, very strictly speaking, the whole of the population throughout Beloochistan, are a people whose origin is so obscure, and whose history, like that of all other barbarous tribes, is so blended with romantic fiction and tales of wonder, that I have found it exceedingly difficult to reduce either the one or the other to any credible form. They are divided into two great classes, severally known by the appellations of Belooche and Brahooé, and these two are again subdivided into such an infinite number of tribes, who take their names from the most trivial circumstances, that it is morally impossible to account for them: the chief under whom they serve, the district or country to which they belong, or the tradition whence they derive their descent, are the most common designations they assume. Between these two superior classes, the leading distinctions that I observed were in their languages and appearance; and unquestionably they constitute the greatest that can exist between men of the same colour and inhabiting the same nation. The Belocche or Beloocheekee (so the language of the Belooches is called), partakes considerably of the idiom of modern Persian, and at least one half its words

are

are borrowed from that language, but greatly disguised under a corrupt and unaccountable pronunciation: the similarity of sound is, however, so very striking, that during my journey amongst these people, I latterly understood, from my knowledge of Persian, almost every sentence that I heard spoken in Beloochee. The Brahooékee is, on the contrary, so dissimilar in its sound and formation, that I never recollect to have remarked in it a single expression in any way approaching the idiom of Persian. It contains an extensive portion of ancient Hinduwee words, a circumstance which will be explained in the historical account of this class, and as it strikes the ear, bears a strong resemblance to Punjaubee, the dialect spoken in that part of India called the Punjaub.

The contour of the people of these two classes is as unlike in most instances as their languages, provided they be the descendants of a regular succession of ancestors of either; but the frequent intermarriages which take place among them, have tended to such a degree to blend together the peculiar characteristics of both, that in many families, and even whole tribes, they have ceased to exist; and, therefore, the offspring of such unions form a third class, who may, perhaps, often differ to a trifling extent in appearance, from their progenitors, although they are incorporated into one or other of the classes. I conceive it here necessary to state again, what I have done at the commencement of this chapter, in order to prevent confusion, that the aggre

gate population is exclusively known by the name of Belooches, which adheres to one of the two classes it diverges into; but as they must be considered separately, I shall henceforward always distinguish each as Belooches or Brahooés.

The Belooches, from the most accurate information I could acquire on this perplexing subject, branch, in the first instance, from the original class of that name, into three principal tribes, called Nharooés, Rinds, and Mughsees. The former, the Nharooés, principally inhabit that portion of Beloochistan which lies to the westward of the desert, and there are likewise Kheils, or societies, of them at Nooshky, a village north-west of Kelat, and in Seistan: the other two tribes, the Rinds and Mughsees, are settled in Kutch Gundava, a low country to the eastward, at the base of the mountains, to which fertile plain they have emigrated at different periods, from the province of Mukran, and have become incorporated with the Jeths, or cultivators of the soil, as the subjects of the Khans of Kelat; a few of them likewise reside in the hills to the north-eastward of Kutch Gundava, and on the skirts of the desert north of Kelat.

THE NHAROOES.

(From the same.)

The Nharoos are commonly a tall, handsome, active race of men, not possessing great physical strength, but adapted and inured to changes of climate and season;

and