position. It is only in the last three days that I have begun to recover a little strength and to go out. I hope my strength may return and enable me to return among the plains Indians in April. Insensibly the years pass on. I find myself already in my sixty-fourth year, and I feel a conviction that my end is near - fiat voluntas Dei.
What is troubling me greatly at present is that I do not receive any letters from the family, nor any reply to mine of the 24th. It should have reached you by the Loth or I1th of January, and for the last fortnight I have been sending to the post-office in hopes of finding something from you. Charles and Paul called for a long letter from me; you can assure them that I am working at one in all my leisure moments, and in spite of the numerous occupations that have accumulated during my long absence and my sickness, my letter will be ready before long. * * *
Mr. De Coster will tell you all about the sad and fearful American war: it is going to be horrible this year.
Your devoted brother, etc.
The numerous gold mines that have been discovered in this new Eldorado in the last three years are drawing thousands of inhabitants and their number is continually growing. To-day the miners are spread over the country from the Gila to the Fraser and from the Pacific Ocean to the sources of the Columbia, the Missouri, the Colorado and the Rio Grande del Norte. While some, starting from the shores of the Pacific, push their search eastward, others begin at Pike's Peak and the Rocky Mountains and advance toward the West. From both sides they come together in
21 Extracts from a letter in French to Father Terwecoren, S. J., dated at St. Louis, March 26, 1864, describing Father De Smet's visit to the Rocky Mountain Missions in 1863.