With hearts full of dejection and almost lost to hope, no ship having appeared off Nootka this season, did my companion and myself accompany the tribe on their removal in September to Tashees, relinquishing in consequence for six months even the remotest expectation of relief. FOOTNOTES: [118] This habit--unfortunately not peculiar to the Indians--is still occasionally indulged in. The reason they give for it is, that when the great flood covered the earth--a tradition that is found among other North-West American Indians--they escaped in their canoes, and had to eat lice for lack of any other food, and now practise it out of gratitude. The superstitious observances of these tribes are so numerous that the merest account of those known would fill a volume. One or two interesting instances may be mentioned:--Thus, in sneezing, there is good luck if the right nostril is alone affected. But if the left, then evil fortune is at hand. When they pare their nails, which is not often, they burn the parings, and if the smoke from them goes straight up, their latter end will be good; if not, they will go to the place of punishment. They used to regard--and perhaps still regard--the whites not as human beings, but as a sort of demons. [119] The E-cha-chets are not at present recognised as a separate tribe. But there is a large village in Clayoquat Sound on the south end of Wakenninish Island which bears that name. Like many now all but extinct tribes, who have become absorbed into greater ones, the E-cha-chets seem in Jewitt's time to have been more numerous. In Meares's narrative, "Lee-cha-ett" is mentioned as a village of Wakenninish, but this could not have been the same place, for Maquina and Wakenninish were at this period on good terms. The river which the expedition ascended to reach the summer salmon fishing village of the tribe was probably either the Bear or the Onamettis, both of which flow through some swampy ground into the head of Bedwall Arm. But as usual Jewitt exaggerated the distance up which the canoemen paddled. There is no river in Vancouver Island navigable for twenty or thirty miles, and few, even when broken by rapids and falls, quite that length. [120] This is an exaggerated estimate. [121] This is one of the best descriptions of West Coast warfare with which I am acquainted. [122] "Quiaotluk," Jewitt, with innate cockneyism, inserting an _r_ after _a_ wherever this is possible. No Indian can pronounce _r_, any more than a Chinaman can. [123] Klahosahts. CHAPTER XIII MARRIAGE OF THE AUTHOR--HIS ILLNESS--DISMISSES HIS WIFE--RELIGION OF THE NATIVES--CLIMATE