long ago to have sent you a full account of my very long journeys in our great American deserts, because I made you that positive promise long ago.9 I would have liked nothing so well as to have let you follow, step by step, without danger to yourselves, my wanderings as missionary, traveler and observer. You would have seen many lands, traversed many deserts, sailed upon many rivers. Exposed to the uncertainties of the weather and to the rigors of the climate, you would have spent many somewhat chilly nights under the open sky or the tent of the savage, victims to a thousand devouring insects. Lovely nature, sublime nature, terrible nature-the plains, the valleys, the hills, the mountains hiding their snowy summits among clouds - nature in all her forms would have roused in you a thousand reflections, each more philosophic than the rest. And then the forlornness, the misery, the brutalization of the poor natives of our country, would have moved your tender hearts and lifted them to heaven in prayer.- Yes, you can imagine what a comfort it would have been to me, to talk to you about these things so dear to my heart. The best part of my existence has been devoted to the savages, these sorry waifs of our race. I have in days gone by had the happiness to dry a few tears among them; to bind up some wounds, those of the soul in especial; to guide them toward the only true destiny of mankind. My hair has whitened at it, and my vigorous health has received some small shocks.
But I am straying; I meant to tell you how much I would have liked to keep my promise; how much my friendly feeling for you and my good will to my poor Indians inclined me that way. But for the last few years I have been worked to death, and have had frequent and long journeys to make. I have put off the fulfillment of my promise from week to week and from month to month, until to-day I find myself
9 Another of the numerous examples in Father De Smet's writings of his fancy for excessive repetition of certain words.