valleys dignified by grandeur in the purple ranges which bordered them, overtopped here and there by snowy peaks whose nearly extinct craters occasionally threw out a puff of smoke or ashy flame,[1] to remind the beholder of the igneous building of the dark cliffs overhanging the great river. The whole country was remarkably free from poisonous reptiles and insects. Of all the serpent class the rattlesnake alone was armed with deadly fangs, and these were seldom seen except in certain localities in the western portion of Oregon. Even the house-fly was imported,[2] coming like many plants, and like the bee, in the beaten trail of white men.
Such was the country rescued from savagism by this virtuous and intelligent people; and such their general condition with regard to improvement, trade, education, morals, contentment, and health, at the period when, after having achieved so much without aid from congress, that body took the colony under its wing and assumed direction of its affairs.
- ↑ Mount St Helen and Mount Baker were in a state of eruption in March 1850, according to the Spectator of the 21st of that month. The same paper of Oct. 18, 1849, records a startling explosion in the region of Mount Hood, when the waters of Silver Creek stopped running for 24 hours, and also the destruction of all the fish in the stream by poisonous gases.
- ↑ McClane says that when he came to Oregon there was not a fly of any kind, but fleas were plenty. First Wagon Train, MS., 14. W. H. Rector has said the same. Lewis and Clarke, and Parker, expiate upon the fleas about the Indian camps.
