Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/34

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26 O. B. SPERLIN

so that when he 126 returned two months later he found the skins there and completed the first beaver trade debt overland west of the mountains. All the four journalists of the Lewis and Clark expedition speak of the Shoshones as extremely honest, and instance the lost tomahawk that was returned with- out the asking, and the borrowing of knives and kettles, always carefully returned. Whitehouse 127 called the Tushapaws "the honestest savages we have ever seen." Lewis and Clark 128 speak warmly of the Walla Wallas' act of integrity in bring- ing to them the steel-trap that was left behind ; they call them the most hospitable, honest, and sincere people met with in their voyage. Thompson shows of the Upper Columbia tribes that they were usually truthful and did not tell more than they knew of local geography. Fraser, 129 following Indian geogra- phy, laid out the first highway in British Columbia in 1807. Duncan, 130 first among the Makahs, was given the first Indian information of Puget Sound, which Vancouver three years later put to proof. Vancouver calls the Chickamun and many other tribes honest in trade and traffic. Captain Cook 131 says that in his trading with the natives there was the strictest honesty on both sides. Of the Muchusks on Cook's Inlet he says, "They trafficked with our people for some time, without ever giving us reason to accuse them of any act of dishonesty." The author of "A New Vancouver Journal" 133 says that not- withstanding a treacherous, piratical disposition, the chiefs behave with some degree of honor to those with whom they make bargains. He cites: "Wicananish amongst others fre- quently receives in advance from the masters of vessels (par- ticularly one Kendrick) the value of from 50 to 100 skins to be paid in a certain time, which hitherto he has commonly fulfilled, and when the Butterworth and Jenny were together in

126 Voyages: Vol. II., p. 102 and p. 329.

127 Original Journals: VII., 150.

128 Original Journals: IV., 345.

129 First Journal.

130 Descriptive note to Dalrymple's Map, 1790, sketched by Duncan, and bowing entrance to Straits of Juan de Fuca.

131 Voyages: II., p. 270.

132 Voyage: II., p. 393.

133 Wash. Hist. Quarterly: VI., 64.