Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., May 21-October 16, 1839, part 1

We rode very rapidly for about three hours over a country gently undulating, well set with bunch grass, and intersected with small streams flowing north-west. The dust had risen in dark clouds during our ride, and rendered it necessary to bathe before presenting ourselves at the mission. We therefore halted on the bank of a little brook overhung with willows, and proceeded to make our toilet. Crickie's paraphernalia was ample for the purpose, and showed that among his other excellencies, cleanliness held a prominent place. A small mirror, pocket-comb, soap and a towel, were immediately produced; and the dust was taken from his person and wardrobe with a nicety that would have satisfied a town exquisite.

A ride of five miles afterward brought us in sight of the groves around the mission. The plains far and near were dry and brown. Every form of vegetation was dead save the forest trees, whose roots drank deeply of the waters of the stream. We crossed the river, passed the Indian encampment hard by, and were at the gate of the mission fields in presence of Dr. Whitman. He was speaking Skyuse at the top of his voice to some lazy Indians who were driving their cattle from his garden, and giving orders to others to yoke their oxen, get the axes, and go into the forest for the lower sleepers of the new mission house.214 Mr. Hall, printer at the Sandwich Islands, soon appeared in working dress, with an axe on his shoulder; next came Mr. Monger, pulling the pine shavings from his fore-plane.215 All seemed desirous to ask me how long a balloon line had been running between the States and the Pacific, by which single individuals crossed the continent. The oxen, however, were yoked, and axes glistening in the sun, and there was no time to spend, if they would return from their labour before nightfall. So that the whence and wherefore of my sudden appearance among them, were left for an after explanation. The doctor introduced me to his excellent lady, and departed to his labour.216

The afternoon was spent in listless rest from the toils of my journey. At sunset, however, I strolled out and took a bird's-eye view of the plantation and plain of the Wallawalla. The old mission-house stands on the north-east bank of the river, about four rods from the water-side, at the north-east corner of an enclosure containing about two hundred and fifty acres; two hundred of which are under good cultivation. The soil is a thin stratum of clay, mixed with sand and a small proportion of vegetable mould, resting on a base of coarse gravel. Through this gravel, water from the Wallawalla filtrates, and by capillary attraction is raised to the roots of vegetation in the incumbent earth. The products are wheat, Indian corn, onions, turnips, ruta-baga, water, musk and nutmeg melons, squashes, asparagus, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, &c., in the garden – all of good quality, and abundant crops.

The Wallawalla is a pretty stream. Its channel is paved with gravel and sand, and about three rods in width; water two feet deep, running five or six miles the hour, and limpid and cool through the year. A hundred yards below the house, it makes a beautiful bend to the south-west for a short distance, and then resumes its general direction of north-west by north, along the border of the plantation. On the opposite bank is a line of timber and underwood, interlaced with flowering brambles. Other small groves occur above and below along the banks.

The plain about the waters of this river is about thirty miles square. A great part of this surface is more or less covered with bunch grass. The branches of the river are distributed over it in such manner that most of it can be grazed. But, from what came under my own observation, and the information received from respectable American citizens, who had examined it more minutely than I had time to do, I suppose there to be scarcely two thousand acres of this vast extent of surface, which can ever be made available for the purposes of cultivation. The absence of rains and dews in the season of crops, and the impossibility of irrigating much of it on account of the height of the general surface above the streams, will afford sufficient reasons for entertaining this opinion.

The doctor returned near night with his timber, one elm and a number of quaking-asp sticks; and appeared gratified that he had been able to find the requisite number of sufficient size to support his floor. Tea came on, and passed away in earnest conversation about native land and friends left there – of the pleasure they derived from their present occupation – and the trials that befell them while commencing the mission and afterwards.

