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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: landed on the northern shore several miles above the anchoring
ground of the Tonquin, in the neighborhood of Chinooks, and
visited the village of that tribe. Here they were received with
great hospitality by the chief, who was named Comcomly, a shrewd
old savage, with but one eye, who will occasionally figure in
this narrative. Each village forms a petty sovereignty, governed
by its own chief, who, however, possesses but little authority,
unless he be a man of wealth and substance; that is to say,
possessed of canoe, slaves, and wives. The greater the number of
these, the greater is the chief. How many wives this one-eyed
potentate maintained we are not told, but he certainly possessed
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