The voyagers were now drifting down the Columbia River, and they found the way impeded by many rapids, some of them very dangerous.

But their skill in the handling of their canoes seems to have been equal to the occasion, although they were sometimes compelled to go around the more difficult rapids, making a short land portage.

When they had travelled about forty miles down the river, they landed opposite an island on which were twenty-four houses of Indians; the people, known as the Pishquitpahs, were engaged in drying fish.

No sooner had the white men landed than the Indians, to the number of one hundred, came across the stream bringing with them some firewood, a most welcome present in that treeless country.

The visitors were entertained with presents and a long smoke at the pipe of peace.