ing every desirable advantage. Picture to yourself an immense plain extending southward as far as the eye can reach; on one side the snowy crests of the gigantic Hood, Jefferson, or Molelis, and St. Helen's (the three highest peaks of Oregon), towering majestically upward, and losing themselves in the clouds; on the east a long range of distant hills, their blue-tinged summits melting, as it were, into the deep azure of the sky; on the west the limpid waters of two small lakes, on whose beautiful shores the beaver, the otter and the muskrat sport in careless security, heedless of our presence. The elevation on which we were standing, gradually sloping downward and forming a charming amphitheatre, extended to the borders of one of the lakes.
I hesitated not a moment in selecting this spot for the mother mission of St. Francis Xavier. The sweet recollections of our first establishment on the Missouri returned to my mind; and the remembrance of the rapid progress of the Mission of St. Stanislaus, near St. Ferdinand, whose branches now extend over the greater part of Missouri, Ohio, Louisiana, reaching even the Rocky Mountains, and penetrating to the western boundary of America, led me to breathe a fervent prayer, that here also might be formed a station, whence the torch of faith would diffuse its cheering light among the benighted tribes of this immense territory. We have also a fine view of the Willamette river, which in this place makes a sudden bend, continuing its course amidst dense forests, which promise an almost inexhaustible supply of materials for the construction of our mission-house. In no part of this region have I met with a more luxuriant growth of pine, fir, elm, ash, oak, buttonball [sycamore] and yew trees. The intervening country is beautifully diversified with shadowy groves and smiling plains, whose rich soil yields abundant harvests, sufficient for the maintenance of a large establishment. Besides these advantages, there are a number of springs on one side of the hill, one of which is not more than loo yards from the house, and it will probably