Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 21).djvu/38

32 to be denominated an amphibium. This would have gone off very well, and to the credit of the learned collegian, had not one of the gang, who could hardly write his own name, demurred at it; because he said it reflected not back the honor due to the ingenious contriver of the commodious and truly original vehicle; and for his part, he thought that if they meant to give it a particular name, that should redound to the glory of the inventor, it ought to be called a Nat-wye-thium; and this was instantaneously agreed to by acclamation! Be that as it may, the vehicle did not disgrace the inventive genius of New England. This good-humored raillery, shows the opinion of indifferent people, merely lookers-on. The fact was, the generality [12] of the people in Cambridge considered it a hazardous enterprise, and considerably notional. About this time there appeared some well written essays in the Boston newspapers, to show the difficulty and impracticability of the scheme, purporting to doubt the assertions of Mr. Hall J. Kelly respecting the value and pleasantness of the Oregon territory. The three vehicles contained a gross of axes, a variety of articles, or "goods" so called, calculated for the Indian market, among which vermillion and other paints were not forgotten, glass beads, small looking-glasses, and a number of tawdry trinkets, cheap knives, buttons, nails, hammers, and a deal of those articles, on which young Indians of both sexes set a high value, and white men little or none. Such is the spirit of trade and traffic, from the London and Amsterdam merchant, down to an Indian trader and a yankee tin-ware man in his jingling go-cart; in which he travels through Virginia and the Carolinas to vend his wares, and cheat the Southerners, and bring home laughable anecdotes of their simplicity and ignorance, to the temporary disgrace of the common people of the Northern and Eastern part of the Union,