CHAPTER IV.
THE NEZ PERCÉS.
Bounded on the north, south, and east by snow-topped mountains, and on the west by shining waters; holding in its rocky passes the sources of six great rivers; bearing on its slopes and plains measureless forests of pine and cedar and spruce; its meadows gardens of summer bloom and fruit, and treasure-houses of fertility,—lies Oregon: wide, healthful, beautiful, abundant, and inviting, no wonder it was coveted and fought for.
When Lewis and Clarke visited it, eighty years ago, they found living there many tribes of Indians, numbering in all, at the lowest estimates, between twenty and thirty thousand; of all these tribes the Nez Percés were the richest, noblest, and most gentle.
To the Cayuses, one of the most warlike of these tribes, Messrs. Lewis and Clarke presented an American flag, telling them it was an emblem of peace. The gay coloring and beauty of the flag, allied to this significance, made a deep impression on the poetic minds of these savages. They set the flag up in a beautiful valley called the Grande Ronde—a fertile basin some twenty-five miles in diameter, surrounded by high walls of basaltic rock, and watered by a branch of the Snake River: around this flag they met their old enemies the Shoshones, and swore to keep perpetual peace with them; and the spot became consecrated to an annual meeting of the tribes—a sort of fair, where the Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Walla Walla Indians came every summer and traded their roots, skins, elk and buffalo
