is steep,[1] and teams had to be doubled until eighteen or twenty yoke[2] were put to a wagon to drag it up the sharp acclivity. But even this was better than having to carry the loads up steep hills while the oxen drew the empty wagons, as sometimes occurred on the north road.
Two months from the time the southern immigration left Thousand Springs, the last companies entered the Rogue River Valley, where according to Thornton they were met by Jones of the exploring party with some fat cattle for the relief of those whose provisions were consumed.[3] Being extremely weary, and their teams wellnigh exhausted, the last of the families unfortunately lingered too long in this beautiful country, at a season of the year when one day of rain might be productive of disaster by raising the streams, and chilling fatally the thin blood of the worn-out oxen.[4] And alas! they tarried in the valley until
- ↑ The road was subsequently changed so as to avoid going round the south end of Lower Klamath Lake, and proceeded by the eastern shore of the lake to Link River a little below the present town of Linkville, from which point the ascent of the mountains is gradual.
- ↑ Such is Thornton's statement.
- ↑ The Spectator of the 29th of October speaks of relief parties already sent out to assist the southern immigration; but they were behind that sent by the exploring party.
- ↑ There is a great effort apparent in this portion of Thornton's narrative to make it appear that his misfortunes, and the sufferings of other belated travellers, were owing to the misrepresentations of the explorers whom he classes with the 'outlaws and banditti who during many years infested the Florida reefs, where they often contrived so to mislead vessels as to wreck them, when without scruple or ceremony, they, under various pretences would commence their work of pillage.' As this was written after he had been a year in Oregon, and learned the high character of the men who composed the expedition, besides seeing a considerable immigration arrive in the Willamette Valley by the southern route the year following his passage over it, in the month of September, in good health and condition the vituperative censure indulged in by Mr Thronton is, to say the least, in bad taste. Certain inaccuracies also in his statement, into which he is led by his desire to cast opprobrium upon the men who opened the road, are calculated to bring him into discredit. For instance, he professes to account for not giving the itinerary of the journey after leaving the California road, by saying that the third volume of his journal was stolen by a person who took charge of some of his property left in the Umpqua Mountains, to prevent the true character of the roa.l being made known. Page 170, vol. i. On page 190 he says: 'A very bad Umpqua Indian having, upon a subsequent part of the road, relieved me of my third volume of journal notes of this part of the road, I write from memory only.' It may be asked, what interest had the Umpqua Indian in suppressing the journal? and why was one of this untamed tribe sent to take charge of his property?
