confusion, with thousands of uprooted trees -wood piled on the shore and lumber-yards were all afloat. In the midst of these floating masses, whose dangerous contact we could not always avoid, the St. Ange used her whole power of steam to stem an almost irresistible current. Several times the boat was carried down; twice, especially, it was a regular contest between the river and the steamer. The latter, for a good quarter of an hour, lay as if motionless in the midst of the angry waters, but thanks to the quantity of tar and resin with which her furnaces were charged, she at last triumphed.
Amid such fearful dangers, the remembrance of the object of the missionary's voyage sustains and animates him; he knows that he is in the hands of him who can " command the winds and the sea," and that rarely has heaven permitted that a vessel bearing missionaries should perish.
The inundations of the rivers, the continual rains of spring and the sudden transitions from heat to cold are, in this climate, sure precursors of malignant fevers. The cholera appears to assume an epidemic type in these regions. Disease in many forms soon appeared on board the St. Ange. From the moment of its advent a mournful silence took the place of the rude shouts and boisterous conversations of our travelers. Six days had hardly elapsed from our departure, when the boat resembled a floating hospital. We were 500 miles from St. Louis when the cholera broke out in the steamer. On the tenth a clerk' of the American Fur Company, vigorous and in the prime of manhood, was suddenly seized with all the symptoms of cholera, and expired after a few hours' illness. The following days several others were attacked with the same malady, and in a short time thirteen fell victims to the epidemic.
A bilious attack confined me to my bed nearly ten days. Good Father Hoeken devoted himself to the sick night and day, with a zeal at once heroic and indefatigable. He visited them; he assisted them in their sufferings; he prepared
4 Lewis Willcocks, of New York.