Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/208

202 and of the soil of the high lands. In all of these it is surely inferior to the Mississippi Valley. But after balancing the advantages and disadvantages we cannot determine which is, in reality, superior. Different men have different opinions. One will prefer one country, and another will prefer another country; one will choose the fertile Valley of the Mississippi, another the healthful climate and the romantic scenery of Oregon.

We left the rendezvous near the Methodist Mission, on the Upper Willammette, on the 18th day of June, 1844, for Upper California. Our Company consisted of thirty-seven persons, of which number thirteen were women and children; the rest were made up of Americans, English, French, Mexicans, and Indians of four different tribes. We took our baggage entirely with pack animals, as the route will admit of being traveled in no other way. Proceeding up the Willammette River ninety miles, near to the point where it comes out of the mountains, we left it, and bearing off across the Valley, at ten miles came to the Calapooiah Mountains, and passed over them, a distance of twelve miles, with ease into the Valley of the Umpqua. Passing across it by a very circuitous way, which characterizes the whole route to California, we came, at sixty miles, to the foot of the Umpqua Mountains, and encamped by a small, clear mountain stream, which ran hurriedly along through a beautiful and extensive inclination thickly set with a fine green sward, and over which,