CHAPTER II.
Over Mullan Pass to St. Ignatius Mission - New churches - Devout Indians - Forest fires - Captain Mullan's report- Father De Smet's full basket - Down the Columbia - New towns and new ways in the Northwest-California-The further journey home.
On the 25th of August, I bade farewell to my dear brothers in Jesus Christ and left the Mission of St. Peter, to repair to that of St. Ignatius, west of the Rocky Mountains. The distance is about 250 miles, by the route laid out by the Government engineers. It leads across several small rivers, tributaries of the Missouri, such as the Prior, the Dearborn, the Prickly Pear, etc. This last might better be called Hop river, for this plant covers, literally, every bush and all the lower branches of the trees in the valley. Anise (pimpinella anisum) likewise abounds. On the 29th, toward noon, we attained the summit of the great chain of the Rocky Mountains, by Mullan's Pass, at an elevation of 5,980 feet above sea-level. On the 5th of September I reached the Mission of St. Ignatius among the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles. A fine frame church, ninety by forty feet, has been erected here. I found the mission prosperous and flourishing. Notwithstanding this, it is impossible to overestimate the dangers which, just at this time, are threatening all the mountain tribes, through the approach of the whites, the ease with which liquors - "fire water" -so fatal to the Indians, can be obtained, and the accompaniment of all the vices and excesses of our modern civilization; especially as understood and practiced by our American pioneers. These things must be seen to be appreciated and believed.
I Translated from the French of the Linton Album, pp. 65-69.