of Texel in July, 1821, en route for America. The voyage was a prosperous one, though slow, for steamboats had not yet crossed the ocean, and it took forty days to reach Philadelphia. Here, we are told, young De Smet was greatly surprised to find good buildings, as all his mental pictures of the America to which he was going were of an untamed wilderness, the home of wild Indians. But if he was astonished to find himself in a well-settled and highly-civilized country, the time was to come when he should find wilderness enough to satisfy him.
The young men visited Baltimore, Washington and Georgetown and finally entered the Jesuit novitiate at Whitemarsh to. commence their long career as novices. We have related how a second novitiate came to be established at Florissant near St. Louis, and how, in something less than two years after their arrival in America, De Smet and his companions found themselves on the western shore of the Mississippi.
The years that followed before the end of De Smet's novitiate were naturally void of much interest, for the kind of life that the novices led offered little of excitement or unusual occurrence. The young student bore his full share in the work of the novitiate, helped erect the buildings, and was particularly relied upon in getting out the timber for the work. His great physical strength and restless energy won for him a fame which survives to this day and doubtless has assumed something of an apocryphal character. It was said that he accomplished three times as much work in a given time as any of his associates, and that he was always called upon when it was a question of cutting large trees, carrying heavy loads, etc. He was first at his task and last to leave, and in whatever of manual toil presented itself he did more than his full share.
In his studies likewise he made good progress, and he was one of the first teachers in the new university. He finished his novitiate and was ordained priest in 1827 and