Читать книгу Oregon, the Picturesque. A Book of Rambles in the Oregon Country and in the Wilds of Northern California онлайн

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Nor was the element of historic interest entirely lacking. Old Fort Ross and the names that still cling to a few places about the Russian River reminded us that at one time the Czar nearly added Northern California to his vast domains. We found footprints of the padres at San Rafael and Sonoma and no doubt they would have carried the chain on to the Columbia River had not the Mexicans interfered. We came upon reminders of the terrible privations suffered by the pioneers—for did we not look down on placid Donner Lake, which takes its name from one of the saddest of the endless tragedies that befell the emigrant trains? There are many relics, too, of the romantic days of ’49, and we came upon places where gold is still being mined, though by methods vastly different from those of the panhandlers of Bret Harte. We found many memories of Lewis and Clarke and of Marcus Whitman, who did so much to put Oregon under the Stars and Stripes, and more than once we crossed the trail of Fremont, the tireless Pathfinder.