148 Mackenzie’s Voyages

supplies of salmon, after tedious parleying, and many alarums
and excursions, entered into friendly communication with
them, imparting the information that the river flowed south
to the sea where white people were building houses. In three
places it was impassable. The current was everywhere
strong, while in the places mentioned it was impossible
either to run the rapids or pass over the mountains which
rose sheer from the water. The inhabitants were numerous;
one tribe particularly which lived in underground houses *
was described as being malignant. The explorers were
warned against going any farther, their informants stating
that those below were armed and would undoubtedly
destroy them.

In the course of the day they met other parties lower
down who confirmed these reports, and added that the
distance to the sea overland was comparatively short, and
that a well-beaten path led to a river which emptied into a
“lake”? whose waters were nauseous. White men in big
vessels as large as islands came there and traded iron and
various articles for the furs and skins which these inland
natives were in the habit of carrying to the coast, over the
road mentioned,

Mackenzie himself thought that the distance overland
could not be more than five or six degrees. He recalled
Captain John Meares’ statement regarding the inland
extension of the sea at Nootka, which Mackenzie thought
must reach as far east as 126° west longitude. What his
own expectations were he does not disclose. According to
the account of the Indians the overland route from the

1The interior Salish tribes, like the Lillooets, Thompsons and
Shuswaps, lived in circular, semi-subterranean houses excavated
in the dry soil, some of which were sixty feet in diameter, and capable

of housing thirty people. From December to March they thus gained
a certain amount of protection from the cold.