or carriers between the inhabitants above and below the Falls. These tribes prepare pounded fish for the market, and the nations below bring wappatoo roots, the fish of the sea-coast, berries, and a variety of trinkets and small articles which they have procured from the whites.

The trade then begins. The Chopunnish, and Indians of the Rocky mountains, exchange the articles which they have brought for wappatoo, pounded fish, and beads. The Indians of the plains being their own fishermen, take only wappatoo, horses, beads, and other articles, procured from Europeans. The Indians, however, from Lewis's river to the Falls, consume as food or fuel all the fish which they take; so that the whole stock for exportation is prepared by the nations between the Towahnahiooks and the Falls, and amounts, as nearly as we could estimate, to about thirty thousand weight, chiefly salmon, above the quantity which they use themselves, or barter with the more eastern Indians. This is now carried down the river by the Indians at the Falls, and is consumed among the nations at the mouth of the Columbia, who in return give the fish of the seacoast, and the articles which they obtain from the whites. The neighbouring people catch large quantities of salmon and dry them, but they do not understand or practise the art of drying and pounding it in the manner used at the Falls, and being very fond of it, are forced to purchase it at high prices. This article, indeed, and the Wappatoo, form the principal subjects of trade with the

people of our immediate vicinity. The traffic is wholly carried on by water; there are even no roads or paths through the country, except across the portages which connect the creeks.

But the circumstance which forms the soul of this trade, is the visit of the whites. They arrive generally about the month of April, and either remain until October, or return at that time; during which time, having no establishment on shore, they anchor on the north side of the bay, at the place already described, which is a spacious and commodious harbour, perfectly secure from all, except the south and south-east winds; and as they leave it before winter, they do not suffer from these winds, which, during that season, are the most usual and the most violent. This situation is recommended by its neighbourhood to fresh water and wood, as well as to excellent timber for repairs. Here they are immediately visited by the tribes along the sea-coast, by the Cathlamahs, and lastly by the Skilloots, that numerous and active people, who skirt the river between the marshy islands and the Grand rapids, as well as the Coweliskee, and who carry down the fish prepared by their immediate neighbours the Chilluckittequaws, Eneeshurs, and Echeeloots, residing from the Grand rapids to the Falls, as well as all the articles which they have procured in barter at the market in May. The accumulated trade of the Columbia now consists of dressed and undressed skins of elk, sea otter, the common otter, beaver, common fox, spuck, and

tiger cat. The articles of less importance, are a small quantity of dried or pounded salmon, the biscuits made of the chappelell roots, and some of the manufactures of the neighbourhood. In return they receive guns (which are principally old British or American muskets) powder, ball, and shot, copper and brass kettles, brass tea-kettles, and coffee-pots, blankets, from two to three points, coarse scarlet and blue cloth, plates and strips of sheet copper and brass, large brass wire, knives, tobacco, fish-hooks, buttons, and a considerable quantity of sailors' hats, trowsers, coats and shirts, But as we have had occasion to remark more than once, the objects of foreign trade which are the most desired, are the common cheap, blue or white beads, of about fifty or seventy to the penny weight, which are strung on strands a fathom in length, and sold by the yard or the length of both arms: of these the blue beads, which are called tia commashuck, or chief beads, hold the first rank in their ideas of relative value the most inferior kind are esteemed beyond the finest wampum, and are temptations which can always seduce them to part with their most valuable effects. Indeed, if the example of civilized life did not completely vindicate their choice, we might wonder at their infatuated attachment to a bauble in itself so worthless. Yet these beads are, perhaps, quite as reasonable objects of research as the precious metals, since they are at once beautiful ornaments for the person, and the great circulating

medium of trade with all the nations on the Columbia.

THE BELOOCHES.

(From Pottinger's Travels.)

