very first rank of similar exploits. In these seven years he had traveled, by the slow methods of the time, a distance equal to more than twice the circumference of the earth. He had traveled in almost every clime and by every sort of conveyance. From the burning summer of the Equator he had passed to the frozen winters of 54° 30' north. He had traveled by sailing vessel, by river barge and by canoe; by dog sled and snow shoe; on horseback and in wagon; and many a long mile on foot. He had endured hardships that seem to us almost impossible and which undoubtedly were the foundation of the ills he later suffered. It was to the period of 1844-6 that he referred in a letter to a fellow missionary who was complaining of the hardship of his lot :
" I have been for years a wanderer in the desert. I was three years without receiving a letter from any quarter. I was two years in the mountains, without tasting bread, salt, coffee, tea, sugar. I was for years-without a roof, without a bed. I have been six months without a shirt on my back, and often have I passed whole days and nights without a morsel of anything to eat."
The results of his labors, from a missionary point of view, were highly successful. The whole Columbia valley had been dotted with infant establishments, some of which had taken on the promise of permanent growth. He had indeed laid the foundation well for a spiritual empire throughout that region, and but for the approach of emigration his plans would have brought forth the full fruition that he expected.
But most important of all, from a public point of view, was the fact that he had become a great power arriong the Indian tribes. All now knew him, many personally, the rest by reputation. He was the one white man in whom they had implicit faith. The Government was beginning to look to him for assistance. The Mormon, the Forty-niner, the Oregon emigrant came to him for information and advice. His writings were already known on two continents and his name was a familiar one, at least in the religious world.