travelling in your paternity's company. I now come to redeem them, by troubling you with a dozen Rocky Mountain letters,[67] including a narrative of my last year's excursions and missions among several Indian tribes; of what I have seen and heard; and of what happened, as I was travelling along. I hope my letters may be consoling to you, and serve as a proof that the work of God is progressing among the long-benighted children of the Oregon desert, and among the lonely tribes on the northern waters of the great Mackenzie River. Four priests from Red River will soon find ample employment in the dreary regions of the Hudson Bay Territory. How lamentable it is, that the great western desert alone, extending from the States to the eastern {89} base of the Rocky Mountains, and south to the Mexican lines, should be lying waste. This would, indeed, present an extensive field to the zeal of Catholic missionaries; and, from my personal observations, and those of all the priests who have passed this desert, their efforts would be crowned with the greatest success. Indians are, in general, carelessly judged and little known in the civilized world; people will form their opinions from what they see among the Indians on the frontiers, where the "fire water," and all the degrading vices of the whites have caused the greatest havoc. The farther one penetrates into the desert the better he finds the aborigines; and, in general, I found them most willing and anxious to receive religious instruction, and to hear the good tidings of salvation.
- [Footnote: *edge of white settlers. George H. Himes of Portland, after interviewing several
pioneers, writes us: "I conclude that the village referred to by De Smet was the name of a village belonging to a small sub-tribe of Indians in the vicinity of the present town of St. Paul, Marion County, which was annihilated by the disease already alluded to."—Ed.]
