Handbook to the new Gold-fields | Page 3

succession of cataracts begin,
which, of course, interrupt all navigation, but thence even to "the
Forks," or junction between the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, there is
certainly not more than one hundred miles of road, which, as we learn
from the government map, are mostly practicable for loaded waggons.
Hence it is evident that the new gold district will be easily accessible
both for English merchandise from England, and for the provision
market of Vancouver's Island.
In explanation and refutation of the prejudice which almost universally
exists against the climate and soil of North America generally, but
especially of the divisions included in the Hudson's Bay Company's
Territories, we cannot do better than quote the following just remarks
from the Reverend Mr Nicolay's treatise on Oregon. He says:--

"A predisposition towards one opinion, or bias to one side of an
argument, too often warps both the judgment and the understanding;
and one man in consequence sees fertile plains where another could see
only arid wastes on which even the lizards appear starving, while the
other looks forward to their being covered with countless flocks and
herds at no very distant period of time. Both Cook and Vancouver,
having previously made up their minds against the existence of a river
near parallel 46 degrees, passed the Columbia without perceiving it,
and the former even declared most decidedly that the strait seen by
Juan de Fuca had its origin only in the fertility of the pilot's brain. As
they were discovered to be in error, so it is not impossible that others
not less positive in their assertions may be convicted of the same
carelessness of examination as those navigators, so remarkable in all
other respects for their accuracy, and so indefatigable and minute in
their researches, that little has been left to their successors but to check
their work.
"With respect, however, to the attributed barrenness of great part of the
territory, so peremptorily insisted on by many, there is some excuse for
the earlier travellers from whom that opinion is derived. Ignorant of the
best routes, and frequently famishing in the immediate neighbourhood
of plenty, they most justly reflect back to others the impressions they
received; but in so doing, though they speak truth, they give very
erroneous ideas of the country they think themselves to be describing
most accurately, and of this very pregnant examples are found in the
travels of Lewis and Clarke, and the party who came overland to
Astoria: both struck the head waters of the Saptin, both continued its
course to its junction with the main stream, both suffered--the latter
party intensely; but had they, by the fertile bottoms of Bear and
Rosseaux Rivers, found access to the valley between the Cascade and
Blue Mountains--or, keeping still further west, crossed the former range
into that of the Wallamette, they would have found game, been
banished from their pages, and the Oregon would have appeared in her
holiday attire--
"A nymph of healthiest hue--"

and the depth of ravines and the elevation of rocks and precipices
would have been changed into the unerring evidences of fertility and
luxuriance of vegetation afforded by the dense forests and gigantic
pine-trees of the coast district. We can scarce estimate the transition of
feeling and change which would have been produced in their estimate
of the country, if they could have been suddenly transported from their
meagre horse-steak--cut from an animal so jaded with travel as to be in
all probability only saved from death by starvation and fatigue, by
being put to death to save over-wearied men from famine, and this
cooked at a fire of bois de vache, with only the shelter of an
overhanging rock--to the fat venison and savoury wildfowl of the
woods and lakes, broiled on the glowing hardwood embers under the
comfortable roof of sheltering bark, or the leafy shade of the monarch
of the forest; while the cheerful whinny of their well-fed beasts would
have given joyful token that nature in her bounty had been forgetful of
nothing which her dependent children could desire.
"While such and so great is the power of circumstances to vary the
impressions made upon the senses, some hesitation must be used in
their reception until fully confirmed, or they must be limited by other
accounts, as unbiassed judgment may direct, especially as the
temperament of individuals may serve to heighten the colouring,
whether sombre or sunny, in which circumstances may have depicted
the landscape. It is not every traveller who can, with Mackenzie,
expatiate on the beauty of scenery while in fear of treachery from fickle
and bloody savages; or like Fremont, though dripping from the recent
flood, and uncertain of the means of existence even for the day, his
arms, clothes, provisions, instruments, deep in the whirlpools of