temper to lay the blame for the outrage at the door of the Catholic missionaries.
Father DeSmet's journey to Fort Colville led him past the beautiful Lake Pend d'Oreille and the magnificent forest at its head. He was an ardent lover of nature and the record he has left of his impressions on beholding this splendid scene is typical of his many descriptions of nature. "At the head of Lake Pend d'Oreille," he writes, **we traversed a forest which is certainly a wonder of its kind; there is probably nothing similar to it in America. The birch, elm and beach, generally small elsewhere, like the toad of La Fontaine that aimed at being as large as the ox, swell out here to twice their size. They would fain rival the cedar, the Goliath of the forest, who, however, looking down with contempt upon his pitiful companions,
"Eleve aux cieux
Son front Audacieux."
The birch and the beech at its side, resemble large candelabra around a massive column. Cedars of four and five fathoms in circumference are here very common. The delicate branches of these noble trees entwine themselves above the beech and elm; their fine, dense and evergreen foliage forming an arch through which the sun's rays never penetrate; and this lofty arch, supported by thousands of columns, brought to the mind's eye the idea of an immense temple reared by the hand of nature to the glory of its author."
He reached Fort Colville about the middle of November, and received a very hearty welcome from the commandant, Archibald Macdonald. Fort Colville was one of the Hudson's Bay Company's stations. Macdonald had been in the employ of the company for many years, having founded Fort Nisqually, until recently the nominal seat of the present Catholic diocese of Seattle. The reception given to DeSmet at Fort Hall was repeated at Fort Colville, and our missionary voices the general sentiment of his co-workers when he takes occasion of
