The water route was nearly twenty thousand miles in length, and involved a long and perilous voyage round Cape Horn. The land route was across the continent, through the gorges and over the precipices of the Rocky Mountains, up and down the dangerous rivers, and among numerous bloodthirsty tribes. Such was the opening prospect offered to the eye of religious enterprise, when the question of the mission to Oregon was first agitated. It is something more than forty years since the "Macedonian Cry" was heard from the dark mountains and savage plains of that far country, startling the Christian church in America. The thrill of the appeal made by the delegation of Flathead Indians, was electric, and fired the churches of all the principal denominations with a spirit of noble emulation. Dr. Marcus Whitman, and Mrs. Whitman, his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding, were among the earliest to respond to the appeal. In 1836 they crossed the continent, scaled the Rocky Mountains, and penetrated to the heart of the wild region which was to be the scene of their heroic labors, crowned at length by a martyr's death. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding, it should be remembered, were the first white women that ever crossed that mighty range which nature seems to have intended as a barrier against the aggressive westward march of the Anglo-Saxon race. Strong indeed must have been the impelling motive which carried these two weak women over that rugged barrier! Mr. and Mrs. Gray, Mr. and Mrs. Clark, Mr. and Mrs. Littlejohn, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the Lees came next, pursuing their toilsome march over the same mountain ranges, and closely behind them came Mr. and Mrs. Griffin and Mr. and Mrs. Munger. The story of the adventures and difficulties passed through by these missionary bands in forcing their way over the mountains, would fill volumes. Their way lay sometimes over almost inaccessible crags, and at others, through gloomy and tangled forests, and as they descended, the snow increased in depth, and they felt the effects of the increasing cold very keenly. The only living things which they saw were a few mountain goats. Sometimes chasms yawned at their feet, and they were forced to go out of their course twenty miles before they could cross. Once one of the ladies wandered from the party in search of mountain ferns. She was soon missed, and one of the guides was sent back to search for her. After a short quest they found her tracks in the snow, which they followed till they came to a _crevasse_, through which she had slipped and fallen sixty feet into a monstrous drift, where she was floundering and shouting feebly for help. With some difficulty she was extricated unhurt from this perilous situation.