- ing a sort of hotch-potch, or salmagundi, was placed in the
midst of the guests, and each one helped himself according to his taste.
Some remains of beef, buffalo, venison, beavers' tails, hare, partridges, &c., made an agreeable, substantial, famous soup.
I am, monseigneur, your most humble and obedient servant in Jesus Christ,
P. J. De Smet, S. J.
No. IX
A. M. D. G.
Foot of the Cross of Peace,
September 15th, 1845.
"Here
Poplars and birch trees ever quivering played,
And nodding cedars formed a vagrant shade;
On whose high branches, waving with the storm,
The birds of broadest wings their mansion form;
The jay, the magpie, the loquacious crow,
And soar aloft and skim the deeps below.
Here limpid fountains from the clefts distil,
And every fountain forms a noisy rill,
In mazy windings wand'ring down the hill."
Monseigneur,—We bade adieu to the Morigeau family on the 9th, and to their companions of the chase, the Sioushwaps.[110] We quitted the upper valley of the Columbia by a small footpath, which soon conducted us to a narrow mountain defile, where the light of day vanished from view, amidst the huge, bold barriers of colossal rocks. The grand, the sublime, the beautiful, here form the most singular and fantastic {138} combinations. Though gray is the prevailing color, we find an immense rock of porphyry, or white-veined granite. Here and
