CHAPTER VIII.
Mouth of the Columbia .-- The Native Tribes .-- Their Fishing .-- Their Canoes .-- Bold Navigators--Equestrian Indians and Piscatory Indians, Difference in Their Physical Organization .-- Search for a Trading Site .-- Expedition of M'Dougal and David Stuart-Comcomly, the One-Eyed Chieftain .-- Influence of Wealth in Savage Life .-- Slavery Among the Natives.-An Aristocracy of Flatheads.-Hospitality Among the Chinooks--Comcomly's Daughter .-- Her Conquest.
THE Columbia, or Oregon, for the distance of thirty or forty miles from its entrance into the sea, is, properly speaking, a mere estuary, indented by deep bays so as to vary from three to seven miles in width; and is rendered extremely intricate and dangerous by shoals reaching nearly from shore to shore, on which, at times, the winds and currents produce foaming and tumultuous breakers.

The mouth of the river proper is but about half a mile wide, formed by the contracting shores of the estuary.

The entrance from the sea, as we have already observed, is bounded on the south side by a flat sandy spit of land, stretching in to the ocean.

This is commonly called Point Adams.

The opposite, or northern side, is Cape Disappointment; a kind of peninsula, terminating in a steep knoll or promontory crowned with a forest of pine-trees, and connected with the mainland by a low and narrow neck.