Between every shot the band played; the
effect was very pretty.
On this walk we found two of the oldest and most gnarled hemlocks that
ever afforded study for a painter. They were the only ones we saw; they
seemed the veterans of a former race.
At Milwaukie, as at Chicago, are many pleasant people, drawn together
from all parts of the world. A resident here would find great piquancy
in the associations,--those he met having such dissimilar histories and
topics. And several persons I saw evidently transplanted from the most
refined circles to be met in this country. There are lures enough in the
West for people of all kinds;--the enthusiast and the cunning man; the
naturalist, and the lover who needs to be rich for the sake of her he
loves.
The torrent of emigration swells very strongly towards this place.
During the fine weather, the poor refugees arrive daily, in their
national dresses, all travel-soiled and worn. The night they pass in
rude shantees, in a particular quarter of the town, then walk off into
the country--the mothers carrying their infants, the fathers leading the
little children by the hand, seeking a home, where their hands may
maintain them.
One morning we set off in their track, and travelled a day's journey
into this country,--fair, yet not, in that part which I saw, comparable,
in my eyes, to the Rock River region. It alternates rich fields, proper
for grain, with oak openings, as they are called; bold, various and
beautiful were the features of the scene, but I saw not those majestic
sweeps, those boundless distances, those heavenly fields; it was not the
same world.
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