Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/701

650 ignorant of the injury they would receive from such a course, many sought to cool their fever by plunging into cold water, or, after coming out of their sweat-houses, bathing in the river, a procedure which caused almost immediate death.

When it is remembered that ever since 1842, and even earlier, the natives had been importuning the missionaries for pay for their lands, and that others, if not they, had repeatedly promised on the faith of the United States government that they should be paid when the boundary question was settled; and when it is remembered that this question had been settled for almost a year and a half, since which time two immigrations had arrived, without anything being done to satisfy the natives—the wonder is not that they were suspicious and turbulent, and ready to believe evil things of the white men, but that they were so long held in tolerable control by a few isolated missionaries.

The reader already knows the difficulty experienced by Whitman and Spalding from the first, in prosecuting their mission labor, owing to the unreasonable requirements of their pupils, their indolence, selfishness, and ingratitude for services. This was almost as much as could be borne before any sectarian differences arose to aggravate the disorder. After this the usefulness of the missions as schools of religion and morality was at an end. A few perceiving the benefit of agriculture and stock-raising tolerated the teachers, and so far imitated them as to raise supplies