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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1879)
June, 1679. THfe WEST SHORE. 5 joina the preater river. and thst I half a century ago a pestilence, that must have been chills and fever or measles, or both, came among them, and that their practice of bathing while in the midst of the fever attack caused the death of thousands. The various ills that more civilized flesh is heir to, rapidly depopulated the villages nnd almost destroyed the tribes before the advent of American civilization, so the early emigrants found little hostility to their occupation of the Willamette valley and the early missionaries little material to work on. By disease and pes tilence the victorious Calipooias were in turn defeated, and to-day the miserable remnants of those who were once Cal ipooias or Multnomahs are hardly to be tound on the face of the earth. Very naturally they lay their troubles at our doors, but we have the satisfaction to know that while history may reproach us for not respecting the rights of the wild tribes who preceded us, there is scarce an individual left of them to rise up as our accuser. The aboriginal epoch is gone, and even in the interior, east of the Cascade range, where the native races included such great nations as the Nez Perccs, Cayuses and others too numerous to mention, the little handful that remain are a mockery of the power and numbers they once pos sessed, and our so-called civilisation has scarce left them a rest for the soles of their feet, while it envies tl.em every acre of arable land where they feebly try to cam their bread. The Indian is born to be a hunter, and yet, through the length and breadth of this vast continent no hunting grounds arc left him. Within a few years "the pi tins" have ceased to exist as we knew them a generation ago, even the haunts of the buffalo will soon become the home of civilised man. If one could obtain a fair picture ot this "Columbian region, as it was in the time before the fur companies appeared here, or say, when the mouth of the great river was first discovered, it Would be a rich contribution to history, w hich seems to lack any definite record of what tribes possessed the Northwest, their numbers and habits, prior to the nineteenth century. It would seem as if the early history of the fur traders should show all the facts needed, enough to found a definite idea of num bers and habits upon ; but if they had 1 .. 1. :.. .. . . 1 . 1 t urn luiui uiauuii 11 iut uol Oven lumuctl down. Bancroft's "Native R probably contains all the information extant, in brief summary, and he has given what idea was possible to le de rived from such sources; but the Indian tribes that occupied our region have faded away, ami what of their tradi tions have been handed down cannot le said to constitute authentic history, or to give any definite details of tin- life of the savage trilics who dwelt here previous to our coming. Dr. W. C. McKay, himself partly of Indian blood, and an educated mid ac complished man, whose father was one of those who accompanied Astor's un fortunate expedition for the settlement of Astoria, has given the writer of this the Indians' statement of how dis ease and cstilencc spread first among them. Before the comimr of the white man there were no such dreadful and deadly diseases, but the Indians assert that they were brought by the great ships that came into the Columbia river from the ocean. As they watched the first comer one evening when the sun went down, they saw a flash of lightning and heard a mar of thunder from her sides, and a black cloud MM forth and spread upon the waters of the bay. This smoke, they say, spread far and wide. It ascended the great river, all the branches and the creeks, where the Indians had their villages, and wherever it went it carried the seeds of death and pestilence, and the Indians faded from the earth. Such is the be lief they entertained at the time of the causes of disease. They accepted the issue as fate and mode no complaint. It is not surprising in their ignorance and simplicity, blessed as they were with only the wild and untutored lessons of savage life, that they mistook what was an every day occurrence among civilised people, the firing of the even ing gun on board the Tonfuti, for a supernatural visitation ami a signal of doom. The idea was poetic and the expression of it pathetic, while the facts almost bear out the conclusion. Everywhere the advent of riviliialion teals the doom of the native races. m 1 s ses Blessed is the man who give his wife ten cents without asking her what she is going to do with it. Sleighing all the year around At the slaughter house. lltk ai ihm HONS or i (His COUNTY. ORKUON. There is scarcely a snot In Oreiron that has not had its numerous attrac tions, beautiful scenery, etc., written up by the gushing qnill-slingcr, or ex tolled from the rostrum by the senti mental tourist or traveling lecturer. Without detracting in the least from any other locality, we assure the rentier that our county hsscsscs as many at tractions for the pleasure seeker, as tnc most popular summer resort on the coast. If you arc in search of game, here's where you will find it; water-fowl in abundance can be found along our shore, and our forests abound with the finest lcar, deer, elk, iunil, grouse, pheasant, etc., enough to satisfy the ambition of the most anient sport man. But perhas you are a disciple of Walton, and prefer the rod to the rifle ? The streams which meander through our picturesque woods, arc the home of the trout, and it requires but a skillful cast of tnv fly, to lure them from their shady xoU. To wander along our cbbled bench, or clamber over the rocks at cape Aragn, Is a pleasure of which our alley neighbors should not fail to avail themselves; to watch the sea-lions sp-trting on the cliffs, or behold the setting sun color the water like a sea of blood; a hlp lading from sight on the edge of the far-away horixon, appearing as a speck of gold in the sunset's last glow, is a beautiful sight even to the dweller down by the " deep sad sen." True, our resources In this line have never lieen so loudly lauded, as those of other localities of mora frequent resort for pleasure, as the public have labored under a false impression In re gard to Coot Bay, thinking that it was but a little coal mining district some where on the coast they knew not where. But now and then, some ad venturous tourist who has wandered from the great thoroughfares of travel, down through onr woods and valleys, publishes a sketch from his note-book, descriptive of sombrs forest, through whose shadowy glades reigned an aw ful silence, a crystal stream whose banks were fringed with the loveliest of flowers, or some magnificent sheet of water, in whose clear waves ha had seen reflected the fleeting clouds nf a summer day, or the starry firmament of night. You deniaens of the valley may wall envy us the cool sca-hrccae which fans our brows, while you are sweltering in the scorching sun, with the tharmom cter willing in the shade. Come down here to spend your summer holidays, where w don't dry up like Egyptian mummies in the summer, or frawae as stiff as a gate-post in winter. Come down ami take a look at our country, and tee the work of improvement on our barwhen we get it under wav