had navigated some portions of them. Since Cabeza de Vaca the Spanish castaway, Monchat Ape the learned savage, Lewis and Clarke, Fraser, Thompson, and the others first to traverse different localities, Stephen Long had ascended the southern branch of the Nebraska or Platte river to its source, and an overland trade had sprung up between the United States and Mexico. Ashley had ascended the north branch of the Platte, and had encamped near the head waters of the Colorado.

The year following, 1824, Ashley continued his discoveries through the South pass to Great Salt Lake, built a fort in Utah valley and left there a hundred men. In 1826, a six-pounder cannon was drawn from Missouri 1200 miles through the wilderness, and planted within this fort. In 1827, many heavily laden wagons performed the same journey, penetrating farther westward; among others, Mr Pilcher, who with forty-five men and a hundred horses crossed the Rocky Mountains by the South pass, wintered on the Colorado, and in the year following proceeded to Fort Colville, then recently established by the Hudson's Bay Company. From these and other points in the Great Basin, hundreds of trappers, traders, and emigrants crossed the Sierra at the several passes between San Bernardino and Shasta, and descended into the valley of California.

Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, able and enterprising men, continued the explorations of Ashley, and during the years 1828 and 1829, they traversed the whole region between the Columbia river and the Tulare lakes, and down to the borders of the sea. Smith fell a prey to the savages, it will be remembered, in 1829, after having twice crossed the continent to the Pacific ocean. In 1832 J. O. Pattie, a Missourian fur-hunter, published an account of his rambles through New Mexico, Chihuahua, Sonora, and California. He boated up and down the Colorado, crossed Sonora to the gulf of California, and thence to the

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Pacific. Captain Bonneville of the United States army, while on a furlough in 1832, with a hundred men and more than twenty wagons, achieved in the regions round the Colorado and Columbia many adventures made thrilling and jocose by the facile pen of Irving Captain Wyeth, of Massachusetts, about this time entertained plans similar to those devised by John Jacob Astor in 1809, which were to concentrate the fur-trade of the United States, and establish uninterrupted communication by means of a line of posts between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Wyeth's project was to establish trading posts on the Pacific slope, and send thither manufactured goods, bring back furs and salmon, and also ship furs to China. To this end he made two overland expeditions to the Columbia, planted Fort Hall on Lewis river, north of Great Salt Lake about a hundred miles, and a fishing post on Wappatoo island, near the junction of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, and within a short distance of the coast. Then began emigration to flow into Oregon from the United States, as alone the eastern part of our domain was then called: agriculturists and religious teachers, founded little colonies in the valley of the Willamette, and in the regions of Walla Walla and Spokane methodists and presbyterians opened schools, and jesuits from Saint Louis, notable among whom were fathers De Smet, Mengarini, and Point, attempted the conversion of the natives. In 1839, at Walla Walla, was set up the first printing press on the Pacific coast north of Mexico. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the efforts of the Mexican authorities to prevent it, stragglers, trappers, traders, and emigrants,-percolated through the mountains bounding California on the east, and trespassed on her lands. These intruders would sometimes engage themselves to work for the Californians, or to marry their daughters, and receive grants of land, cattle, and the catholic religion. A party of trappers from Missouri arrived at Fort Yuma in 1827, among which

were some emigrants for California. The glowing stories of the fur-hunters concerning the beauty, fertility, and climate of California, between the years 1825 and 1840, found here and there listeners who determined to make the venture.

After all this comes John C. Frémont calling himself explorer, and pathfinder, which latter truly he was,-finding the paths others had made rather than making them himself.

Three great emigrations, each three years apart, mark the exodus of the people inhabiting the frontier states, and the tide of overland travel westward to the slope of the Pacific. The first was that to Oregon in 1843, some of which on nearing the Pacific turned off and entered California, guided along the Humboldt by the famous mountaineer, Joe Walker. At this time many kept the Oregon trail as far as Fort Hall, or Fort Boise, on Lewis river, before branching off for California.

