Here, as at the three houses below, the inhabitants were occupied in splitting and drying salmon.

The multitudes of this fish are almost inconceivable.

The water is so clear that they can readily be seen at the depth of fifteen or twenty feet; but at this season they float in such quantities down the stream, and are drifted ashore, that the Indians have only to collect, split, and dry them on the scaffolds.

Where they procure the timber of which these scaffolds are composed he could not learn; but as there is nothing but willow-bushes to be seen for a great distance from this place, it rendered very probable what the Indians assured him by signs, that they often used dried fish as fuel for the common occasions of cooking.

From this island they showed him the entrance of the western branch of the Columbia, called the Tapteal, which, as far as could be seen, bears nearly west and empties about eight miles above into the Columbia, the general course of which is northwest." The Tapteal, as the journal calls it, is now known as the Yakima, a stream which has its source in the Cascade range of mountains, Washington.