The peacemaking generally
concluded with the distribution of trinkets amongst the men and women,
and presents of sugar to the children. Talking with these folk,
however, through such interpreters as there were amongst the Indians
of his crew, he learnt that lower down on the Fraser River there was a
peculiarly fierce, malignant race, living in vast caves or
subterranean dwellings, who would certainly massacre the Europeans if
they attempted to pass through their country on their way to the sea.
He therefore stopped and set some of his men to work to make a new
canoe. He noticed, by the by, that these Amerindians of the Fraser had
small pointed canoes, "made after the fashion of the Eskimo".
Renewing their voyage, they reached a house the roof of which just
appeared above the ground. It was deserted by its inhabitants, who had
been alarmed at the approach of the white men, but in the
neighbourhood appeared gesticulating warriors with bows and arrows.
Yet these people of underground houses turned out to be friendly and
very ready to give information, partly because they were in
communication with the Amerindian tribes to the east of the Rocky
Mountains. From the elderly men of this tribe Mackenzie ascertained
that the Fraser River flowed south by east, was often obstructed by
rapids, and, though it would finally bring them to a salt lake or
inlet, and then to the sea, it would cause them to travel for a great
distance to the south.
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