248 T. W. DAVENPORT. brought together in governmental relations. If the interpreter be ever so faithful in his designs to carry the meaning of one language over into another, he is essaying a very difficult task and one which is seldom successful. Look at the translations of Homer's Iliad into English by learned men skilled and critical in the use of their own language and the Greek, and observe how much they differ. And if such be the result in dealing with two highly complex languages, susceptible of expressing the nicest shades of thought, what would it be in operating with two, one of which is complex and the other merely a skeleton. It does not require a learned man to fore- cast the outcome, and yet how many persons of a collegiate education, entrusted with the duty of treating with Indians, have thoughtlessly prepared an elaborate speech with which to electrify their primitive auditors. , Governor Saloman of Washington Territory was one of them, and he did not wake up to the absurdity of such an at- tempt until he tried it and failed. Several of the Puget Sound tribes were brought together in council, and along with them many white residents of the Territory and some from Oregon, all of them speakers of Chinook. The Governor arose and surveyed his audience with all the gravity of a United States Senator. Stretching out his right hand in the direction of the copper-colored part of his hearers he began, "Children of the forest," the interpreter immediately fol- lowed with his translation into Indian (the Chinook), "Tenas tillicums copa stick." The anti-climax was so stunning to the whites that they broke into uproarious laughter that shook the woods. The Governor was amazed and indignant at such treatment coming so rudely at the very incipience of his in- spiration, and it was some time before he could go on with his address, which was commonplace in comparison with the one he had prepared. The Indians were as much nonplussed as the Governor, for they could not see the propriety of address- ing them as small people in the woods, and for that reason they regarded the laugh as being at their expense. And what was a little queer, but not new, the Governor was not fully
