Page:The Californian vol. 2.pdf/30

Rh as a patriotic American. It is mournful to remember his fate; but it is better to have so labored and accomplished, even if to meet so terrible a death, than to have expended a lifetime among the world's older civilization, toiling in monotonous ways of peace and profit, without having done any deed to rival the heroes of all time or left any remembrance of great endeavor.

Mr. Gray, who was with Whitman in 1836, tells how they surmounted every obstacle, and stood at last upon the western acclivity of the Blue Mountains. There they overlooked the great region of the Columbia, spread beneath and before them, and took in the grand coup d'oeil of hills and uplands, valleys and distant mountains, including the sierras of the Cascade Range, that were lifted in the west, crowned with panoplied snows of Hood, Adams, Saint Helen's, and Rainier—an unsurpassed and glorious view; but the pioneer missionary of 1836 could not dream that the settler of 1880 would find all modern conveniences and civilized usages at command, and possess the means, by telegraph, to communicate with the uttermost parts of the earth.

1em