stead of this, they found a stream impracticable for navigation, and bordered with sand, rocks, and artemisia for hundreds of miles. It was owing to the excellence and abundance of their appointments that they accomplished the journey to the Columbia in such good time and with so little loss.[1]
From the repeated statements made in congress of the facilities for commerce of the mouth of the Columbia, and of the actual trade carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company, they had formed exaggerated ideas of the amount of productions, and the general capacity of the country. For the rest, they were idealists, 'men of destiny' they had been called, who had the same faith that all would be right with them in Oregon which the religionist feels that he will wake in heaven when he sleeps in death. Or, if all was not right, it would be the fault of the British fur company; in which case they would pull down Vancouver about the ears of its venerable factor and help themselves.
The state of disappointment and discontent which followed the first introduction to the new life was after all not long. When spring came with sunny skies and balmy air, they forgot the sorrows of the winter, and yielded contendedly to the witchery of fresh scenes and the pleasure of new beginnings. By autumn they were settled, and had already become well incorporated with the old colony.[2]
Some mention should be made in this place of the second expedition of Frémont, which though it had
- ↑ It is without doubt just to Dr Whitman to say that in the matter of insisting upon their keeping in motion and accomplishing some distance each day, they were indebted for their success. He knew the weary miles before them, and warned them constantly to travel. Applegate, in Overland Monthly, i. 127.
- ↑ In writing this chapter, I have been often guided by Burnett's Recollections of a Pioneer, New York, 1880, chiefly because he kept a journal of his travels and his early life in Oregon. The book abounds in incidents told in a natural manner. It contains, besides, numerous pen-pictures of other pioneers, with which these pages will be from time to time illustrated, and valuable remarks on early government affairs
