Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/136

 sleep. The Indians on the Columbia below W. W. are in the most degraded & wretched condition of any we met with after leaving the borders of the States. Multitudes of them are without a particle of clothing. The little flood wood that comes down the Columbia might make them comfortable through the winter, but this they dispose of, with the last stick that holds up a few mats to shelter them from the pelting storms to the boatmen, for tobacco, & leave themselves exposed without shelter or fuel to the inclemency of the weather. They will sometimes follow a boat from noon till night with a few sticks of wood to obtain this weed. No drudgery, no article they possess, is withheld when a leaf of tobacco is held up, and when they have nothing else they try the strength of begging. When we passed, it being the season of fish & berries, they looked very hardy, but I am told, before spring, they are reduced to mere skeletons, and many die from want & diseases, brought on by their manner of living. I excepted the poor natives on the borders of the States, in speaking of this degradation of this people. This exception must remain, while the overwhelming raging flood of annihilation continues to roll down upon these defenceless hunted immortals, from the snow capped mountains of Avarice, Intemperance, licentiousness, Infidelity & nameless other sins, rendering every effort to benefit these tribes almost useless. I refer to the same sources of evil referred to, by our good President in his message for 1835. He was right in urging immediate & effectual measures, to close up those fountains of moral death, for great guilt is accumlating somewhere. If the present sentinals of a nations honor & a nations welfare for time & eternity are not sufficient or are not faithful to their charge, let others be set with their hands unbound that will be faithful, come life or death. I have seen taken to the mountains (not by the Fur Co) horses purchased of poor harrassed natives on the border of the States for a few quarts of whiskey each; and I have seen the effects of this whiskey in blood pouring from the dead and dying, and in the shrieks & flight of women and children from their fathers & husbands, driving them with the weapons of death from their dwellings; and in the tears of the desponding missionary, hastening with rapid speed from the uplifted war club of him, whom but a day or two previous, perhaps, he was