Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/383

332 established a mission at Kamiah, obtained the assent of Ellis to build a house on his land, but was refused permission to cultivate the ground, Ellis telling him that if he dug a hole in the earth it should serve for his grave. In the spring of 1840 Smith made an attempt to plough, but was interrupted by the savages with the same threat, when he desisted, and soon after went to the Hawaiian Islands, the station Kamiah being abandoned.

This much is the account of the Catholic authorities, and Gray does not deny it, although, having the means of knowing, he should have done so, if not true. But the Presbyterian missionaries were habitually reticent concerning their troubles with the savages, probably because they were reluctant to confess their failures to the religious world.

Yet in truth there was little to be ashamed of in a lack of success in such a field of labor. For the