The Belooches, who form the great bulk, or perhaps, very strictly speaking, the whole of the population throughout Beloochistan, are a people whose origin is so obscure, and whose history, like that of all other barbarous tribes, is so blended with romantic fiction and tales of wonder, that I have found it exceedingly difficult to reduce either the one or the other to any credible form. They are divided into two great classes, severally known by the appellations of Belooche and Bra hooé, and these two are again subdivided into such an infinite number of tribes, who take their names from the most trivial circumstances, that it is morally impossible to account for them: the chief under whom they serve, the district or country to which they belong, or the tradition whence they derive their descent, are the most common designations they assume. Between these two superior classes, the leading distinctions that I observed were in their languages and appearance; and unquestionably they constitute the greatest that can exist between men of the same colour and inhabiting the same nation. The Belooche or Beloocheekee (so the language of the Belooches is called), partakes considerably of the idiom of modern Persian, and at least one half its words

are

are borrowed from that language, but greatly disguised under a corrupt and unaccountable pronunciation the similarity of sound is, however, so very striking, that during my journey amongst these people, I latterly understood, from my knowledge of Persian, almost every sentence that I heard spoken in Beloochee. The Brahooékee is, on the contrary, so dissimilar in its sound and formation, that I never recollect to have remarked in it a single expression in any way approaching the idiom of Persian. It contains an extensive portion of ancient Hinduwee words, a circumstance which will be explained in the historical account of this class, n and as it strikes the ear, beans a strong resemblance to Punjaubee, the dialect spoken in that part of India called the Punjaub.

The contour of the people of these two classes is as unlike in most instances as their languages, provided they be the descendants of a regular succession of ances tors of either; but the frequent intermarriages which take place among them, have tended to such a degree to blend together the peculiar characteristics of both, e that in many families, and even whole tribes, they have ceased to exist; and, therefore, the offspring of such unions form a third class, who may, perhaps, often differ to a triffing extent in appearance, from their progenitors, although they are incorporated into one or other of the classes: I conceive it here neeessary to state again, what I have done at the commencement of this chapter, in order to prevent confusion, that the aggre

gate population is exclusively known by the name of Belooches, which adheres to one of the two classes it diverges into; but as they must be considered separately, I shall henceforward always distinguish each as Belooches or Brahocés.

The Belooches, from the most accurate information I could acquire on this perplexing subject, branch, in the first instance, from the original class of that name, into three principal tribes, called Nharooés, Rinds, and Mughsees. The former, the Nharooés, principally inhabit that portion of Beloochistan which lies to the westward of the desert, and there are likewise Kheils, or societies, of them at Nooshky, a village north-west of Kelat, and in Seistan: the other two tribes, the Rinds and Mughsees, are settled in Kutch Gundava, a low country to the eastward, at the base of the mountains, to which fertile plain they have emigrated at different periods, from the province of Mukran, and have become incorporated with the Jeths, or cultivators of the soil, as the subjects of the Khans of Kelat; a few of them likewise reside in the hills to the north-eastward of Kutch Gundava, and on the skirts of the desert north of Kelat.

THE NHAROOES.

(From the same.)

The Nharooés are commonly a tall, handsome, active race of men, not possessing great physical strength, but adapted and inured to changes of climate and season;

and

and accustomed to undergo every species of fatigue. They are fearless of death, and, in battle, said to fight with great gallantry, only requiring a leader to direct them to the proper point for a display of their impetuous valour. Bound by no laws, and restrained by no feelings of humanity, the Nharooés are the most savage and predatory class of Belooches; and, while they deem private theft dishonourable and disgraceful in the extreme, they contemplate the plunder and devastation of a country with such opposite sentiments, that they consider it an exploit deserving of the highest commendation; and, steeled by that feeling, they will individually recount the assistance they have rendered on such occasions, the numbers of men, women and children they have made captives and carried away or murdered, the villages they have burned and plundered, and the flocks they have slaughtered when unable to drive them off.

