flowed the Willamette between banks verdant with
lowland vegetation. Beyond rose the beautiful Polk
county hills, while to the south-east was the line of the
Waldo heights, whose softer crests melted into the hori-
zon. On the east a forest stretched away toward the
purple shadows of the Cascade Kange, overtopped
here and there by a snowy peak ; groves of fir and
oak at intervals studded the great plain toward the
north. A stream furnished mill privileges; and the
whole was central to the great Valley Willamette.
The late reenforcement, except the portion detailed
elsewhere, as hereinbefore narrated, had been reserved
for service at French Prairie, and to his new and
charming Place of Rest, on his return from the east,
Jason Lee immediately removed his people. Between
two thousand and three thousand acres were selected,
and a part put under cultivation, but owing to the
scarcity of men accustomed to farm labor and to the
inexperience of those present, they were obliged to
leave the larger part untouched. A mill was greatly
needed, and nearly the whole summer was consumed
in getting milling and farming machinery on the
ground. 9 And when the mill was there, the mission-
aries could not put it together. The stones were set
running the wrong way, and when at work threw out
all the wheat. 10 The sagacious superintendent had
9 < We were three or four months before we had any of the conveniences of living, though we had a fleet of five canoes plying between the Mission and Fort Vancouver, where the cargo of the Lausanne was lying. There were so many of ua' and the cargoes had to be so light in the canoes, that it was a little for this family and a little for that family, and a little for the other. We did not fetch any furniture of any amount, because we brought a cabinet- maker, a chair-maker, and such like. There was not a board in the country Everything had to be taken out of the fir-trees. Our supplies were brought in the canoes to Champoeg, and then we had to get them up by horses and wagons to the Mission, twenty miles above. Well, you start one of those men down with a team to Champoeg, and if after loading up a Whipple -tree broke or the hold-back to the wagon, or anything of that kind, he had not the hrst idea of how to fix it up, and abandoned the whole thing on the prairie Far- rish's Or. Anecdotes, MS., 10, 20. Wilkes reported finding farm machinery and other valuable property, which the society in the east had paid tor, ex- posed to the weather and uncared for about the Mission premises.
10 Parrish says further, that for a long time he used to get as good flour out of a large coffee-mill he had brought with him as could be made at the mill; and that 'half the men who came to Oregon ought to have stayed at home.