taught by Father Mengarini, performed with accuracy several pieces of music, by the best German and Italian composers, during the midnight mass. Fathers Point and Joset had also the consolation of admitting for the first time nearly the entire tribe of the Cceur d'Alenes, on this auspicious day, to the holy communion. Father Point has given the particulars of this first communion in a letter, which has been published, and which you have, no doubt, read with pleasure. The Christmas of 1844 was, therefore, a great and glorious day in the Rocky Mountains.
I will close this already lengthy letter with a few words more concerning the Pend d'Oreilles of the Bay. Early in the spring of 1845 they began to build upon the spot selected for the reduction of St. Ignatius, and to open fields. On Ascension day of the same year Father Hoeken administered baptism to upward of a hundred adults. At my last visit, which I paid them in July, 1845, they had already put up fourteen log houses, besides a large barn, had the timber prepared for a church, and had upward of 3oo acres in grain, enclosed by a substantial fence. The whole village, men, women and children, had worked most cheerfully. I counted thirty head of horned cattle-the squaws had learned to milk the cows and to churn; they had a few hogs and some domestic fowls. The number of Christians had doubled since Christmas, 1844.
A flour and sawmill, a few more plows, with other agricultural implements, and carpenter's tools, were much wanted in the village of St. Ignatius. All is to be commenced among these poor, good Indians, and to us they look for means and supplies, which we readily grant as far as we are able. Already was an appeal made to the generous and charitable Christians, and it is consoling for me to say, that appeal found an echo in the hearts of the friends of the Indians which enabled us to enlarge our missionary operations, and I may add that the grateful prayer of the Indians is daily ascending to the throne of the Almighty, to implore the blessings of heaven on their bene-