of the Athabasca north of the Rocky Mountains. You will let your eyes travel over what I have traveled in reality, in many different fashions and amid thousands and thousands of dangers; in ocean vessels, in steamboats, in skiffs, in bark canoes, in dugouts; in vehicles of every description, on railroads, on horseback and on foot.
Last year I had planned to resume my travels in the desert in the course of the present spring; but a war' of extermination against the Sioux and several other tribes is soon to take place, which obliges me to defer my journey until better times. Poor, unfortunate Indians! They will have a terrible adversary to meet with; their chances are but small; they are drawing near their last scene. It matters not how great the provocations and wrongs of the whites against the Indians; the latter are always the dupes and victims. It is thus in this present case.
I lately wrote to Francis that we were advancing rapidly toward anarchy; we are there already. Everything indicates a violent persecution of our holy religion. Our churches are being burned; Catholics, priests and nuns are publicly insulted; preparations are being made in certain places for more terrible excesses. Mobs are the order of the day. Poole, a prizefighter, is murdered by a tough of his own species, in New York, and demonstrations and honors are paid this wretch at his interment, such as no President of the United States has ever received. It was a true ova
tion, in which thousands turned out to take a part. It is evident that such a state of things cannot last long. Liberty, in this country, is a perversion of the word; it is rather pure license which has got the upper hand and is advancing with head in air. The unhappy land is flooded with crimes and misdeeds of every sort. Every honest man's heart bleeds, but they are in a great minority. The Protestant ministers in general, and the Presbyterians or Calvinists es
4 The Harney campaign against the Sioux as a result of the Grattan Massacre. See footnote, p. 1216.