and when the white man came was already on the way to extinction.
The waning of the Indian power of the Lower Columbia is shrouded in mystery. Young Indian girls told the story of it in hushed whispers, and the old Indians spoke of it reluctantly. Had the Death Angel come in bodily form they could not have been more impressed. The wail for the dead, so they said, was heard all along the rivers, and no one even hoped for life when the slaughter was on.
The Indians named the chief instrument of destruction the "Cole sick." With the white man came the smallpox and the measles, but the "Cole sick" was neither of these. About 1820 and 1830 epidemics of the old disease swept among the remaining Indians, and historians are puzzled to give it a name.
