Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/114

104 in many things, the customs of the natives. Still, if one had learned their ways, he might get along very well; but as it is, and with no prospect of immigrants such as to change the tone of society, I shall soon depart from this coast, leaving for the present my home and farm.

On the Willamette strawberries and other plants are in flower, and trees in leaf in April. By April 15 the camas are in bloom, and plants of many kinds full grown. By May 15 strawberries are ripe and roses are in bloom. By June 1 pease are ripe, and by June 15 barley and winter wheat are headed. Many kinds of fruit grow well. On ground previously tilled, one would have a good crop most years of every kind desirable. Deer and elk are plentiful, and one can always get salmon at the falls to eat. Hogs, horses, and cattle are easily raised. Cattle, if large stock could be obtained, would be the best.

The journal continued:

Camas grow on the prairie about the size of an onion. The stem is about a foot high, having a blue blossom. It is palatable and nutritious as potatoes. The wappato, another root, is not as good, but grows larger. It is the root of a plant like the water lily. The Indians wade in up to their arms and break it off with their toes. Then it rises to the surface. The common way of cooking is by digging a hole in the ground, in which a stone is placed. A fire is built on the stone, and when it is heated the food is put on the hot stone wrapped in leaves, covered, and fire again built on top.

A part of the time while on my farm I suffered much with fever and ague, which proved so fatal with the Indians, partly, probably, because of their plunging into water when the fever came on. They were wonderfully aided by medicine procured from the whites. One instance shows its fatal effect on the Indians. At one time a trader returning to the fort came to their lodge, or village, on the river just below the mouth of the Multnomah. He there found a number of dead and unburied. The only one alive was an infant on its dead mother's breast. He carried the babe to the fort, where it was thriving when I was there. Many die of fright. They are superstitious people, and think that sickness and death are caused by the "Evil Spirit."

I had no nurse but my faithful friend Sinclair, who was sick, too. We got medicine from the fort, and it would hold up. Then we would be taken down again. Completely discouraged, I left my house on September 20. I sold my produce to the company at the fort. The grandeur of these beautiful mountains, Hood and Jefferson, and others not named on the south of the Columbia, as seen from the fort and my farm, were the hardest to leave. By the looks of the country I had passed through the year before, I knew they were volcanoes long