A Ride Through Oregon [pp. 303-310]

A RIDE THROUGH OREGON.
into the water, resembling banks of oars.
But instead of floating a single, distinctive flag, with a cosmopolitan caprice
due, perhaps, to a wide and constant
travel-he displays, at pleasure, the colors of all nations. In other latitudes, I
have seen these animals of a pearly
sheen, and of a vivid blue; but all that
I have seen here have been tinted like
the one that passed under the ship's side
this afternoon. The radiating centre of
the fan was of a deep, reddish purple,
and the smooth, shell-like border of a
brilliant pink. Its body was indistinctly
visible, but sent a shimmer of carmine
through the heaving water.
A RIDE THROUGH OREGON.
HEY sat opposite me, leaning heav ily from each other, and looking
sour and sullen. By these signs I knew
they were man and wife.
"My dear, I hope you are comfortable." The man who said this was short,
dark, heavy, and black-bearded, with a
niche in the side of his nose. He looked straight at my boots as he spoke, and
did not deign to even lift his heavy brows
in her direction. We had sat in the stage
silent for hours. When he spoke, she
merely dusted her threadbare silk with a
large, gloved hand, half straightening, as
if adjusting her spinal column, coughed
slightly, and subsided into statuary.
"I hope you are tomfortable, my
dear," he spoke again, in the same tone
and manner-a tone and manner as cold
and false as an epitaph. No answer
from the statuary, not even a ruffle; and,
whatever may have been the hopes of the
short, dark man, as to the comfort of the
tall, fair woman, it was very evident that
he was not altogether comfortable himself. After awhile, she impatiently drew
off her glove, and I saw that there were
no finger-nails on her right-hand. How
fortunate, thought I, for her husband!
Finally, I saw that she wanted to "blow
him up;" and not having the slightest
objection, I took the first opportunity to
get a seat outside.
"Who are they?" said I, twisting my
head inquiringly toward the pair in the
coach.
The driver snapped his silk under the
leaders' heels, and, from under the stiff
hat that rested on his nose, answered:
"Webfeet."
A well-known, but not popular writer,
as far as the will of Oregon goes, once
wrote, when on the tour of the Pacific,
that California ended and Oregon began
where white sugar failed, and a brown,
Kanaka article was substituted. This
is, perhaps, fiction; but it is safe to say
that even the Chinese wall does not divide two more distinct peoples than did
the Siskiyou Mountains, until within a
very few years. And, even now, after
the infusion of the new life, the original
Chinook or Cayuse Oregonian-a transplanted cross of Pike and Posey County
-remains, as uninformed and unaffected
as the Chinaman, after twenty years'
contact with the Yankee.
These people held, by donation of the
Government, all the best portions of the
State; every head of a family holding
640 acres, as a rule. They put up logcabins, fenced in a calf-pasture and a
cabbage-patch, turned their stock loose
on the native meadows, and, living on
the increase of the same, reared as idle
and worthless a generation as ever the
sun went down upon. The old men
trapped, traded in stock, ate, smoked,
and slept, were very hospitable in their
way, and, no doubt, were happy. The
young men wore long hair, rode spotted
Cayuse horses; in fact, lived mostly on
1872.]
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