The second was that to California in 1846, pending hostilities between the United States and Mexico. These adventurers were assured that California was a most delightful country, one every way desirable to settle in; that it was thinly peopled, and except along the seaboard almost unoccupied; and that now the nation was roused to arms, engaged in a hand to hand conflict with a weaker power, which would probably result in the acquisition of all that territory by the stronger; or at all events the United States could protect citizens settled on the Mexican frontier, if not, finally, they could protect themselves. This spirit and this emigration were encouraged, both by the government and by popular feeling. The result proved as had been anticipated; scarcely had the emigrants of 1846 arrived in the valley of California, when the whole magnificent domain fell a prize into the lap of the United States, and these hardy hunters, ox-drivers, and land-tillers, found themselves upon

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the spot just in time to reap a rich harvest. It was in this year, and the year previous, that the Mormons, having been previously expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois, made their way out of the accursed land, and found an encampment at Council Bluff on the Missouri river, which was the rendezvous, or place of preparation for a further westward journey, a journey which should place the Rocky Mountains a barrier between them and the hated gentiles.

The third great overland emigration was in the spring and summer of 1849, when Gold! was the watchword along the line, and Ho for the diggings! was painted on the canvas wagon-covers; when avarice warmed the heart, and fired the brain, and steeled the sinews; when in the dreams of the ox-drivers wagon loads of yellow nuggets rolled out of rocky cañons into pastures green as Arcadian vales, wherein the cattle might graze, and drink from the Pactolean streams that watered it.

It was during the middle one of these great migrations that the Donner tragedy occurred. It was in 1846 when a party attempted a new route from Fort Bridger, round the southern end of Great Salt Lake, and through the Truckee pass of the Sierra Nevada. The company was composed of George Donner, wife, and five children; Jacob Donner, wife, and seven children; J. F. Reed, wife, and four children; W. H. Eddy, Breen, Pike, Foster, and others, with women and children; in all about eighty souls.

The journey across the plains under favorable conditions was by no means an unpleasant one. Though somewhat monotonous, it was capable of being made both healthful and pleasurable. Many a one who, reduced by disease, had set out upon this journey with little hope of ever reaching the end, arrived in California well and strong, like a man newly made; many a one, alas! set out well and strong who met death ere his journey was completed. In company

with others, some bound for Oregon and some for California, the Donner party had a prosperous journey from the Missouri, and passed the great divide in good health and spirits. The longer half of the journey was accomplished; the cattle were in good condition, and provisions abundant; it was yet midsummer, ample time thought they to escape the snows of the frowning Sierra. So, buoyant with anticipations of a speedy and prosperous termination of their travels, they arrived at Fort Bridger, one hundred miles east of Salt Lake, on the 25th of July. It was their intention to have continued in the Oregon trail as far as Fort Hall, or beyond, before turning southward toward California, but they were induced to deviate from the usual route by L. W. Hastings, who assured them that he had found a way shorter and better than the old one, a cut-off it was called, the name referring to the route and not the travellers. Nor did Mr Hastings wilfully misrepresent matters as many charged him with doing, for his route was essentially the same as that taken by the emigration of 1849, and by the overland stage and railway.

A. J. Grayson, the eminent ornithologist of Mexico and California, led a party of pioneers in this emigration. He was accompanied by his young, devoted wife, and out of solicitude for her welfare, or other cause, he escaped two great dangers of the journey as by intuition. In a letter from San Francisco written February 22, 1847, speaking of Hastings and his route which was represented to be better and 250 miles shorter than the old way, Mr Graysen says: "This news created some excitement among the emigrants; some were for going the new route without reflecting, whilst the more prudent were for going by the old trail via Fort Hall. I for one consulted Captain Walker, who happened to be at Fort Bridger and well acquainted with both routes, and also a man whom I could believe; so I took his advice and went by the old trail, together with a respectable portion