Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/273

 John Work's Journey to Umpqua River, 1834 251 with letters from M. Laframboise some time ago, it appears that it was somewhere about here that they em- barked in the canoe to descend the river, and 2 days after (but he cannot make us understand when [where?]) the canoe came in contact with a stick or fallen tree that was in the river, & upset when the poor man was drowned & the letters & everything they had was lost, and he Morina barely saved himself by his good swimming and found his way to the settlement 2 days after nearly starved with cold & hunger. From the little information he can give us & the length of time elapsed since the im- portant occurrence any attempt to find out the place, or anything relative to the accident would be fruitless. The hunters killed 1 deer. June 3. Chilly & rain. Continued our route 18 miles S S E & S. Crossed the [197] river in the morning when we continued up the E side of it to the commencement of the mountains, where we are camped on the same river. The road lay through an extensive plain, the greater part of the way quite level, bounded to the E by the Willamet. Considerable portions of the plain are subject to inunda- tion & parts of it are not so well clothed with grass as some of those we have already passed. Some places of it are also swampy. And parts of it gravelly which is the first soil of the kind we ave seen since we started. This plain is 4 to 6 miles wide. The river here runs over a muddy bottom with steep clayey banks so much so that it is difficult to water the horses. Where we left this Comments June 3. The river crossing was that of the Long Tom near Monroe. The mountains were those at the head of Willamette River, southwest of Eugene, called Calapooya Mountains. The day's course was up Coyote Creek of Long Tom River. Camp apparently was ten miles west of the site of Eugene. The Indians were probably Cala- pooyas.