Among the latter, was mentioned the drowning of their child in the Wallawalla the year before, a little girl two years old. She fell into the river at the place where they took water for family use. The mother was in the house, the father a short distance away on the premises. The alarm was conveyed to them almost instantly, and they and others rushed to the stream, and sought for their child with frantic eagerness. But the strong heavy current had carried it down and lodged it in a clump of bushes under the bank on which they stood. They passed the spot where it lay, but found it too late. Thus these devoted people were bereft, in the most afflicting manner, of their only child – left alone in the wilderness.217

The morning of the 24th opened in the loveliest hues of the sky. Still none of the beauty of the harvest field – none of the fragrance of the ripened fruits of autumn were there. The wild horses were frolicking on the plains; but the plains smoked with dust and dearth. The green woods and the streams sent up their harmonies with the breeze; but it was like a dirge over the remains of the departed glories of the year. And yet when the smoking vegetables, the hissing steak, bread white as snow, and the newly-churned golden butter graced the breakfast table, and the happy countenances of countrymen and countrywomen shone around, I could with difficulty believe myself in a country so far distant from, and so unlike my native land, in all its features. But during breakfast, this pleasant illusion was dispelled by one of the causes which induced it.

Our steak was of horse-flesh! On such meat this poor family subsist most of the time. They do not complain. It enables them to exist to do the Indian good, and thus satisfies them.218 But can it satisfy those who give money for the support of missionaries, that the allowance made by their agents for the support of those who abandon parents and freedom and home, and surrender not only themselves to the mercy of the savages, but their offspring also, should be so meagre, as to compel them to eat horse-flesh! This necessity existed in 1839, at the mission on the Wallawalla, and I doubt not exists in 1843.

The breakfast being over, the doctor invited me to a stroll over his premises. The garden was first examined; its location, on the curving bank of the Wallawalla; the apple trees, growing thriftily on its western border; the beautiful tomato and other vegetables, burdening the grounds. Next to the fields. The doctor's views of the soil, and its mode of receiving moisture from the river, were such as I have previously expressed. "For," said he, "in those places where you perceive the stratum of gravel to be raised so as to interrupt the capillary attraction of the superincumbent earth, the crop failed." Then to the new house. The adobie walls had been erected a year. These were about forty feet by twenty, and one and a half stories high. The interior area consisted of two parlours of the ordinary size, separated by an adobie portion. The outer door opened into one of them; and from this a door in the partition led to the other. Above were to be sleeping apartments. To the main building was attached another of equal height designed for a kitchen, with chambers above for servants. Mr. Monger and a Sandwich Islander were laying the floors, making the doors, &c.

The lumber used was a very superior quality of yellow pine plank, which Dr. Whitman had cut with a whip saw among the blue mountains, fifteen miles distant. Next to the "caral." A fine yoke of oxen, two cows, an American bull, and the beginning of a stock of hogs were thereabout. And last to the grist-mill on the other side of the river. It consisted of a spherical wrought iron burr four or five inches in diameter, surrounded by a counter-burred surface of the same material. The spherical burr was permanently attached to the shaft of a horizontal water-wheel. The surrounding burred surface was firmly fastened to timbers, in such a position that when the water-wheel was put in motion, the operation of the mill was similar to that of a coffee-mill. It was a crazy thing, but for it the doctor was grateful.

It would, with the help of himself and an Indian, grind enough in a day to feed his family a week, and that was better than to beat it with a pestle and mortar. It appeared to me quite remarkable that the doctor could have made so many improvements since the year 1834. But the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree from the labours of the school, are, perhaps, circumstances which will render possibility probable, that in five years one man without funds for such purposes, without other aid in that business than that of a fellow missionary at short intervals, should fence, plough, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness; learn an Indian language and do the duties, meanwhile, of a physician to the associate stations on the Clear Water and Spokan.219

In the afternoon, Dr. Whitman and his lady assembled the Indians for instruction in reading. Forty or fifty children between the ages of seven and eighteen, and several other people gathered on the shady side of the new mission-house at the ringing of a hand-bell, and seated themselves in an orderly manner on wooden benches. The doctor then wrote monosyllables, words, and instructive sentences in the Nez Percés language, on a large blackboard suspended on the wall, and proceeded first to teach the nature and power of the letters in representing the simple sounds of the language, and then the construction of words and their uses in forming sentences expressive of thought. The sentences written during these operations were at last read, syllable by syllable, and word after word, and explained until the sentiments contained in them were comprehended; and it was delightful to notice the undisguised avidity with which these people would devour a new idea. It seemed to produce a thrill of delight that kindled up the countenance and animated the whole frame. A hymn in the Nez Percés language, learned by rote from their teachers, was then sung, and the exercises closed with prayer by Dr. Whitman in the same tongue.

