Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/411

Rh evidence, prove conclusively that the whole Burnett manuscript sent to the New York Herald, part of which was printed in the Herald and is now reprinted below, was the basis of Wilkes' book. Wilkes, however, asserts that he "has done scarcely more to this portion (Part II) than to throw it into chapters and to strike from it such historical and geographical statistics," etc. The following excerpts from his version, when compared to the corresponding portions of the Burnett narrative in the letters, prove that Wilkes took such liberties with the original as in his judgment were necessary to make an interesting story, and to support the contention of his book, namely, that the route was a practicable one for a national railroad. To realize how freely Wilkes used his imagination, along with the Burnett text, it is only necessary to compare the following transcript from the opening, paragraphs of Part II of Wilkes' book with the first page or two of the letters:

It is not necessary, to the object in view, that the writer of this journal should furnish the reason which induced him to turn his face toward the wilderness. Let it suffice that on the morning of the seventeenth of May, 1843, I (to drop the third person) mounted my horse in Independence, Missouri, and set out for the general rendezvous. This was situated in a little spot about twenty miles distant, in a southeast direction. I did not start alone. A family of the name of Robbins, from the northern part of Pennsylvania, were my companions. The party consisted of a husband and wife, two chubby boys, one six and the other eight years of age, and a bouncing baby of eighteen months, or thereabouts.

After having examined for the twentieth time if all the necessaries required for the journey were properly stowed away in the wagon, and after having for the last time jerked at the trace, settled this and that portion of the harness, looked under the horses, passed his hand over the near one's flank, and walked completely around the concern, John Robbins mounted his seat, gave a sonorous ahem! in evidence of his complete satisfaction, and describing a preparatory circle with his lash, was about bringing it down on the backs of his team, when a little circumstance in the body of his wagon interrupted his purpose and softened the threatened sweep of the gad into an oblique flourish that spent its elegance in a faint snap near the ground.