University of Virginia Library

10. X.
A TRIP TO OREGON.

On the 16th day of September I received a
letter from my correspondent in Australia which
convinced me that flour was about to make an unprecedented
and unheard of rise. I have been
nipped slightly heretofore in flour speculations;
green and inviting appeared the floury paths before
my mental vision, and I regret to say that I returned
from their pursuit with just a shade of the
greenness adhering to me, in a figurative point of
view; but this time I determined to make a sure
thing of it.

The last quotations from Oregon, (which land
I never hear mentioned without associating it with
the idea of Bartlett pears at one dollar a piece and
particularly rotten inside) showed that flour might
be purchased there for five dollars per barrel.
“If, then,” said I to Mrs. Butterfield, “I repair
to Oregon, my dear, and purchase two thousand

barrels of flour at five dollars per barrel, and returning
to San Francisco, incontinently sell the
same at eleven dollars per ditto, our circumstances
will be slightly improved.”

Mrs. Butterfield had seen at Guerin's a perfect
love of a velvet mantle; a brown velvet mantle
profusely embroidered, for which they asked but
one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and she said
she thought “it would be a good thing.” And so
I went down to the steamship Columbia, and purchased
“A” stateroom, and had my trunk
“dragged into camp” in stateroom “A.” I detest
and despise going to sea; it makes me sick at
my stomach and I cannot agree with that young
man who, on being reminded that “a rolling stone
gathers no moss,” replied, “never mind the moss
— let us roll.” I do not like to roll at all, and I
sincerely believe that the man who first invented
going to sea was some most abandoned rascal, who
could not under any circumstances be permitted to
live on shore, and I wish from my heart he had
been drowned, and the invention lost with him.
So that when I had paid sixty dollars to Purser

Meade, who like the beverage that bears his name,
is of a mild though sparkling disposition, and is
moreover constantly effervescing with good humor,
I went below, and gazing with a discontented air
at stateroom “A,” thought to myself I had given
a very high price for an emetic. However, when
one has made up his mind to be slain, it is certainly
the best plan to employ a regular physician
and have it done secundum artem, and it was a
great relief to my mind to find the Columbia a
clean and comfortable steamship, where if one had
to die, he could at least die with decency. The
Captain too had such a cheery good natured smile
on his handsome face, such a roguish twinkle
about his eye, such a strong expression of wishing
to make every one happy about him that it was
difficult to conceive that anything very disagreeable
could happen where he commanded.

You must have heard of the “Dalls of the Columbia.”
Well, that may appear a slight digression,
but the Captain is “one of them.” The Columbia
went to sea and I went to bed in the second
berth in stateroom “A.” As Lever's hero,

Charles O'Malley, invariably remarks, after getting
a lick on the back of the head, “I knew
nothing more” until the arrival at Mendocino
Mills. Confused visions of Mrs. Butterfield,
nursing a fifty lb. sack of flour, which changed
occasionally into a bowl of gruel, and then into a
large wash basin, prevailed in my mind, I remember,
during this period; but at Mendocino Mills I
arose, girded up my loins, and the Columbia being
very quiet, came forth like a young giant refreshed
with new wine. In fact, as the Captain pleasantly
remarked, I “opened like a psalm book.”

Even a tortoise draweth suddenly in his head
when smote from the rear by some evil disposed
urchin with a stick; so suddenly did I disappear
within the shell of stateroom “A,” when the Columbia
left Mendocino Mills. Then an interval
elapsed, and we arrived at Trinidad. This place
derives its name from the Latin words Trinis,
three, and Dad, father, having been originally discovered
by three Catholic priests. The town consists
of about thirty mules, being packed with
whiskey for the mines on Trinity river. Another

interval of wash basin and gruel and we anchored
at Crescent City. This little place has quite an
active and bustling appearance. It is the depot
of the Klamath mines, and appears to be very
much of a business place. At the door of the principal
public house, sat a forlorn, lost looking girl,
who had once been beautiful; she was neatly and
handsomely dressed, but there was a look of suffering
about her pale and care worn face that I
shall not soon forget. I was told she was the proprietor
of the establishment. Poor thing.

There is some surf at Crescent City, and unless
you embark cautiously you are very liable to get
your trowsers wet. I never do anything cautiously.
We arrived at Port Oxford one night, and
disembarked Lieut. Kautz and eight mules belonging
to the 4th U. S. Infantry. Lieut. Kautz
commands the military post at Port Oxford I was
told, but what the military post is, I am not informed;
probably they use it to tie the mules to.
Port Oxford is a small place, a very small place.
I heard that the Columbia once got up steam and
left here, without casting off one of her stern lines,

and accidentally towed the whole city up the coast
about forty miles before the line parted, very much
to the confusion of one Tichnor, who having been
elected a member of the Oregon Legislature,
sailed off in a small schooner to find that body,
but being unsuccessful, attempted to return to Port
Oxford but did not get in for some time owing to
that accident.

Imagine the feelings that animated my mind as
we arrived — I sprang hastily from the steamer;
I saw my friend Mr. Leonard G. Green, the
great Portland jobber and importer, on the dock.
I seized him by the arm and led him one side —
“Butterfield,” said he, “how do you do?”
“Never mind,” replied I, in a faltering voice;
“I want to buy two thousand barrels of Oregon
flour!”

Leonard G. Green smiled; he was not at all
excited, and he answered “Probably!”— I gasped
for breath. “Tell me,” said I “how is flour selling?”
Leonard G. Greene looked me calmly in
the eye and answered slowly “Eleven dollars and
a half a barrel!” I am not a profane man; I

attend the Rev. Dr. Scott's church regularly, have
family prayers in my household, and say grace over
my frugal repasts; but dog-gorn — never mind,
as the man said “I couldn't begin to do justice to
the subject.”

I wrote a letter, a doleful letter to Mrs. Butterfield
that night, and the brown velvet embroidered
mantle, still hangs in Austin's window.

I walked up the street of Portland and heard a
man scream out, “J. Neely Johnston is Governor
of California, ha! ha! ha!” Confound Portland
and Oregon Teritory; I wish from the very bottom
of my heart that Pierce would appoint John
Bigler Governor of it.