in such profusion, that not the fiftieth part becomes the food of organic life."[1]
A mission located in this valley he believed would draw to itself a settlement of the Indians, who would cultivate the soil, while at the same time they were taught sacred things. Accordingly, he selected for a mission station a spot on the north bank of the Walla Walla River, near the mouth of a small stream now known as Mill Creek, where there was a small valley covered luxuriantly with rye grass, from which the Indians called it Waiilatpa, or Waiilatpu.[2] It was not the most cheerful of sites for a homestead, being surrounded almost entirely by high rolling hills covered with coarse bunch-grass; but it furnished water and wood, and presented a certain picturesqueness which its very isolation enhanced. It was but twenty-two miles from Fort Walla Walla, which was by no means an unimportant recommendation to a solitary white family.[3]
- ↑ Notwithstanding this early recognition by Parker of the north of the Walla Walla Valley for settlement, it was thirty years before it began to be esteemed for farming purposes; and another decade had passed ere the fact was accepted that this was one of the most productive wheat-fields of the world.
- ↑ 'Place of Rye Grass.' This word is commonly spelled with a terminal u instead of a, which some say changes its signification, affirming that a is the proper termination for the word with the above meaning.
- ↑ Undoubtedly, this spot was the choice of Parker, though in Gray's Hist. Or., 165–6, the reader is made to believe that the choice was left to Whitman. Parker says that after encamping for a night on the 'upper part of the Walla Walla River', he rode twenty-two miles and arrived at Walla Walla. Whitman may have selected a spot, not the identical one, in the same vicinity.
in rows, through the length of the building, upon their knees, with a narrow space in the middle, lengthwise, resembling an aisle. The whole area within was carpeted with their dressed skins, and they were all attired in their best. The chiefs were arranged in a semicircle at the end which I was to occupy. I could not have believed they had the means, or could have known how to have constructed so convenient and so decent a place for worship, and especially as it was the first time they had had public worship. The whole sight taken together sensibly affected me, and filled me with astonishment; and I felt as though it was the house of God and the gate of heaven. They all continued in their kneeling position during singing and prayer, and when I closed prayer with amen, they all said what was equivalent in their language to amen. And when I commenced the sermon, they sunk back upon their heels.' Parker's Jour., Ex. Tour, 97–8. Nothing could be more evident than that at some time some influential and competent teacher had laid the foundations of religion and morality with conscientious care. Who he was, whence he came, or whither he went, is almost purely conjectural. The explanation given by Shea is repeated in Strickland's Missions, 120.