25th. I was awakened at early dawn by the merry sounds of clapping boards, the hammer, the axe and the plane; the sweet melodies of the parent of virtue, at this cradle of civilization. When I rose everything was in motion. Dr. Whitman's little herd was lowing in the river; the wild horses were neighing at the morning breeze; the birds were caroling in the groves. I said, every thing was alive. Nay, not so. The Skyuse village was in the deepest slumber, save a few solitary individuals who were stalking with slow and stately tread up a neighbouring bute, to descry the retreat of their animals. Their conical skin lodges dotted the valley above the mission, and imparted to the morning landscape a peculiar wildness. As the sun rose, the inmates began to emerge from them.

It was a chilly hour; and their buffalo robes were drawn over their shoulders, with the hair next the body. The snow-white flesh side was fringed with the dark fur that crept in sight around the edges, and their own long black glistening tresses fell over it far down the back. The children were out in all the buoyancy of young life, shouting to the prancing steed, or betting gravel stones that the arrows upon their little bows would be the first to clip the sturdy thistle head upon which they were waging mimic war. The women were busy at their fires, weaving mats from the flag; or sewing moccasins, leggings, or hunting shirts. Crickie was giving meat to his friends, who the past winter had fed him, and taken care of him, while lying sick.

This is the imperial tribe of Oregon. They formerly claimed a prescriptive right to exercise jurisdiction over the country down the Columbia to its mouth; and up the North and South Forks to their sources. In the reign of the late high Chief, the brother of him who now holds that station, this claim was acceded to by all the tribes within those districts. But that talented and brave man left at his death but one son, who, after receiving a thorough education at the Selkirk settlement on Red River of Lake Winnipeg, also died – and with him the imperial dignity of the Skyuse tribe.220

The person in charge at Fort Wallawalla, indeed dressed the present incumbent in better style than his fellows; proclaimed him high chief, and by treating him with the formality usually tendered to his deceased brother, has obtained for him the name, but not the respect and influence belonging to the office. He is a man of considerable mental power, but has none of the fire and energy attributed to his predecessor. The Wallawallas and Upper Chinooks are the only tribes that continue to recognise the Skyuse supremacy.

The Skyuse are also a tribe of merchants. Before the establishment of Forts Hall and Boisais, they were in the habit of rendezvousing at "La Grande Rounde," an extensive valley in the Blue Mountains, with the Shoshonies and other Indians from the Saptin, and exchanging with them their horses for furs, buffalo robes, skin tents, &c. But since the building of these posts, that portion of their trade is nearly destroyed. In the winter season, a band of them usually descends to the Dalles, barters with the Chinooks for salmon, and holds councils over that mean and miserable band to ascertain their misdemeanors, and punish them therefore by whipping. The Wallawallas, however, are their most numerous and profitable customers. They may well be termed the fishermen of the Skyuse camp. They live on both banks of the Columbia, from the Blue Mountains to the Dalles, and employ themselves principally in taking salmon. For these, their betters, who consider fishing a menial business, give them horses. They own large numbers of these animals. A Skyuse is thought to be poor who has but fifteen or twenty of them. They generally have many more. One fat, hearty old fellow, owns something more than two thousand; all wild, except many as he needs for use or sale.

To these reports of the Indians, Dr. Whitman gave little credence; so at variance were some of the facts related, with what he presumed the Hudson's Bay Company would permit to be done by any one in their employment, or under their patronage – the abuse of American citizens, and the ungentlemanly interference with their characters and calling.

On the morning of the 27th, the arrival of Mr. Ermetinger, the senior clerk at Fort Hall from Fort Wallawalla, created quite a sensation. His uniform kindness to the Missionaries has endeared him to them.221 My companion, Blair, accompanied him. The poor old man had become lonely and discouraged, and as I had encouraged him to expect any assistance from me which his circumstances might demand, it afforded me the greatest pleasure to make his merits known to the Missionaries, who needed an artisan to construct a mill at the station on the Clear Water. Dr. Whitman contracted with him for his services and Blair was happy. I sincerely hope he may for ever be so.

