tastes, she forgot prudence, and in scorn. replied: "My ancestors were of the gods, your sons of earth; the eagle mates not with a dog."

Seeing that her reply had aroused the ire of Speelyia to such an extent that he was likely to harm her, she sought to evade its infliction by flight; but he proved to be on the alert and quicker of movement than herself, and before she had reached more than half the distance to the mountain's crest she was seized by him, and with a determination on his part that such hour should be her last;

Photo by Browning.

ROOSTER ROCK.

but voices on the river bank caused him to stop, and upon finding that his sons left behind had, through jealousy of each other, begun to fight, he felt he must first go to them. The rolling of a stone upon the hair of the goddess which she could not remove was but the work of a moment, and he returned to the contest below. Upon separating his sons, imagine his feelings to hear them accuse him of being the author of all their sorrows and curse him for his treatment of the object of their affections, swearing to be avenged upon him by inciting rebellion among the people, one to gather and convince by flattery, the other to lead to battle. This unfilial language so enraged Speelyia that the solicitude of the father was blotted out by the god's judgment upon such conduct, and through the powers he possessed pronounced the punishment he deemed as just.

The boaster he willed should become a towering rock, standing alone and with sides so abrupt that his spirit could not descend from its peak, and so lofty that assistance could not reach from below; that the only voices to allure should be the roar of the storm overhead and the sound of the river beneath in its rush to the sea.

The flatterer was condemned to inhabit a rock some distance away, on the opposite shore, and the only diversion allowed him was power to imbue those passing with a feeling that good or ill would cross their trail in the future. During the time of Speelyia's absence the goddess had tried to escape, but in vain; in her endeavors to free herself she had loosened the earth and rocks beneath her so that they had fallen far away, leaving her suspended to the top of the cliff thus formed. On the return of the god, she plead for mercy; but to her cries he gave no heed. Still, as he looked upon her golden tresses falling in graceful, waving folds, the idea that they should be preserved could not be put out of mind, and with his stone knife he severed them from her head and fastened them to the top of the bluff, at the same time willing that they should become a cataract, to burst forth and lend luster to the grandeur around, and also serve as a warning to future generations to have some regard for constancy and for the feelings of others. Behind the fall he imprisoned the sorceress, and in the roar and splash of the waters can be heard the moan of a soul bewailing a fate enduring forever.

As tourists are borne along by Columbia's unsurpassed scenery, little do they know or dream that their eyes rest upon the links of the Indian's story; that the golden tresses which gave Wah-se-ak-li

the power of enchantment are preserved

to them in Multnomah's falls; not as they were at first, a continuous fall; time and the wear of the water having worn the bluff away so that now into two it is divided; that high on Castle Rock dwells the spirit of the mighty warrior of the long-dead past; nor yet will they imagine

that there is confined in Rooster Rock below a spirit which could their future foretell. The Indians, however, will relate the story as told as a true one, and a whole drove of "white horses" will not banish from their belief that in golden hair dwells enchantment such as is the gift of the sorceress.

F. H. SAYLOR.

Camp, James River, Va., July 7, 1862.Hon. J. W. Nesmith.-Dear Nes: I have been anxious to write you for a long time, but the press of official duties and their character have prevented me from writing any one. Since the first of June, my life has been filled with events which have alike absorbed my time and thoughts. Since that date up to the 3d inst., scarcely a day has passed that I have not exchanged shots with the enemy. Oftentimes they were merely affairs between the pickets, but sometimes I have had great battles to fight. From some cause the lion's share of the heavy work of this army has been thrown on my division. You will know how well it has been discharged when I tell you that it is the only division in the army of the Potomac that has uniformly slept on the field on which it fought, and I have been engaged with fearful odds against me.

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As you well know, our line of operations has been transferred from York to James River, always a dangerous move to make in the face of a superior force, and we have not accomplished it without fearful sacrifices. We were compelled to abandon our wounded and sick, and destroy vast amounts of public property. Our losses in battle have been greater than we had reason to expect-perhaps from that cause, the sick and stragglers, our numbers are reduced no doubt 20,000 from what they were when we started. Constituted as this army is, incompetent officers exercising the highest commands, the transfer to James River was the only alternative that remained to McClellan. It was repugnant to me, for I would sooner die game than retrograde a step except from compulsion. After the enemy had detached a large column to attack McCall and Porter, my plan would

have been to have dashed for the city. At that moment I held the advance of the army, and was within five miles of his capital, but I was not consulted, and it may be well I was not. Porter's battle, of which the newspapers are full, was a disaster, or, if not that, the next thing to it. He lost 20 pieces of artillery, and between 3,000 and 4,000 prisoners. What will be done next, God only knows. We have a large army here, well found in artillery and other respects, and yet it is held on the defensive. It seems to want vitality and energy. It was disciplined too near Washington City to be successful without great changes in its officers high in rank-changes too great to expect. I must say, I look for no great results from this army, no matter how much it may be reinforced. It is not numbers that is to decide the fate of this rebellion. I only regret that I ever saw the Army of the Potomac. Had I gone to the south or west I might have done something worthy of being remembered. I learn that McClellan speaks kindly of me now-if so, it has been extorted from him. He attempted to ignore the battle of Williamsburgh, which had he turned it to the proper account would have enabled us to have been in Richmond ten days afterward. This is true. We are now reaping the fruit of his delay at Yorktown, and of his mistake at Williamsburgh. He invested Yorktown when it had but 15,000 men there, and at Williamsburgh he permitted the flower of their army to escape when with a single division I held it four and twenty hours. Since we landed on the Peninsula the enemy has had time to create an army to place his capital in an almost impregnable condition. Hope you are well.

