When An Excursion Into
The Woods Is Proposed, All Sorts Of Exaggerated Or Imaginary Dangers
Are Conjured Up, Filling The Kindly, Soothing Wilderness With Colds,
Fevers, Indians, Bears, Snakes, Bugs, Impassable Rivers, And Jungles
Of Brush, To Which Is Always Added Quick And Sure Starvation.
As to starvation, the woods are full of food, and a supply of bread
may easily be carried for habit's sake, and replenished now and then
at outlying farms and camps.
The Indians are seldom found in the
woods, being confined mainly to the banks of the rivers, where the
greater part of their food is obtained. Moreover, the most of them
have been either buried since the settlement of the country or
civilized into comparative innocence, industry, or harmless laziness.
There are bears in the woods, but not in such numbers nor of such
unspeakable ferocity as town-dwellers imagine, nor do bears spend
their lives in going about the country like the devil, seeking whom
they may devour. Oregon bears, like most others, have no liking for
man either as meat or as society; and while some may be curious at
times to see what manner of creature he is, most of them have learned
to shun people as deadly enemies. They have been poisoned, trapped,
and shot at until they have become shy, and it is no longer easy to
make their acquaintance. Indeed, since the settlement of the country,
notwithstanding far the greater portion is yet wild, it is difficult
to find any of the larger animals that once were numerous and
comparatively familiar, such as the bear, wolf, panther, lynx, deer,
elk, and antelope.
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