Hell Gate, 21St Sept., 1841,"
"It is on a journey through the desert that we see how attentive Providence is to the wants of man." I repeat with pleasure this remark of my young Protestant friend, because the truth of it appears through the narrative which I have commenced, and will appear still more evidently in what is to follow. Were I to speak of rivers, the account would be long and tedious, for in five days we crossed as many as eighteen, and crossed one of them five times in the space of a few hours. I shall only mention the most dangerous among them. The first which we found it very difficult to cross was the South Fork of the Platte. But as we had been long apprised of the difficulty, we took our precautions beforehand, and some of our Canadians had explored it with so much care that we forded it, not without great difficulty, but without any serious accident. The greatest distress was felt by the dogs of the caravan. Left on the bank when all had crossed, nothing but fidelity toward their masters could have induced them to swim over a river but little less than a mile wide, and having so rapid a current that it would have carried away wagons and carts, had they not been supported on all sides, while the mules exerted all their strength to pull them onward. The poor dogs did not attempt to cross till they found that there was no choice left between encountering the danger and losing their masters. The passage over these rivers is generally effected by means of a bull-boat, the name given to a kind
of boat, constructed on the spot with buffalo hides. They are indispensable when the current is impetuous, and no
ford can be found. Thanks to our Canadians, we wanted them neither on this nor any other occasion.
Is Letter VIII, Letters and Sketches and Letter VI, Second Voyage, Voyages our Montagues-Rocheuses, both dated as above and addressed respectively to the Father Provincial and to Father De Smet's sister, Afme. Rosalie van Mossevelde, Termcnde. The English text is followed for the most part.