Truly yours,

JOSEPH HOOKER.

There never was but one name that could by any possibility be made to enter the lists with that of Rev. Jason Lee for foremost place in the true story of Oregon's evangelization and civilization. That was the name of Dr. Marcus Whitman. In a subsequent chapter on the missions of the "American Board" we shall give what we believe to be a fair and appreciative account of this noble missionary and splendid man.

Mr. Lee and Dr. Whitman had a strangely common cast of life. They were both of thorough New England ancestry. The parents of both left New England about the same time, Mr. Lee's removing northward into Canada, and Dr. Whitman's westward into central New York, both then-about 1800-almost unbroken wildernesses. The fathers of both died when they were children, and they were left to the care of widowed mothers. Both went into Massachusetts for education, the first at Wilbraham, the other at Plainfield. Both spent some of the early years of their professional life in Canada, the one as a minister and the other as a physician. Both passed through the early discipline of hard toil on the farm and in the forests and lumber mills. With this common training, and the not less strangely similar tendencies of their lives, they were now put, by a somewhat singular providence, into different relations to the field where they were both to do the great work of their lives.

The Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal church, under which Mr. Lee was to go West, on the strange call which came to the churches in 1833, im

mediately established and equipped a fullorbed mission, shipped an abundant supply of goods in the bark May Dacre. to the Columbia river to sustain it, and Mr. Lee and his helpers were on their way to meet them by land before the snows of April, 1834, had melted from the New England hills.

The "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions," instead of organizing a mission, appointed Rev. Samuel Parker and Messrs. Dunbar and Ellis as a commission to go and "explore the country." Later in the same spring they went westward as far as St. Louis, but Lee and his company were far on their way toward the distant mountains, and Mr. Parker returned to his home in central New York. The next summer, 1835, Dr. Whitman joined Mr. Parker, and they proceeded as far West as Green river in the Rocky mountains, when Dr. Whitman returned to the East to recommend the establishment of a mission, and Mr. Parker continued his explorations, returning home via Sandwich islands and Cape Horn in 1836. In the autumn of 1836, just two years after Mr. Lee had entered on his work in Oregon, Dr. Whitman entered on his. Their missions were established 250 miles apart; Mr. Lee's in the heart of the Willamette valley, and Dr. Whitman's at Waiilatpu, far in the interior. Though both missions were in Oregon, these men, so very like each other, did not meet until April of 1838.

Unquestionably their views in relation to the interests of Oregon, and the means proper to be adopted in order to secure them, were in remarkable harmony. How

far this resulted from their mental andi moral similitude, or how far from consultation with each other, it is perhaps impossible to determine. Probably there was something of both in the case. Yet there was this difference: Lee, as the pioneer, having precedence of Whitman by two years, was the first to give form and expression to the action desired of the national government, and, as representing much the largest missionary influence in Oregon, undoubtedly the most determining expression. Every essential principle that found place in the memorials and petitions sent from Oregon to congress, or the executive of the United States, up to the conclusion of the treaty of boundary in 1846, is found in the memorial drawn by Mr. Lee and Mr. Edwards in March of 1838. This memorial was in the possession of Mr. Lee, who was on his way to Washington with it when he first met Dr. Whitman, in April of 1838, at Waiilatpu. Tracing the logical line of cause and result, it seems clear that this memorial was the subject of conversation between Mr. Lee and Dr. Whitman during the time Mr. Lee spent with Dr. Whitman, and the missions under his charge when on his way to the United States with the memorial; namely, from the 14th of March to the 12th of April, 1838. It could not have been otherwise. These kindred souls could not have been in close and confidential communication on the very field for which they were planning so wisely and patriotically, and for which either or both were ready to sacrifice life itself, without this. The record in the journal of Mr. Lee of the dates named clearly shows this. Their first meeting is thus described:

"Dr. Whitman met us and conducted us to the house. Mrs. Whitman met us at the door, and I soon found myself seated and engaged in earnest and familiar

conversation as if we were old acquaint

ances." This was Saturday. On Sabbath, the 15th, Mr. Lee said: "I had a very interesting time preaching to the Indians while the doctor interpreted." Mrs. Dr. Whitman, in writing to her parents, after this visit of Mr. Lee, and speaking of an Indian called Umtippe who was in a decline, said: "Last Saturday he came here on purpose to spend the Sabbath; said he had recently three fainting turns, and that he felt he shoul not live a great while." Sabbath morning, after the morning worship (Mr. Lee was here and preached, and husband interpreted), he said: "The truth never appeared to cheer him before. Always, when he had attended worship, his mind had been on those about him, but now it had been on what was said to him." Mrs. Whitman said: "Mr. Lee has spent much time with us, and we have been greatly refreshed by his prayers and conversation." Thus, from the record made by Mr. Lee and also by that made by Mrs. Whitman, the fact appears that these two men were in long consultation and close and friendly communion, sanctified and made more trustful and confiding by prayer, on the great questions with which their names were destined to have such a magnificent historic connection. But the initiative was plainly with Mr. Lee, because the very instrument that gave potential form to the great policy that finally wrought so much for Oregon had been in his possession for weeks before they met. This meeting and conference occurred when Whitman had been on his mission station less than a year and a half, and when Lee was already hundreds of miles on his way to lay that document before congress and the president.

From that conference Mr. Lee pushed forward on his eastward journey. He discharged the great trust the Americans.