At the Muscleshell a convoy of twenty-five wagons and over loo horses had halted and was encamped for the night. An avalanche of water and ice, leaving the bed of the river, spread over the bottoms with such rapidity and impetuosity that the whole train was swallowed up; all the animals perished; only the men succeeded in gaining in haste a neighboring hill, and were able to save themselves. At Fort Union and many other points, houses on the bank of the river were carried away or destroyed. The work of destruction was already in progress before I left St. Louis. The breaking up of the ice destroyed a number of steamboats. The losses are estimated at over $I,ooo,ooo.
We left the port of St. Louis on the 9th of April last. From the outset the boat had to contend with the excessively high water, as I have mentioned in my letter, and with high west winds, which often made it impossible to proceed. The, Missouri was bankfull and beginning to overflow into the forests and lower valleys. Consequently our progress was much retarded. In many places all the power of the boat's two engines was exerted, without being able to make head against the impetuosity of the current. Then we had recourse to the slow but resistless capstan, which succeeded each time in surmounting the obstacles. Once only the great cable broke, and we were carried a great distance down stream, not without danger.
Violenta non durant." The river fell as rapidly as its brief rise had been swift. Then another kind of obstacles were presented, in the numerous sandbars of which the river is full, which change its channel frequently and which the ablest pilots cannot always avoid. Under the holy providence of the Lord we have thus far escaped all the dangers of navigation. We have had only one serious alarm, a salutary warning of the fragility and uncertainty of all human works and the swiftness with which everything passes and disappears and the fairest hopes decay. Under a high head-wind and against an impetuous current, the boat became unmanageable, resisted the skill and the efforts