Next came the horses. The stamp varied from nearly thoroughbred to Clydesdale and Percheron stud-horses, with a fair number of mares and foals. The parade of the horses each day, as they were led round the ring each by its own attendant, was a very pretty sight. Nothing special need be said of the well-bred stock—that is much the same the world over; only the size proved how well adapted Oregon is for the home of horses of a high class. What interested us most were very fine specimens of what are called here heavy horses for farm-work. Standing fully sixteen hands high, with long but compact bodies, good heads, with large, full eyes, and hard, clean legs, fit to draw a light wagon six or seven miles an hour over muddy roads, and to drag a sixteen-inch plow through valley soil, they seemed to us the very models of the horse the valley farmers should breed in any number. We regretted to notice the large number of Clydesdales and Percherons; the latter type of horse especially we deprecate—tall grays, with thick necks, heavy heads, upright shoulders, slim, round bodies, hairy, clumsy legs, huge flat feet covered with the mass of hair depending from the fetlock. Just such you may see any day in the farm-carts in the north of France—a team of four in a string, the shaft-horse overshadowed by the huge cart with wheels six feet high; the carter plodding by the side, in his blue blouse with his long whip. Just to settle a controversy with some Percheron-mad Oregonian friends, we had several horses of the two different types measured then and there. We found the Oregon mare girthed nearly a foot more round the body behind the shoulders than the Percheron horse. The girth of the forearm below the shoulder was greater. The Percheron was the taller at the shoulder, the thicker round the fetlock, and, I should think, carried two extra pounds of horse-hair in mane, tail, and fetlock-tufts. The Oregon mare showed just those points which every horse-lover seeks, to testify to activity, strength, endurance, and intelligence; the Percheron was lacking in such respects, but instead had a certain cart-horse comeliness, looking more suitable for a brewer's van in a big city than for our farms and roads.
THE RACES.Like the rest of the world, we answered to the call of the bell, and crowded through into the grand stand to see the races. A circular track of half a mile, the surface of which was already churned into black mud, did not look promising for the comfort of either drivers or riders. The benches of the grand stand were crowded with eager spectators, ladies predominating—the men were lining the track below, while the judges looked down from a high box opposite. The din of the men selling pools on the impending race was deafening, and each of the little auctioneers' boxes where the sales went on was surrounded by a throng of bidders. The first race was for runners, that is gallopers, ridden by boys thirteen or fourteen years old. It was not a grand display to see three or four horses galloping away, dragging their little riders almost on to their necks, and their finishes showed no great art. Then came the trotting races, and these were worth seeing. Three sulkies came on the track, the driver sitting on a little tray just over his horse's tail, and between two tall, slender wheels. Catching tight hold of his horse's head, and sticking his feet well in front of him, each driver sent his horse at a sharp trot round the track to open his lungs. Then the bell rang again, the course was cleared, and the drivers turned their horses' heads the same way, and tried to come up to the judges' box in line. Once, twice, they tried; but the bell was silent, and back they had to come, the horses fretting at the bit, and getting flecked with foam in anxiety to be off. The third time the three sulkies were abreast as they passed the line, the bell sounded once, and off they tore. The drivers sat still farther back, and the horses laid themselves down to their grand, far-reaching trot. Before two hundred yards was covered one broke into a gallop, and had to be pulled back at once, his adversaries gaining a yard or two before he could be steadied to a trot again. Here they come in the straight run-in, the little black horse slightly in front, the big bay next, but hardly a head between them; the crowd shouts wildly, and the bay breaks trot just at the critical moment, and the black wins the heat, his legs going with the regularity and drive of a steam-engine.
The horses are surrounded by admirers as they are taken out of the sulkies, and led off to be rubbed down and comforted before the next heat comes on. Then follows a running race, and then another heat of the trotting race. This time the bay wins, hard held, and forbidden by a grasp of iron to break into the longed-for gallop. Soon comes the deciding heat, and the excitement grows intense; the pools are selling actively, and speculation is very brisk.
Our sympathies are with the little black; half a hand shorter than his antagonist, and more like a trotting-horse than the tall, thoroughbred bay. But the fates are against him—size and breeding tell, and the bay wins.
Then the band strikes up, and the crowd disperses. Most get back to the city by one of the miscellaneous wagons, or hacks, or omnibuses pressed into the service of the fair; the rest betake themselves to their camping-places among the oak-grubs, after supplying themselves with meat and bread from one or other of the temporary stores set up at one side of the grounds.
CRICKET IN PUBLIC.This year the visitors had a new sensation in seeing cricket played on the fair-ground, to most of them a new sight. Portland is blessed with a cricket club, mostly supported by the emigrants from the old country. Corvallis has a similar advantage. The Portlanders, in the pride of their strength, and heralded by a paragraph in the "Oregonian" newspaper, that the "team selected to beat the Corvallis athletes" had gone up to Corvallis, had come for wool and gone home shorn. So, as a return-match was under discussion, it was determined to accept the invitation of the fair committee and play the return on the fair-grounds for the amusement of the visitors. Accordingly, the game was duly played out, and ended again in a one-innings defeat of proud Portland, to the delight of the spectators from the valley, who are generally a little jealous of the airs and graces of the hustling town which calls herself the metropolis of the Northwest. There was some difficulty in keeping the ground clear; the ladies particularly could not comprehend the terrible solecism they were committing in tripping bravely across, to speak, to "point," and chat with the wicket-keeper. If you could but have seen the horror-stricken faces of one or two of our eleven, accustomed to the rigor of the game at Cambridge, Rugby, or Cheltenham!
CHAPTER XVI.
History of Oregon—First discoverers—Changes of government—Recognition as a Territory—Entrance as a State—Individual histories—"Jottings"— "Sitting around"—A pioneer in Benton County—How to serve Indian thieves —The white squaw and the chief—Immigration in company—Rafting on the Columbia—The first winter—Early settlement—Indian friends—Indian houses and customs—The Presbyterian colony—The start—Across the plains—Arrival in Oregon—The "whaler" settler—A rough journey—"Ho for the Umpqua!"—A backwoodsman—Compliments—School-teacher provided for—Uncle Lazarus—Rogue River Cañon—Valley of Death—Pleasant homes —Changed circumstances.
Taking note of the civilized and settled condition of so large a part of this State, it is hard to credit that it was only in 1831 that the first attempts at farming in Oregon were made by some of the men in the Hudson Bay Company's service, and that in 1838 the first printing-press arrived. This valued relic is now preserved in a place of honor in the State Capitol building at Salem—more accordant with the spirit of the times than rusty armor or moth-eaten banners.