Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/122

Rh remaining longer among these people. Dr. Whitman, who is naturally a man of excellent judgment, and especially so with regard to matters relating to the Indians, and who is, moreover, not to be frightened where there is no cause to fear, replied, that he also believed, that prudence, and their safety, required that they should abandon the Mission, for a time, at least. The same opinion was expressed, by all the other gentlemen.

Whether there were other causes to excite the Indians to this step, besides those which they made known, is uncertain. We would hope, that men professing to love good feeling and good actions; claiming to be engaged in the same great cause of Christianizing, and civilizing an ignorant, and barbarous people, would not, merely because they belonged to different sects, or denominations, aim at each other's success, by such vile, uncharitable means. This, and the Catholic Mission on the upper Columbia, are on very unfriendly terms. We would not give it as our opinion, that these unfriendly feelings have been carried to such an extreme; but, there are thousands of instances, in which those professing to be Christians, have acted towards each other, even as unchristianly.

A good body of soldiers, garisoned in the Walawala Valley, would not only be of great benefit in protecting the emigrants, and whoever else might wish to pass through that country, but also to the Indians themselves. For such a garison would keep them in awe, and thereby prevent them from committing depradations, for which they would afterwards have to be punished. They would, at the same time, protect the rights of the Indians, prevent feuds from arising between them and the white people, and establish a peace, and friendship, which would likely be lasting, and beneficial to both; favorable to the civilization of the Indians, and to the promulgation, and extension of Christian principles, among them.

Shortly after this occurred, we removed to a small farm, belonging to Mr. McKenley, the Principal at Fort Walawala; situated on the Hudson's Bay Company's trail to Fort Hall. While we awaited here, the arrival of the Priest, who would come in company with Capt. Grant, (then going up to Fort Hall, with a party, and a large supply of goods and flour,) the Chief of the Walawalas, one evening, came to our camp, with about a dozen men. Without saying a word, or noticing us when we spoke to him, he rode between our fires, where we were cooking, and our baggage; which were only a few feet apart. We told him to go away; that he was throwing the