The author in answer to any critics of the missionaries to the
Indians will relate a simple incident in his own experience, which
dates fourteen years after their advent in Oregon. It shows how the
seeds of Christianity they planted made of savages unselfish and
humane men. It was on a Saturday, after days of weary traveling, we
came to a little valley where we at once resolved to rest for a
couple of days. It was such a little paradise that we named it "The
Valley of Blessing." On Sunday morning, with a single companion, the
writer wandered for miles up the narrow valley, enjoying its
luxurious surroundings. To the right was a mountain whose rugged
sides were covered with dwarf firs and cedars; while rocks were piled
on rocks looking like ancient castles in ruins. Flowering vines
climbed to the tops of the trees, and their fragrance filled the air.
A clear stream divided the valley where flocked myriads of birds from
the mountain, as they drank and bathed, whistled cheerily to their
fellows in the mountain home. As we were admiring all this wilderness
of beauty, on rising a little eminence, we came suddenly in view of
four Indians, digging at a short distance away. We immediately
dropped behind the hill, but not before we had been observed by the
Indians. We were watchful and well armed, but the old Indian gave us
a peace signal, and we approached the spot. The company was made up
of an aged Indian, eighty or more, his grandson, and two half-breeds.
They were digging a grave and were silent as we stood until its
completion. The old Indian then invited us to look at the corpse
under the shade of a near-by tree. We were astonished to find it the
emaciated body of a white man. It was wrapped in a well-tanned
buffalo skin, white and clean. The four Indians took the body and
placed it in the grave, and the old man, removing his cap, to our
astonishment, said, "Now, maybe some white man who knows religion
will make a little prayer over the poor fellow!" The half-breeds,
perhaps not understanding the English the old chief spoke, began
pushing in the sand with their moccasined feet. Thus the Argonaut of
1850 was laid to his final rest, with only the wild birds to sing his
requiem. The old Indian had brought along a smooth board to place at
the head of the grave, and at his request, I wrote:
John Wilson, St. Louis, Mo., 1850.
Left by his company and nursed by Hoo Goo Chee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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