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134
A CENTURY OF DISHONOR.

their treaty,” and that “as many again as were taught were turned away from school for lack of room.”

The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions has contributed during this year $1750 for missionary work among them, and the Indians themselves have raised $125.

Their reservation is thus described: “The majority of land comprising the reservation is a vast rolling prairie, affording luxuriant pasturage for thousands of their cattle and horses. The Clearwater River, flowing as it does directly through the reserve, branching out in the North, Middle, and South Forks, greatly benefits their locations that they have taken in the valleys lying between such river and the bluffs of the higher land, forming in one instance—at Kaimaih—one of the most picturesque locations to be found in the whole North-west. Situated in a valley on either side of the South Fork, in length about six miles, varying in width from one-half to two miles; in form like a vast amphitheatre, surrounded on all sides by nearly perpendicular bluffs rising two thousand feet in height, it forms one of the prettiest valleys one can imagine. A view from the bluff reveals a living panorama, as one sees the vast fields of waving grain surrounding well-built and tasty cottages adorned with porches, and many of the conveniences found among industrions whites. The sight would lead a stranger, not knowing of its inhabitance by Indians, to inquire what prosperous white settlement was located here. It is by far the most advanced in the ways of civilization and progress of any in the Territory, if not on the coast.”

How long will the white men of Idaho permit Indians to occupy so fair a domain as this? The small cloud, no larger than a man’s hand, already looms on their horizon. The closing paragraph of this (the last) report from the Nez Percés is:

“Some uneasiness is manifest about stories set afloat by renegade whites, in relation to their treatment at the expiration of their treaty next July, but I have talked the matter over, and