Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/128



Mr. Walker writes to the A. B. C. F. M., in a letter dated Chimakine Plain, Sept. 12, 1839:

"We have not as yet formed an alphabet We are desirious of doing it as soon as we can so that we can be teaching the children The probility is we have all the sounds in the language"

A year later Rev. Gushing Eells informs the Board in a letter dated Tshimakain, Sept. 11, 1840:

"We are now preparing a small book which we hope to have printed and ready for the winter school."

He again writes from Tshimakain, March 8, 1841 :

"The book of which I made mention in my last was prepared and a journey performed to get it printed, but the press and type were in an unfit state for use and the printer fully occupied in superintending the erection of a printing office, and besides the book was not written in a proper form consequently it was not printed."

The book was finally printed in December, 1842, as related by Mr. Spalding to the A. B. C. F. M. from Clear Water, 26 Feb. 1843:

"Mr. Walker arrived the last of Nov & with my poor assistance fitted up the press & printed a small book in the Flat-Head language."

Mr. Walker's account of the printing of the book is found in a letter dated Tshimikain, 28 Feby, 1843 :

"Since you were last written to from this station a small book of sixteen pages has been printed in the native language The type was mostly set by myself The printing of this book detained me at Clear Water about eleven clays You will readily suppose that it was slow work as it was wholly new business both to Mr Spaldnig & myself ^Mr S understood working the press It required no little time to arrange the press as it had been taken clown and laid aside since Mr Hall left the country Among the most difficult things to be done was the making of a new roller which we succeeded in after three or four attempts We not only succeeded in making one but we made a good one.

ETSHIIT

SITSKAI

TIIUI SI AIS

T H L XJ

Sitskaisiilinis'b.

LAPWAl.

1842,

FIRST HOOK.

Key to the

A pronounced as a c o and u in the follow- ing words: father, hall, man, what, men, not and hut.

E pronounced as a in hate.

I as c in we, i in pin and y in

you.

O 4< as o in note.

U " as ti in bull, oo in moon.

JI K L

M

N J> pronounced as in English.

8 T W

AI tf as i in time.

AU as 021 in south.

B D F C R V Z used only in proper names.