The lawless incursions, during which these outrages and cruelties are committed, are here called Chupaos; and as they are almost always conducted under the immediate superintendance and orders of the chiefs, they form a very considerable source of profit to them. The depredators are usually mounted on camels, and furnished, according to the distance they have to go, with food, consisting of dates, sour cheese, and bread; they also carry water in a small leathern bag, if requisite, which is often the case in the midst of their deserts. When all is prepared they set off, and march incessantly till within a

few miles of the point whence the Chupao is to commence, and then halt in a jungul or some unfrequented spot, in order to give their camels rest. On the approach of night, they mount again; and, as soon as the inhabitants have retired to repose, they begin their attack by burning, destroying, and carrying off whatever comes in their way. They never think of resting for one moment during the Chupao, but ride on, over the territory on which it is made, at the rate of eighty or ninety miles a day, until they have loaded their camels with as much pillage as they can possibly remove; and, as they are very expert in the management of those animals, each man on an average, will have charge of ten or twelve: if practicable, they make a circuit, which enables them to return by a different route from the one they came: this is attended with the advantage of affording a double prospect of plunder, and also misleads those who pursue the robbers, a step generally taken, though with little effect, when a sufficient body of men can be col. lected for that purpose.

From this description of Chupaos, which was given me by several different Belooches who had been upon them, they are evidently services of great peril and danger. Many of the marauders, who are separated from their companions in the night and left behind, are seized, mutilated, and murdered in the most cruel manner by the exasperated inhabitants; others are killed in the skirmishes which take place, and some die from fatigue and wrnt

of

of rest. It might, therefore, be supposed to require a certainty of great gain, as an inducement to the Belooches to risk their lives in such desperate undertakings; but so entirely is this reversed, that the Chupaos are often unsuccessful, from the natives of the devoted districts having previous information, and taking means to repel them; and again, some that succeed in a partial manner, barely repay them for the camels that die during or after it from over-work. At times, however, the robbers reap the reward of their intrepidity, and Mihrab Khan Rukhshanee told me that he himself once shared, from a Chupao into the Persian province of Laristan, slaves and other spoil to the amount of six thousand rupees, a large sum in the estimation of a savage.

The Rinds and Mughsees are less predal in their habits and mode of life than the Nharooés; but whether that proceeds from an innate detestation of such outrages, or a dread of the Khan of Kelat, I am unable to pronounce with certainty. I should, however, be inclined to suspect the latter cause as operating more forcibly than the former; for we find that the Muzareés, Direeshks, and other Rind tribes, who live in the hills, and are in a great measure out of the immediate precincts of the Khan's authority, infest the roads and commit the most atrocious robberies and murders on travellers, a practice more to be reprobated than even that pursued by the Nharooés; in extenuation of whom I may observe, that as they never enter into any engagements, they al

ways deem themselves in a state of warfare with the surrounding nations, and the Chupaos I have described, form their system of carrying on hostilities. The Rinds and Mughseés resemble the Nharooés in size and stature; and like them, have good features and expressive countenances, but are not capable of bearing an equal portion of hardships and labour. The climate of the country, in which they chiefly now reside, seems to have enervated and deprived them of that energy of mind and body which doubtless once appertained to thein in their native mountains of Mukran, and which is still to be traced in the tribes already mentioned as inhabiting the hills. They are darker in colour than the Nharooés, a circumstance also to be attributed to the heat of the climate of Kutch Gundavee. The men of these two classes, or any of the tribes emanating from them, whom I met with, either during my journey or since mý return to India, did not strike me as differing from each other in manners or appearance, and a stranger might readily have supposed they were all of the same class, which is not the case with the Nharooé and its different ramifications; but as I shall have an opportunity, in the course of my narative, of exemplifying the distinctions I perceived amongst them, I now proceed to finish the sketch of the Belooche character, by describing those points in which they all appeared to me to correspond.

With regard to religion, they are, with a very few exceptions to the westward, Soonee Moosulmans,