The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-02-18
nnRRBsPnNnENOE.

In pursuance to my promise, l send
you some notes of my journeyings.
Leaving home on Saturday, the 5th
inst, proceeded to Woodburn Station,
in Marion county, in the vicinity of
which I spent about ten years Of my
early manhood. But the ruthless hand
of time has been constantly at work,
and many are the changes it has
wrought. Not only is the face of the
country so changed as to be scarcely
recognizable, but majority of friends
of the long ago are gone-some to try
their fortunes in other parts, and some
to "that bourne whence no traveller re-
! turns"
On the following day, in company
with a cherished sister and her hus-
band, visited the cemetery near the
old Belpassi church, and read upon the
marbles many familiar names-among
them that of a long-absent brother, an
idOlized sister, and sainted mother.
What throng of memories rushed in
upon me at the sight of those names
Returning to Woodburn in the
6NGuluS1 L tdSSCu a ulOSb piSeASeAbb blAhS
at the comfortable residence of Mr..
r Mathiot, and, besides greeting a number
of friends of other days, listened to
; music-vocal and instrumental-sueh
as one is seldom privileged to hear.
Taking the cars for Junction the next
} day, 1 had the misfortune to be seated
near a disappointed home-seeker. He,
: like many others, had come here ex-
s pecting to find thousands of acres of
e smooth, prairie land within a few,
b miles of Portland, subject to home
n stead, or pre-emptiOn, and seemed dis
= pleased with the people here because
e he had not found things as his faneies
It had painted them. Many of the ex-
: pressiOns he made use of when COM
e planning of his disappointment sounded
d so much like swearing of the most
e forcibe kind that I was forced to con-
Y clude that he would not swell the ag-
If gregate of piety in any community.
It He seemed to have made it study to
r invent the most blasphemous oaths;
n and the cool, slow and decided manner
e in which these imprecations were ut
g tered, showed that however much of Ia
n Dor his remarkable proficiency had cost
" him, he was willing that all within
re hearing should have the full benefit of it
to gratuitously. l ventured to ask him,
h after he had finished a sentence thus
Us profusely embellished, what vocation
re he had adorned in previous life, and
was informed that he had been an OK
ne driver
t. 1t cannot be wondered at, however,
in that immigrants arriving here in mid
,i- winter are not generally well pleased
tn with the appearance of the country.
1T, Indeed, had 1 never travelled over the
90 fertile prairies of Marion, of Benton
and of Lane counties before, might
US probably have been induced to take
i'll share or two in an enterprise that 1
all heard spoken of as We whirled along
.st that of building an ark. But L had.
ty Where is now an almost interminable
wv sheet of water, will, in few short
of weeks, be very garden resplendent
,al with flowers. Where now the duck
and the goose sport in their favorite ell
be ement, the reaper will soon be gather
ing the golden sheaves. Twenty-four
years ago | first set (bare) foot on AL
bany prairie. had jdst emerged from
o. the Cascade Mountains, where my
'ur buckskin bifureates, from being most
ct thoroughly water-soaked, had attained
uf- such proportions that 1 was compelled
to to curtail them of foot of their extra
ia length. But the September sun poured
us, his desiccating rays down upon my
head and my pantaloons until, from my
md knees down, 1 was dressed in the fashion
p- adopted in the earliest history of the
of race.
be There was certainly no surplus water
in on the prairie then; for, in travelling
in over the unsettled wild acres between
ore the upper CaIapooia and Albany,
, of suffered from thirst. What change
pid since then l do not remember to have
of seen a living creature between Kinks
our and Albany, with the exception of 6
the skulking cayote and horned owl. The
the former was as shabbily dressed, and
to looked as detected and lonely as myself
ont and left him to his own meditations
ueI but the latter displayed such gravity o.
BILE department and solemnity of mieu, thai
and 1 could not pass him by unnoticed
'us- Perched upon gnarled oak, he seemed
,ro- very king in dignity, as pompously
the "fled' by him in my comic habili
ngs ments. 1 was probably the first speci
of men of the genus homo he had eve
,ur- seen, and when shisd tinger-stone a.
v is him, he did not even deign to dodge
$ in but sat earnestly surveying me from
rue, head to foot without change of coun
and tenance. But long since the cayOte an
be owl have been driven back to tn
mountains, and to-day tasteful cottage
fies and well-Glled barns and granaries ar
nen visible in all directions, as far as the ey
veil can reach.
me. At Junction City, visited Lee En-
.sk- campment c.. r. c., and witnessed tn
un- induction of two persons into the R. c.
;,A, tHo of tb