The salmon are taken at Tashees, principally in pots or wears. Their method of taking them in wears is thus:--A pot of twenty feet in length, and from four to five feet diameter at the mouth, is formed of a great number of pine splinters, which are strongly secured, an inch and a half from each other, by means of hoops made of flexible twigs, and placed about eight inches apart. At the end it tapers almost to a point, near which is a small wicker door for the purpose of taking out the fish. This pot or wear is placed at the foot of a fall or rapid, where the water is not very deep, and the fish, driven from above with long poles, are intercepted and caught in the wear, from whence they are taken into the canoes. In this manner I have seen more than seven hundred salmon caught in the space of fifteen minutes.[104] I have also sometimes known a few of the striped bass taken in this manner, but rarely. [Illustration: SALMON WEAR NEAR THE INDIAN VILLAGE OF QUAMICHAN, V. I.] At such times there is great feasting and merriment among them. The women and female slaves being busily employed in cooking, or in curing the fish for their winter stock, which is done by cutting off the heads and tails, splitting them, taking out the back bone, and hanging them up in their houses to dry. They also dry the halibut and cod, but these, instead of curing whole, they cut up into small pieces for that purpose, and expose to the sun. The spawn of the salmon, which is a principal article of their provision, they take out, and, without any other preparation, throw it into their tubs, where they leave it to stand and ferment, for, though they frequently eat it fresh, they esteem it much more when it has acquired a strong taste, and one of the greatest favours they can confer on any person, is to invite him to eat _Quakamiss_, the name they give this food, though scarcely anything can be more repugnant to an European palate, than it is in this state; and whenever they took it out of these large receptacles, which they are always careful to fill, such was the stench which it exhaled, on being moved, that it was almost impossible for me to abide it, even after habit had in a great degree dulled the delicacy of my senses. When boiled it became less offensive, though it still retained much of the putrid smell, and something of the taste. Such is the immense quantity of these fish, and they are taken with such facility, that I have known upwards of twenty-five hundred brought into Maquina's house at once; and at one of their great feasts, have seen one hundred or more cooked in one of their largest tubs.