Here we landed; and as it was late before all the canoes joined us, we were obliged to remain this evening, the difficulties of the navigation having permitted us to make only six miles." They were then among the Echeloots, a tribe of the Upper Chinooks, now nearly extinct.

The white men were much interested in the houses of these people, which, their journal set forth, were "the first wooden buildings seen since leaving the Illinois country." This is the manner of their construction:-- "A large hole, twenty feet wide and thirty in length, was dug to the depth of six feet; the sides of which were lined with split pieces of timber rising just above the surface of the ground, and smoothed to the same width by burning, or by being shaved with small iron axes.

These timbers were secured in their erect position by a pole stretched along the side of the building near the eaves, and supported on a strong post fixed at each corner.

The timbers at the gable ends rose gradually higher, the middle pieces being the broadest.

At the top of these was a sort of semicircle, made to receive a ridge-pole the whole length of the house, propped by an additional post in the middle, and forming the top of the roof.