Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/567

516 already contracted, or from overeating at the Dalles food which in their starving condition they would not wait to have properly prepared.

Notwithstanding their long detour and two weeks' delay, it does not appear that the lost companies were longer travelling than the main caravan. Palmer arrived at the Dalles with his company on the 29th of September, or about the time they came to the crossing of Des Chutes River. Here awaited them the trials which had beset previous caravans. I find the condition of the whole body spoken of in the Oregon Spectator of January 21, 1847, as wretched in the extreme. This paper says that the supply of boats being wholly inadequate to their speedy conveyance down the Columbia, and their stock of provisions failing at the Dalles, famine and a malignant disease racing among them, a misery ensued which is scarcely paralleled in history. The loss of life and property was enormous. The people of Oregon City despatched necessaries to their relief, and Cook, owner of the only sail-boat in the country, gave them the use of his vessel. The Hudson's Bay Company, as usual, lent their bateaux.

In a country like western Oregon, where the principal travel was by river navigation, it seems strange that there should have been no more boat-building. The explanation lies probably in the fact that most of the population were landsmen, who knew nothing of ship-carpentry. Besides this insufficient reason, for there were some seafaring men in the country, there was so much to do on their farms to make sure of food and shelter for themselves and the expected incoming of each year, that they had given too little thought to providing transportation; and unforeseen circumstances attended every arrival for a number of years.