114 Str ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

billet for my pillow.” In the morning the
attentions of the natives were renewed. It
was the height of the salmon fishery, and
Mackenzie observed with interest the ingen-
ious weirs built to catch the fish on their way
upstream to spawn. Salmon was almost the
only food of the natives; they preserved an
enormous supply in the season for use during
the rest of the year. They would not touch
flesh, and had superstitious fears that its use,
or even its approach to the river, would drive
the fish away. A dog that ate the bone of a
deer which Mackenzie’s men had killed in the
mountains was beaten until he brought it up;
a native dived at once into the river to
retrieve another bone thrown in by a voya-
geur; and they would not permit the visitors
to go on the water with venison in the canoe.

The party was now only about thirty
miles from the sea, though the distance was
twice as far by the course of the river. At
one next day (July 18) they went forward in
two borrowed canoes steered by men of the
village. Their skill astonished Mackenzie:
“JT had imagined that the Canadians who