_May 20th._—Never laid down all night. Kept the packers guarding my mules, stationing a man between each of the fires. Indians in full force at sun-up. In two hours cross all my stores in the canoes; swim the mules, and without any accident we are safely over the river. This tribe, the Klamath Indians—the chief of whom, Le-lake, is a man of considerable influence—number about 2,000, and own large herds of horses and cattle. They are nearly always at war, and are the terror of emigrants. The men are well-grown and muscular; they wear little more than the breech-cloth, and most of them still use the bow and arrow. The squaws are short in comparison with the men, and for Indians have tolerably regular features. The men use no saddles, and a strange sight it is to see a number of these demons nearly naked, painted from their heads to their waists, all colours and patterns, skying and whirling round upon their half-tamed beasts, yelling and shouting, with no apparent object that I could discover but that of exhibiting themselves and trying to frighten me. The morning is dark and cloudy, with a sharp keen wind. Keep close to the shore of the lake, which for the first fifteen miles is shut in by high mountains. The trail winds along the side of this mountain, in some places over bare rock, at others loose rolling stones render it very dangerous and difficult to get over. Emerging on an open sandy plain, about seven miles in width, we cross it, still close to the lake. Then hill again, but not so steep. Reaching an open prairie covered with grass, camp on a small stream, with decent wood on its banks. During the whole day I was beset and worried by Indians riding in among my mules, galloping forward, then back again, from one end of the train to the other, in a most excited state. Immediately on camping I am again thronged, so ride on to see the chief at his lodge, about four miles from camp; having first enclosed my mules in a ring of fires, and desired my men, in case I do not return in two hours, to abandon the mules and escape as best they can. I find the chief’s lodge, in the centre of a very extensive Indian village, situated on the bank of a swift stream. All the lodges are dome-shaped; like beaver-houses, an arched roof covers a deep pit sunk in the ground, the entrance to which is a round hole; through it I descend into the sable dignitary’s presence, his lodge differing from the others only in being rather larger, and having more dogs and children round it.