different; he was evidently pleased that the society had sent him so prepossessing a woman for a wife, and took much pains to render himself agreeable.
On the day after Jason Lee's arrival, the whole company, including Captain and Mrs Hinckley, and Mr J. L. Whitcomb, from Honolulu, second officer of the Diana, set out in canoes for the Mission, the superintendent and Miss Pitman accompanied only by their Indian crew who understood no English, an arrangement which was apparently not disagreeable. At the close of the first day, which had been bright and musical, an encampment was made under the oak trees on the south bank of the Willamette where Portland now stands. The following day they reached the mouth of Pudding River, above the falls; and at an early hour on the third day, they finally disembarked at the landing of Baptiste Desportes McKay, at Champoeg, where horses were obtained, and the journey ended with a ride through French Prairie.
At the landing, a letter from Daniel Lee was found awaiting them, with the request that Dr White should hasten forward, as twelve persons lay sick at the Mission, some of them dangerously so. This pressing demand for assistance was responded to by the doctor, who, with Willson, Mrs Hinckley, Miss Pitman, and Miss Downing, mounted and rode off at a rapid pace in advance of the others.
The reception at the Mission might well have been disheartening to the new-comers. Think of those refined young women, fresh from the comforts and orderly ways of eastern homes, dismounting before the rude, substantial Mission house in the wilderness, to find its floors covered with the sick, lying on mats and blankets, more than a dozen out of the thirty-eight native children who found a home there down with fever, and the rest of the strange unkempt brood peeping through doors and windows for a sight of the strangers. With natural care Miss Downing had
