There is an extensive trade carried on upon the Columbia, which must have existed before the coast was frequented by foreign traders; but to which the foreign trade has given a new impulse. The great emporium of this trade is at the falls, the _Shilloots_ being the carriers between the inhabitants above and below. The Indians of the Rocky Mountains bring down bear's-grease, horses, and a few skins, which they exchange for beads, pounded fish, and the roots of a kind of water-plant, which are produced, in great abundance, in a tract of land between the Multomah and a branch of the Columbia. The mode of obtaining these roots is curious. A woman carries a canoe, large enough to contain herself, and several bushels of them, to one of the ponds where the plants grow; she goes into the water breast high, feels out the roots with her feet, and separates the bulbs from them with her toes. These, on being freed from the mud, float. The women often continue in the water at this employment for many successive hours, even in the depth of winter. The bulbs are about the size of a small potato, and, when roasted in wood ashes, constitute a palatable food. These Indians are a very ingenious race. Even with their own imperfect tools, they make, in a few weeks, a canoe, which, with such implements, might be thought the work of years. A canoe, however, is very highly prized: it is considered of equal value with a wife, and is what the lover generally gives a father in exchange for his daughter. The bow and stern are ornamented with a sort of comb, and with grotesque figures of men or animals, sometimes five feet high, composed of small pieces of wood, skilfully inlaid and morticed, without a spike of any kind. Their bowls or troughs are scooped out of a block of wood; in these they boil their food. Their best manufacture is a sort of basket, of straw-work or cedar bark, and bear-grass, so closely interwoven as to be water-tight. Further south the natives roast their corn and pulse over a slow charcoal-fire, in baskets of this description, moving the basket about in such manner that it is not injured, though every grain within it is completely browned. Among these Indians the women are well treated, and enjoy an extraordinary degree of influence. On many subjects their opinions are consulted: in matters of trade, their advice is generally asked and pursued. Sometimes they even take upon themselves a tone of authority; and the labours of the family are almost equally divided. No account is given by Captain Lewis of the superstitions of these people; and no inquiry seems to have been made concerning their religious belief. _Narrative of the return of Captains_ LEWIS _and_ CLARKE, _from the Pacific Ocean to St. Louis._