They rose by night, they struggl’d on and on As thin and still as ghosts; then here and there Beside the dusty way before the dawn, Men silent laid them down in their despair, And died. But woman! Woman, frail as fair! May man have strength to give to you your due; You falter’d not nor murmur’d anywhere, You held your babes, held to your course, and you Bore on through burning hell your double burdens through. Men stood at last, the decimated few, Above a land of running streams, and they? They pushed aside the boughs, and peering through Beheld afar the cool refreshing bay; Then some did curse, and some bend hands to pray; But some looked back upon the desert wide And desolate with death, then all the day They mourned. But one, with nothing left beside His dog to love, crept down among the ferns and died. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC BY JOAQUIN MILLER. · · · · · The wild man’s yell, the groaning wheel, The train moved like drifting barge; The dust rose up like a cloud, Like smoke of distant battle loud! Loud The great whips rang like shot, and steel Flashed back as in some battle charge. They sought, yea, they did find their rest Along that long and lonesome way, Those brave men buffeting the West With lifted faces. Full they were Of great endeavor. · · · · · When Adown the shining iron track We sweep, and fields of corn flash back, And herds of lowing steers move by, I turn to other days, to men Who made a pathway with their dust. DOCUMENT. The following is one of a set of documents giving contemporary evidence on a most important epoch of Oregon history. It was secured by Principal J. R. Wilson. (From the New Orleans Picayune, November 21, 1848.) PRAIRIE AND MOUNTAIN LIFE—THE OREGON EMIGRANTS.