You have heard of the Flathead Indians, also called Salish or Selish, who used to live in a part of the present State of Washington. To-day they number about a thousand. They are short of stature, badly formed, with large nostrils and thick lips and nose. It was formerly their practice to flatten the heads of their children during infancy, when the bones are soft and yielding, and from which fact came their popular name. At the time of the visit of our friends the strange practice prevailed among the Echeloots, as it did with nearly all the tribes of the Chinook family on the Columbia. The flattening of the skull was not done by pressure upon the crown, as you might suppose, but by binding a flat board on the forehead of an infant. A little way above the crown this board joined the upper end of the plank upon which the child was stretched on its back, but the two boards diverged as they extended in the direction of the feet. You will understand the process better if you will think of the letter V lying on one side, with the head of the infant thrust as far as possible into the narrow end. This brought the pressure over the upper part of the forehead, which was gradually forced down until from the eyebrows to the extreme rear of the crown was a single slope like that of the roof of a house. The skull rose into a peak behind and sloped away, as I have said, to the ridge of the eyebrows. An Indian who had been subjected to this senseless treatment was shockingly deformed, and no one could look upon such creatures without a feeling of repulsion. Nevertheless, the process did not injure the brain nor diminish its volume. A warrior who had been made a “flat head” knew just as much as if his brain had been left to grow as nature intended. For centuries the Chinese have compressed the feet of their females; the Flatheads have forced the heads of their infants out of shape, and the Caucasian women have squeezed their waists into the narrowest possible limits. A careful comparison of the three crimes must lead us to think that the last-named is the most injurious and, therefore, the most criminal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXVIII AT LAST. INTERESTING and thrilling as was the descent of the Columbia, a detailed description of the voyage of the little party of explorers would become monotonous. They were hardly ever out of sight of Indians, all of whom were friendly, although precautions had to be taken against many of them that were thieves and eager to steal anything upon which they could lay hands.