These auxiliaries, through various
little circumstances, were known among us that same afternoon, by the
several appellations of Smudge, Tin-pot, and Slit-nose. These were not
heroic names, of a certainty, but their owners had as little of the
heroic in their appearance, as usually falls to the lot of man in the
savage state. I cannot tell the designation of the tribes to which
these four worthies belonged, nor do I know any more of their history
and pursuits than the few facts which came under my own immediate
observation. I did ask some questions of the captain, with a view to
obtain a few ideas on this subject, but all he knew was, that these
people put a high value on blankets, beads, gun-powder, frying-pans,
and old hoops, and that they set a remarkably low price on sea-otter
skins, as well as on the external coverings of sundry other
animals. An application to Mr. Marble was still less successful,
being met by the pithy answer that he was "no naturalist, and knew
nothing about these critturs, or any wild beasts, in general."
Degraded as the men certainly were, however, we thought them quite
good enough to be anxious to trade with them. Commerce, like misery,
sometimes makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows.
I had often seen our own Indians after they had become degraded by
their intercourse with the whites and the use of rum, but never had I
beheld any beings so low in the scale of the human race, as the
North-Western savages appeared to be.
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