Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/674

Rh, the still existing hardships of the journey, and the threatening attitude of the Indians.

Owing to the settlement of the boundary question, and the prospect that a donation law would soon be passed, between four and five thousand persons came to Oregon in 1847, most of them people of comfortable means. They commenced arriving at the Dalles as early as the 22d of August, and continued to arrive until November, when two hundred wagons were still on the eastern side of the mountains.

Every expedition by wagon had been attended by suffering and loss; nor was this one an exception. Its number was the principal cause of its misfortunes; the foremost companies exhausting the grass, compelling the rear to delay in order to recruit their cattle, which brought them in late, with great loss and in a starving condition. For the same cause, sickness attacked the trains, an epidemic called the black measles prevailing, from which many died on the latter part of the journey or after arrival. The caravan of wagons was also a cause of hostility on the part of the savages, from the Blue Mountains to the Dalles, who attacked several small companies, robbing the wagons, and in some instances tearing the clothing from the persons of the women, leaving them naked in the wilderness, and committing other outrages.

There being now two routes opened, there should have been a division of the travel; but this was prevented by the efforts of some who had met with losses