I attended the Indian school to-day. Mrs. Whitman is an indefatigable instructress. The children read in monosyllables from a primer lately published at the Clear Water station. After reading, they repeated a number of hymns in the Nez Percés, composed by Mr. Smith, of the Spokan station.222 These were afterwards sung. They learn music readily. At nightfall, I visited the Indian lodges in company with Dr. Whitman. In one of them we saw a young woman who imagined that the spirit of a Medicine man, or conjuror, had entered into her system, and was wasting her life. She was resorting to the native remedy for such evils – singing wild incantations, and weeping loudly. This tribe, like all others west of the mountains, believe in witchcraft under various forms – practice sleight-of-hand, fire-eating, &c. They insert rough sticks into their throats, and draw them up and down till the blood flows freely, to make them long-winded on march. They flatten the head, and perforate the septum, or partition of the nose. In this orifice they wear various ornaments. The more common one that I noticed was a wolf's tooth.

The Skyuse have two distinct languages: the one used in ordinary intercourse, the other on extraordinary occasions; as in war-councils, &c. Both are said to be copious and expressive. They also speak the Nez Percés and Wallawalla.

On the 28th, Mr. Ermetinger started for Fort Hall, and Blair for the Clear Water. Early in the day, the Indians brought in large numbers of their horses to try their speed. These are a fine race of animals; as large, and of better form, and more activity than most of the horses in the States. Every variety of colour is found among them, from the shining coal-black to the milk-white. Some of them are pied very singularly; for instance, a roan body with bay ears, and white mane and tail. Some are spotted with white on a roan, or bay, or sorrel ground, with tail and ears tipped with black. They are better trained to the saddle than those of civilized countries.

When an Indian wishes an increase of his serving animals, he mounts a fleet horse, and, lasso in hand, rushes into his band of wild animals, throws it upon the neck of the chosen one, and chokes him down; and while in a state of insensibility, ties the hind and fore feet firmly together. When consciousness returns, the animal struggles violently, but in vain, to get loose. His fear is then attacked by throwing bear-skins, wolf-skins, and blankets at his head till he becomes quiet. He is then loosened from the cord, and rears and plunges furiously at the end of a long rope, and receives another introduction to bear-skins, &c. After this, he is approached and handled; or, if still too timid, he is again beset with blankets and bear-skins, as before, until he is docile. Then come the saddling and riding. During this training, they uniformly treat him tenderly when near, and rudely when he pulls at the end of the halter. Thus they make their wild steed the most fearless and pleasant riding animals I ever mounted.

The course pursued by Mr. Whitman, and other Presbyterian Missionaries, to improve the Indians, is to teach them the Nez Percés language, according to fixed grammatical rules, for the purpose of opening to them the arts and religion of civilized nations through the medium of books. They also teach them practical agriculture and the useful arts, for the purpose of civilizing their physical condition. By these means, they hope to make them a better and a happier people. Perhaps it would be an easier way to the same result, if they would teach them the English language, and thus open to them at once the treasures which centuries of toil, by a superior race, have dug from the mines of intelligence and truth.

This was the evening before the sabbath, and Dr. Whitman, as his custom was, invited one of the most intelligent Indians to his study, translated to him the text of scripture from which he intended to teach the tribe on the morrow, explained to him its doctrines, and required of him to explain in turn. This was repeated again and again, until the Indian obtained a clear understanding of its doctrines.

The 29th was the sabbath, and I had an opportunity of noticing its observance by the Skyuse. I rose before the sun. The stars were waxing dim on the morning sky, the most charming dawn I ever witnessed. Every possible circumstance of sublimity conspired to make it so. There was the pure atmosphere; not a wisp of cloud on all its transparent depths. The light poured over the Blue Mountains like a cataract of gold; first on the upper sky, then deepening its course through the lower air, it gilded the plain with a flood of brightness, mellow, beautiful brightness; the charms of morning light, on the brown, boundless solitudes of Oregon. The breeze scarcely rustled the leaves of the dying flowers; the drumming of the woodpecker on the distant tree, sounded a painful discord; so grand, so awful, and yet so sweet, were the unuttered symphonies of the sublime quiet of the wilderness.

