principal chief of the Chinooks, came to the fort attired in his richest dress, his face fancifully bedaubed with red paint, and his body redolent of whale oil. He was young, and had four native wives. He told her, that if she would become his wife, he would send one hundred sea-otters to her relations; that he would never ask her to carry wood, draw water, dig for roots, or hunt for provisions; that he would make her mistress over his other wives, and permit her to sit at her ease from morning to night, and wear her own clothes;[1] that she should always have abundance of fat salmon, anchovies, and elk, and be allowed to smoke as many pipes of tobacco during the day as she thought proper; together with many other flattering inducements, the tithe of which would have shaken the constancy of a score of the chastest brown vestals that ever flourished among the lower tribes of the Columbia.
These tempting offers, however, had no charms for Jane. Her long voyage had not yet eradicated certain Anglican predilections respecting mankind, which she had contracted in the country of her birth, and among which she did not include a flat head, a half-naked body, or a copper-coloured skin besmeared with whale oil.
- ↑ Meaning that he would not insist on her wearing the light covering of the Indian females.
