Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/412

402 and drying and packing them away in thatched huts to be used for their winter store. Salmon also forms a chief article of food for the inmates of the fort, and hundreds of casks are salted down every season.

About 20 miles above this, in the Wallamet Valley, is the spot chosen by the Methodist missionaries for their settlement, and here also, a considerable number of retired servants of the company had established themselves. The soil of this delightful valley is rich beyond comparison, and the climate considerably milder than that of Vancouver. Rain rarely falls, even in the winter season, but dews are sufficiently heavy to compensate for its absence. The epidemic of the country, ague, is rarely known here. In short, the Wallamet Valley is a terrestrial paradise, to which I have known some to exhibit so strong an attachment as to declare that notwithstanding the few privations which must necessarily be experienced by settlers of a new country, no consideration would ever induce them to return to their former homes."

J. K. T. [].

Washington, Jan. 26, 1843.

The following is an extract from a letter dated Honolulu, Oct. 30, 1842. "The town is now full of strangers, the Chenamus having brought some 19 passengers from the Oregon, who are returning home, disgusted with the people and the country. Then again, the Victoria brings a few families here on their way to the river to settle. They must be encouraged by meeting so many here, returning."

(Contains notice of "Travels in the Great Prairie Wilderness, the Anahuac and Rocky Mts., and in Oregon Territory," by T. J. Farnham; said to contain full account of a journey overland and the Methodist missions in the Territory. Notice copied into "Era" from N. Y. Tribune, from which office it is issued.)

We learn from Maj. Albert Wilson who has just returned from the Mountains, that he met the Oregon emigrants on the big Arkansas [Platte], one month after they had left the settlements, and that they were cheerfully wending their way onwards. There were 1150 emigrants, 175 wagons, and a great number of cattle, horses, mules, etc., etc. Lord Stewart and his party of pleasure, consisting of 100 persons, were three days in advance of the Oregon emigrants.

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