Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/307

 coast to the northward of that river; so that by the progressive labours of the missionaries, this dreadful custom, with the others, might be gradually abolished. The settlement formed by Lord Selkirk on Red River, which falls into the great Lake Winepic, and which suffered so much in its infancy from interested enemies, is at present, I am happy to hear, in a thriving condition. A missionary has been established here, whose labours have already been productive of much good. Numbers of the surrounding natives have become converts, and they are yearly increasing. The progress of civilisation will gradually gain ground among the western tribes; and we may indulge the pleasing hope that the day is not far distant when the missionaries, in their glorious career eastward and westward, from the St. Lawrence and the mouth of the Columbia, despite the many difficulties and dangers they must unavoidably encounter, may meet on the Rocky Mountains, and from their ice-covered summits proclaim to the benighted savages "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will towards men."

About thirty years before this period the small-pox had committed dreadful ravages among these Indians, the vestiges of which were still visible