The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-12-10
EDTTORIAL eoRREsPonnENnE.

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DEAR READERS OF THE NEW NORTHWEST:
We have dim recollection of writing
you hurried letter on the eve of our de-
parture from Baker City, in which we
may have said all we wanted to about
the city and its vicinity, but we rather
doubt it; and now, as we cannot remem-
Der what has been written, we do not
care to attempt addenda, lest we merely
repeat what you have already read.
The last evenings lecture was fol-
lowed by lunch before retiring, of
what seemed harmless cup of tea and
piece of simple pie, but which came near
carrying us to the Land of the LeaI be-
fore morning. 1t seemed as though we
were poisoned with Verdigris, from the
effects of which we are sill suffering Ia
week later, though the good ladies of
the hotel were not aware of any new de-
parture in the culinary department, and
the accident, which came nearer being
fatal than we at first imagined, must be
attributed to some stupid blunder of a
heathen Chinee
On Wednesday, the 24th inst, accom-
panied by our good friend Mrs. Hannah,
of Uniontown, we mounted the seat be-
side the driver upon the great stage
coach, and long before the first glimpses
OF old SoPs streaming hair had begun to
greet human eyes with a shimmering
array of golden tangles a-spread upon
the clouds and mountains, we turned
our faces Union-ward, well wrapped in
wells and nubias to protect our eyes and
noses from the frosty, icy, snowy gloom.
By and by the molten sun climbed up
the sere, bleak mountains and gazed at
US for moment with his single, sullen
eye, and then skunk away, out of sight,
behind friendly cloud that caught the
tangles of his unkempt locks and shook
them defiantly at the vast expanse of
snow that sparkled everywhere, as
though the frost-crested waste were a
literal sea of diamonds. Then the tan
gled, golden hair was hidden, and the
whole earth was shrouded in a cold array
of dead, monotonous whiteness.
We had sighed over being shut up in
the coach on our way to Baker City, for
we wanted to see the country. To-day,
we were to be gratified; for Boreas was
holding his breath, and from our perch
beside the driver, our vision was only
bounded, at distance of many miles
across the level vale, by chains of bleak,
white mountains, with here and there a
purple ridge of cone-shaped trees, all
mantled with the snow.
The ground being frozen, and the ruts
filled with snow-drift, the roads were
better than when we went over a few
days previous; but on many sidelong
places, the coach would slide until the
danger of upsetting was imminent. We
had thumped and rumbled and crushed
and glided by turns over the diversified
roadway, and had come within a half
dozen miles of our days journeys end,
when we met, for the dozenth time that
day, one of the immense freight wagons
with what teamsters call a "train"
behind tive hope no fashionable train
draggler will imagine it to be like her
own. 1t is simply a common heavy
wagon with a stubby "pole" hooked |
under the running gear of the forward
vehicle-to which 1--WE mean the one
last named) were hitched at least eight |
rat-tailed, ewe-necked mules, with |
spindle legs and shaggy coats and over
grown joints, reminding us strongly of
many overworked specimens of mother |
hood We wot of, who foolishly imagine
that they "have all the rights they
want.n
We were just coming upon long, |
narrow grade from which the landscape |
sloped toward a rocky gulch, when we
met the aforementioned team and |
train. The team halted, and our driver
veered to the right to pass by it, when
the great stage adopted sudden sliding
scale movement, suggestive of immedi-
ate dissolution.
"Whoa !" cried the driver.
"Let's dismount," said Mrs. H.
"How can we ?u answered We.
''Sit still p commanded the boss.
"We'll have to-" thought we both.
"Say, teamster, take hold of the hind |
end of the coach and steady it till we get
by, won't you ?n said the driver, as cool
as a cucumber.
Said teamster wasn't in any hurry,
but he finally obeyed.
We had three Cinnamon inside the
coach, but they proposed to fight it out
on that line if it killed the whole crowd
of US, and they wouldn't bulge an inch.
So the teamster clung to the upper and
coach wheel, looking about
as big and heavy as a horse-fy clinging
to a buffalo; our driver said "get up,"
keen "persuader" vigorously
as he spoke, and then a sudden jolt took
US over the most dangerous rut. Graz
ing the traces of the forward mules in
the freight team with our horses, and
slapping the single-trees against the
legs of the hinder ones with
our coach wheels, we gained the level
ground and went rumbling on.
"By George! that was mighty close