WAIILATPU OF TO-DAY.



  " Waiilatpu is just that-a creek-bottom-the creeks on either
side of it fringed with trees; higher land shutting out the view
in front; isolation and solitude -the most striking features of
the place. Yet here came a man and a woman to live and to
labor among the savages, when all the old Oregon territory was
an Indian country. Here stood the station erected by them:
adobe houses, a mill, a school-house for the Indians, shops,
and all the necessary appurtenances of an isolated settlement.
Nothing remains to-day but mounds of earth, into which the
adobes were dissolved by weather, after burning.
  "A few rods away, on the side of the hill, is a different mound:
the common grave of fourteen victims of savage superstition,
jealousy, and wrath. It is roughly inclosed by a board fence,
and- has not- a shrub or a flower to disguise its terrible signifi-
cance. The most affecting reminders of wasted effort which
remain on the old Mission-grounds are the two or three apple-
trees which escaped the general destruction, and the scarlet
poppies which are scattered broadcast through the creek-bottom
near the houses. Sadly significant it is, that the flower whose
evanescent bloom is the symbol of unenduring Joys, should be
the only tangible witness left of the womanly tastes and labors,
of the devoted Missionary who gave her life a sacrifice to un-
grateful Indian savagery.
   "The place is occupied, at present, by one of Dr. Whitman's
 early friends and co-laborers, who claimed the Mission-ground,
 under the Donation Act, and who was first and most active in
 founding the seminary to the memory of a Christian gentleman
 and martyr. On the identical spot where stood the Doctor's
 residence, now stands the more modern one of his friend; and
 he seems to take a melancholy pleasure in keeping in remem-
 brance the events of that unhappy time, which threw a gloom
 over the whole territory west of the Rocky Mountains."



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