"Like the _Sahaptin_, the _Salish_ have many childish traditions connected with the most remarkable natural features of the country, in which the prairie-wolf generally bears a conspicuous part. What could have induced them to confer the honours of divinity upon this animal cannot be imagined; they do not, however, regard the wolf as an object of worship, but merely suppose that in former times it was endowed with preternatural powers, which it exerted after a very whimsical and capricious fashion. Thus, on one occasion, being desirous of a wife (a common circumstance with him), the wolf, or the divinity so called, visited a tribe on the Spokan River and demanded a young woman in marriage. His request being granted, he promised that thereafter the salmon should be abundant with them, and he created the rapids which give them facilities for taking the fish. Proceeding further up, he made of each tribe on his way the same request, attended with a like result; at length he arrived at the territory of the Skitsuish (_Cœur d'alène_); they refused to comply with his demand, and he therefore called into existence the great falls of the Spokan, which prevent the fish from ascending to their country."[109] In the Salish tribes we have the best sample of a true _inland Oregon_ family, a section of the American Indians distinguished by certain negative as well as positive characters which require notice. _a._ As contrasted with the Indians to the north of them they have a milder climate, are south of the true fur-bearing countries, and below the line of the rein-deer. _b._ From the islanders and coast tribes of the Pacific they are distinguished by the necessary absence of maritime habits, and a diet consisting to a great extent of sea fish. _c._ To the families on the east of the Rocky Mountains they stand in the remarkable opposition of being imperfect agriculturists rather than hunters. In other words, in getting beyond the range of the Rocky Mountains we get beyond the country of the prairie and the localities of the buffalo; as a set-off to which, although the botany of the Oregon is at present but imperfectly known, the whole district is described as being preeminently productive of edible _roots_; not, however, in respect to the number of individuals (for the land is poor), but in respect to the variety of their species. Oregon, then, at least in its central parts, is the area of an undeveloped agriculture; and (probably like other tribes besides) the Salish look to the returning seasons not, as in Siberia, Arctic America, and the parts to the east of the Rocky Mountains, with a view to the migrations of the buffalo and the rein-deer, but with respect to the production of their successive vegetable esculents; added to which their river-system gives them, in its season, a supply of fish.