At ten o'clock the Skyuse assembled for worship in the open air. The exercises were according to the Presbyterian form; the invocation, the hymn, the prayer, the hymn, the sermon, a prayer, a hymn, and the blessing; all in the Nez Percés tongue. The principal peculiarity about the services was the mode of delivering the discourse. When Dr. Whitman arose and announced the text, the Indian who had been instructed on the previous night, rose and repeated it; and as the address proceeded, repeated it also by sentence or paragraph, till it was finished. This is the custom of the Skyuse in all their public speaking. The benefit resulting from it in this case, apparently, was the giving the doctrines which the Doctor desired to inculcate, a clearer expression in the proper idiom of the language.

During the recess, the children were assembled in sabbath school. In the afternoon, the service was similar to that of the morning. Every thing was conducted with much solemnity. After worship, the Indians gathered in their lodges, and conversed together concerning what they had heard. If doubt arose as to any point, it was solved by the instructed Indian. Thus passed the sabbath among the Skyuse.

On the 29th, I hired Crickie to take me to the Dalles; and, Mrs. Whitman having filled my sacks with bread, corn-meal, and other edibles, I lashed my packs once more for the lower Columbia.

CHAPTER IX [IV]

Parting with Friends – Wallawalla Valley – Fort Wallawalla – Mr. Pambrun – The Columbia – Country down its banks – What was seen of Rock Earth – Wood, Fire and Water – Danger, &c. from the Heights – Falling Mountain – Morning Hymn to God – Giant's Causeway – A View of the Frozen Sublime – Tum Tum Orter' and other appurtenances – Dalles – Methodist Episcopal Mission – Mr. and Mrs. Perkins – Mr. Lee – Mission Premises – Egyptian Pyramids – Indians – How Fifty Indians can fight One Boston – The Result of a War – Descent of the Columbia in a Canoe – A Night on the River – The Poetry of the Wilderness – The Cascades – Postage – Dr. McLaughlin – Indian Tombs – Death – A Race – The River and its Banks – Night again – Mounts Washington and Jefferson – Arrival – Fort Vancouver – British Hospitality.

30th. Left the kind people of the mission at ten o'clock for Fort Wallawalla. Travelled fifteen miles; face of the country dry, barren, swelling plains; not an acre capable of cultivation; some bunch grass, and a generous supply of wild wormwood. Encamped on the northern branch of the Wallawalla River.

October 1. At ten o'clock to-day, I was kindly received by Mr. Pambrun at Fort Wallawalla.223 This gentleman is a half-pay officer in the British army. His rank in the Hudson Bay Company, is that of "clerk in charge" of this post. He is of French extraction, a native of Canada. I breakfasted with him and his family. His wife, a half breed of the country, has a numerous and beautiful family. The breakfast being over, Mr. Pambrun invited me to view the premises. The fort is a plank stockade, with a number of buildings within, appropriated to the several uses of a store, blacksmith-shop, dwellings, &c. It has a bastion in the north-east corner, mounted with cannon. The country around has sometimes been represented as fruitful and beautiful. I am obliged to deny so foul an imputation upon the fair fame of dame Nature. It is an ugly desert; designed to be such, made such, and is such.

About seven miles up the Wallawalla River, are two or three acres of ground fenced with brush, capable of bearing an inferior species of Yankee pumpkin; and another spot somewhere, of the fourth of an acre, capable of producing anything that grows in the richest kind of unmoistened sand. But aside from these distinguished exceptions, the vicinity of Fort Wallawalla is a desert. There is, indeed, some beauty and sublimity in sight, but no fertility. The wild Columbia sweeps along under its northern wall. In the east, roll up to heaven dark lofty ridges of mountains; in the north-west, are the ruins of extinct and terrible volcanic action; in the west, a half mile, is the entrance of the river into the vast chasm of its lower course, abutted on either side by splendidly castellated rocks, a magnificent gateway for its floods.