Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/134



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It is an old and trite saying, that roads and highways are an indication of civilization; and the better the road or highway, the more of civilization. But what shall be said of a great movement of educated and intelligent people, without forecasting preparations, without preliminary investigations, and without maps or guides, which moves out into apparently boundless desert-like plains, to cross snow clad mountains, unbridged rivers, through two thousand miles of wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and wilder men? The reader may search the whole history of the world in vain to find a parallel or even a suggestive example for the pioneer emigration to Oregon. The travels of the Jews to find the promised land, where kind Providence sent the manna and quails for subsistance, and fire-works by night for cheer and comfort, was but a picnic, compared with the journeyings of our pioneers for two thousand miles through a hostile Indian country offering every imaginable delay and obstruction. The celebrated march of Xenophon with his ten thousand Greek soldiers from the Tigris to the Black sea, celebrated in song and story as the most remarkable military exploit in the world, dwarfs to littleness by comparison with the achievements of the pioneer men and women of this state, burdened with little children, domestic animals and household goods, in their long and laborious struggle to reach the promised land of Oregon.

If the reader will stop to contemplate the size of the movement its originality, boldness, dangers, trials and want of support from the government, whose mission was being executed without orders, he will be lost in wonder at the success finally secured.

The first thought of the new-comer from a foreign shore, or the boy and girl justout of school, wanting to know about this great movement, will be—the road. But there was no road; not a wagon road, or a railroad, or a