After remaining with them about an hour, we proceeded down the channel with an Indian dressed in a sailor's jacket for our pilot, and on reaching the main channel were visited by some Indians who have a temporary residence on a marshy island in the middle of the river, where is a great abundance of water-fowl." The tribe of Indians known as the Wahkiacums has entirely disappeared; but the name survives as that of one of the counties of Washington bordering on the Columbia.

Wahkiacum is the county lying next west of Cowlitz.

When the explorers passed down the river under the piloting of their Indian friend wearing a sailor's jacket, they were in a thick fog.
This cleared away and a sight greeted their joyful vision.

Their story says:-- "At a distance of twenty miles from our camp, we halted at a village of Wahkiacums, consisting of seven ill-looking houses, built in the same form with those above, and situated at the foot of the high hills on the right, behind two small marshy islands.

We merely stopped to purchase some food and two beaver skins, and then proceeded.