CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Village of Wish-ram .-- Roguery of the Inhabitants .-- Their Habitations .-- Tidings of Astoria .-- Of the Tonquin Massacre.
-- Thieves About the Camp .-- A Band of Braggarts--Embarkation .-- Arrival at Astoria .-- A Joyful Reception .-- Old Comrade .-- Adventures of Reed, M'Lellan, and M'Kenzie Among the Snake River Mountains .-- Rejoicing at Astoria.
OF the village of Wish-ram, the aborigines' fishing mart of the Columbia, we have given some account in an early chapter of this work.
The inhabitants held a traffic in the productions of the fisheries of the falls, and their village was the trading resort of the tribes from the coast and from the mountains.

Mr.Hunt found the inhabitants shrewder and more intelligent than any Indians he had met with.

Trade had sharpened their wits, though it had not improved their honesty; for they were a community of arrant rogues and freebooters.

Their habitations comported with their circumstances, and were superior to any the travellers had yet seen west of the Rocky Mountains.

In general, the dwellings of the savages on the Pacific side of that great barrier were mere tents and cabins of mats, or skins, or straw, the country being destitute of timber.