Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/47

 what they saw, missing all the quaint flavor and refreshing intimacy—getting the facts and the history but missing the literature.

Here some examples are given of what these first white visitors to Oregon wrote about Oregon. The quantity of such selections must be limited, but it is hoped they will be enough to whet the appetite for more.

The selections in the literature of Oregon's discovery are presented chronologically, beginning with Parson Fletcher of Drake's expedition and extending to some descriptions by Captain Clark 226 years later.

Francis Fletcher was the chaplain on the Golden Hind when Drake made his famous voyage. Henry R. Wagner says that "Francis Fletcher while no doubt a gentleman was also the preacher." Nothing can be said about him "except what he says about himself" in his work, and this pictures him not only as the conscientious and God fearing parson, but also as a "tremendous rogue." It is through The World Encompassed that he can be fully appreciated. Some called him a rather heavy liar, but at any rate he was a very charming one. After describing in detail certain "vile, thicke and stinking fogges", he continues as given below:

. . . neither was it (as hath beene touched) the tendernesses of our bodies, comming so lately out of the heate, whereby the poores were opened, that made us so sensible of the colds we here felt: in this respect as in many others, we found God a prouident Father and a careful Physitian for vs. We lacked no outward helps nor inward comforts to restore and fortifie nature, had it beene decayed or weakened in vs; neither was there wanting to vs the great experience