Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/264

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OREGON AND WASHINGTON.

Columbia issued an order that all miners working in his dominion should take out a license in Victoria. The tide was then turned to Victoria, and thus that city obtained its first great, and as it proved, transient prosperity.

At the mouth of the Lumni, a small river flowing into Bellingham Bay, is the reservation of the Lumnis, a hunting and fishing tribe. Of the eight reservations of Washington Territory, the largest is at Tulalip, on the Sound, east of Whidby's Island. The others are on the Yakima, Chehalis, and Puyallup rivers, east of the Sound; and on the Skokomish River, emptying into Hood's Canal, the Quinaielt River, emptying into Gray's Harbor, and on Neah Bay. All these reservations occupy about two hundred thousand acres of excellent land. This one, on the Lumni, is small, not containing more than twenty thousand acres; but is valuable for its fertility, and the amount of fine timber upon it. The Lumni Indians are very contented, and live comfortably. There are fifty or more board dwellings of a substantial character in their town, which they keep with considerable neatness and order. They are Catholics in religion, observing the forms taught them quite zealously, and seldom neglecting their morning and evening prayers. Generally speaking, the Indians of Washington are better looking, more dignified, and decently dressed, than in Oregon. It is to be hoped that the Government will so deal with them as to save some of these tribes from the degradation and ruin which have nearly exterminated the Oregon Indians. We quote here from the journal of a gentleman who traveled up the Lumni River, on an expedition to Mount Baker:

"Our journey was henceforth up the Lumni, into