Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/180

170 missionary from Oregon. He is in the service of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Rarely have I seen such a spectacle as he presented. His dress should be preserved as a curiosity; it was quite in the style of the old pictures of Philip Quarles and Robinson Crusoe. When he came on board and threw down his traps, one said "what a loafer!" I made up my mind at a glance that he was either a gentleman traveler, or a missionary; that he was every inch a man and no common one was clear. The Doctor has been eight years at the territory, has left his wife there, and started from home on the 1st of October. He has not been in bed since, having made his lodging on buffalo robe and blanket, even on board the boat. He is about thirty-six or seven years of age, I should judge, and has stamped on his brow a great deal of what David Crockett would call "God Almighty's common sense." Of course when he reached Boston he would cast his shell and again stand out a specimen of the "humans."

I greatly question whether such a figure ever passed through the Sound since the days of steam navigation. He is richly fraught with information relative to that most interesting piece of country, and I hope will shortly lay it before the good people of Boston and New York. Could he appear in New York Tabernacle—in his traveling costume—and lecture on the Northwest coast, I think there would be very few standing places. Much of his route was on foot and occasionally on horse or mule back, with a half-breed guide. To avoid the hostile Indians he had to go off to the Spanish country, and thence to Santa Fé. A rascally hackman took him in at New York, and carried him from place to place at his whim and finally put him down near the Battery, close to his starting point, charging him two dollars, and it being midnight he succeeded in the vile extortion. CIVIS.

In connection with our friend's communication we subjoin an interesting account of Doctor Whitman's mission, as given by Mr. Farnham in his travels in 1839 over the Rocky Mountains. [Fills over one and a half columns.]

The following paragraphs we find in several of the eastern papers this morning:

"The Settlement of Oregon.—The meeting at Pittsburgh last week, reported that it was not expedient for American citizens to emigrate