Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1840-08-18
From the St. Louis Argus.

From the St. Louis Argus.
OREGON. The eastern journals are Cir
rulating a story under the head of the Cor
egon Bubble Burst" the purport of which
is that Captain Farnam of Peoria, ILL.,, af-
ter an absence of few months writes from
the Sandwich Islands, "that the country
is little better than cold dreary desert,
almostvninhabitabl for agricultural pur-
poses." Whesher this captain has been
detained like Marryat, Trollope and others,
by the British occupants of Oregon and the
Sandwich Islands, to SANDER the country
and keep the Americans from immigra-
ting thereto, is not stated. True it is how
ever, that the British Consul at the Sand
witch Isla nds is taking every measure with
in his means, and that of his government,
to establish British sway upon the waters
of the Columbia, and stud It's banks with
British military posts. The Oregon or Co
lumbia is as large river as the Ohio, and
drains one of the largest valleys Of our
Continent. When the expedition Of Brad
dock, before the revolution, returned to the
Atlantic coast, after laundering among
the mountains around the SOURCES Of the
Ohio, they described the " backwoods," as
they called the great interior valley, as a
bowling wilderness, only inhabitable by
nomadic savages and wild beasts. Seer
roneous are the first impressions Of ira
weller who wends his solitary way along
blind path, encountering starvation and
every description of danger at every me-
ment, and pining for the homo and rela-
tons he has left thousand miles behind
him. Capt. Farnam is not singular in this
In Jefferson's notes Of Virginia will be
found many descriptions Of travellers who
have penetrated into the western wilde,
now rife with cities, as gloomy as those
given by Capt. Farnam Of the Oregon
valley. Even Washington himself, who
far as Gyandott, gives a Responding mar
rative in his journal, which may be found
in the first volume Of Sparks Biography.
Timothy Flint, who descended the Ohio
and Mississippi in fiat boat previous to
the year 1900, INDUCES in an unbroken
strain of lugubrious lamentations over the
dangers Of the voyage, and the horrors
which met his eye and ear by day and
night. We consider Capt. Farnam's as
scrtion as Of no weight at all. There is
no region of country in the world as large
in extent as the Oregon Valley that does
not afford room and all appliances and
means to accommodate great nation
We opine that onthc Oregon and its branch
es many States will one day exist, at least
as fertile and productive as the granite
mountains of Pennsylvania or Virginia,
and as we'll adapted to sustain dense and
thriving population as the Allegheny noun
tains or the sands Of Jersey and Carolina
Why are the British Fur Companies SO co.
ger to possess themselves of this Terrific
ry? We have the testimony of hundreds
of Trappers of the West, who have spent
many summers on the waters flowing from
the western slope Of the Rocky Mountains,
which directly conradicts the assertions of
Capt Farnam. These men are better
judges than q man trained up on feather
bed, who, floundering hurriodly across the
Continent in u straight line, casts anxious
chances alternately to the right and left,
expecting to see an Indian or grisly bear
crouchod to pounce upon his shoulders
from behind every rock or bush.
A de6wt.-A young Thespian was once
entrusted to deliver the following message