Letter II.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRECIS HIISTORIQUES, BRUSSELS.
Journey to the Great Desert in 1851.
UNIVERSITY OF ST.LOUIS, Jan. 16, 1852.
M****** :
On the, 7t11 of last June, accompanied by Father Christian Hoecken, I embarked, at this place, on board the steamer St. Ange, to go to the Rocky Mountains. The boat ran to Fort Union, which is about three miles above the month of the River Yellow Stone, on the northern side, and about 730 leagues northwest of St. Louis. Several passengers, members of the American Fur Company-, set out on the same occasion, intending to repair to the different trading-posts established among the Indians of the Upper Missouri. They tool: with them about eighty- men ; these were principally Canadians, some were Americans, some Irish, German, Swiss, and Italians, and several "Français de France," a. title which is given them here, to distinguish them from the FrancoAmericans. They went in quest of earthly wealth; Father Hoecken and I in search of heavenly treasures-to the conquest of souls.
We had had a wet spring. Up to the moment of our departure the rain had been excessive; the snows and ice, which had collected in heaps during the rigorous season of the more northern regions, detaching themselves and dissolving, in a very short time swelled the thousand and thou sand tributaries of the mighty Mississippi. These rivers, one after the other, precipitated their torrents into the "Father of Waters," and so swelled it that it overflowed, rolling its muddy billows from upland to upland, over a surface of eight, fifteen, and in several places of twenty miles in width. No longer knowing any bounds, the river, usually so grave and sublime, disappeared. Beneath its waters also vanished the verdure of the smiling plains, the stately forests, and the varied spring-flowers which so delight the eye of the traveller.- A vast lake now covered all thus space; and the immense volume of water, which went on continually enlarging, carried ruin and desolation among the numerous habitations which covered the lowlands on either shore. We could see the torrent descending with the violence and rapidity of an avalanche, overturning and sweeping every thing with its angry waves.
In ordinary times, the sawyers and sand-banks are the principal obstacles to navigation in the western waters; they bad now entirely disappeared, and gave the pilot no anxiety. But other clangers had taken their place; the whole face of the waters seemed covered with wrecks; houses, barns, stables, fences of fields and gardens, were borne away, in 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 au almost irresistible current. Several times the boat was carried clown; 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 travellers. 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 cleric of the American Far 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 iu a short time thirteen fell victims to the epidemic.
A bilious attack confined me to my bed nearly ten clays. Good Father Hoecken devoted himself to the sick night and day, with a zeal at once heroic and indefatigable. He visited them ; lie assisted them in their sufferings; he prepared and administered remedies ; he rubbed the cholera patients with camphor; he heard the confessions of the dying, and lavished upon them the consolations of religion. He then went. and blessed their graves on the bank of the river, and buried them with the prayers and ceremonies prescribed by the Roman ritual. This beloved brother had, naturally, a hardy constitution, and was habituated to a life of privation; but the journeys and continued labors of the mission among the Indians bad greatly weakened it, and his assiduous and fatiguing attentions to the sick completely exhausted him. In vain I warned him, begging him to spare himself; his zeal silenced every other consideration; instead of taking' precautions against exposure, he seemed to delight in it. It gave me pain to see him fulfilling this heroic work of charity alone ; but I was in such a state of debility that I was incapable of offering him the least help. On the 18th, fears were entertained that my illness was assuming the form of cholera. I requested Father Hoecken to hear my confession and give me extreme unction, but at the very moment he was called to another sick person, who was in extremity. He replied, going, "I see no immediate danger for you; tomorrow we will see." He had assisted three dying ones that day. Alas! never shall I forget the scene that occurred some hours later. Father Hoecken's cabin was next to mine. Between one and two o'clock at night, when all on board were calm and silent, and. the sick in their wakefulness beard naught but the sighs, and moans of their fellow-sufferers, the voice of Father Hoecken was suddenly beard. He was calling me to his assistance. Awaking from a deep steep, I recognized his voice, and dragged myself to his pillow. Ah me ! I found him ill, and even in extremity. He asked me to hear his confession: I at once acquiesced in his desire. Dr. Evans, a physician of great experience and of remarkable charity, endeavored to relieve him, and watched by him, but his cares and remedies proved fruitless. I administered extreme unction : lie responded to all the prayers with a recollection and piety which increased the esteem that all on board had conceived for him. I could see him sinking. As I was myself in so alarming a state, and fearing that I might be taken away at any moment, and thus share his last abode in this land of pilgrimage and exile, I besought him to hear my confession, if he were yet capable of listening to me. I knelt, bathed in tears, by the dying couch of my brother in Christ-of my faithful friend-of my sole companion in the lonely desert. To him in his agony, I, sick and almost dying, made my confession ! Strength forsook him: soon, also, lie lost the power of speech, although he' remained sensible to what was passing around him. Resigning myself to God's holy will, I.recited the prayers of the agonizing with the formula of the plenary indulgence, which the Church grants at the hour of death. Father Hoecken, ripe for heaven, surrendered his pure soul into the hands of his Divine Redeemer on the 10th of June, 1851, twelve days after our departure from St. Louis. Who would then have foretold it? So ardent were his desires to labor for the glory of God, that lie sighed for the wilderness-he thirsted for the salvation of souls! Alas! how many projects annihilated! In any other enterprise it would have proved sufficient motive for discontinuing a perilous journey; but the desire of procuring God's glory endows man with strength that nature denies him.
Father Christian Hoecken was born in Upper Brabant. He was only forty-three years old at his death. The last fifteen years of his life were passed among the Indians, who had conceived the most profound veneration for him. He was all to them-their father in Christ, their physician in illness, their counsel in difficulties, their sincere and faithful friend. When lie could share any thing with his poor neophytes, lie rejoiced with all the simplicity of a child. His only consolation was to be among them. He was an active instrument in the hands of God to announce his holy word to thousands of pagans. The churches that lie built, and the fervent congregations of Indians that he collected and formed, attest his fervor, and the apostolic zeal which animated him. His holy death crowned all his labors. A martyr of charity, he exercised his sacred ministry to his very agony. Sad, but salutary, will ever be the remembrance of that last solemn and affecting hour. What friends could ever offer, or take a more touching or more religious farewell ?
The passengers were deeply moved at the sight of the lifeless corpse of him who had so lately been " all to all," according to the language of the apostle. Their kind father quitted them at the moment in which his services seemed to be the most necessary. I shall always remember with deep gratitude the solicitude evinced by the passengers to the reverend father in his dying moments. My resolution not to leave the body of the pious missionary in the desert, was unanimously approved. A decent coffin, very thick, and tarred within, was prepared to receive his mortal remains : a temporary grave was dug in a beautiful forest, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Little Sioux, and the burial was performed with all the ceremonies of the Church, in the evening of the 19th of June, all on board assisting.
About a month after, on the return of the St. Ange which passed near the venerated tomb, the coffin was exhumed, put on board of the boat, and transported to the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Florissant. There repose the mortal remains of Father Meeker, with those of his brethren. His death, so precious in the sight of God, saddened the hearts of the passengers, but for many it was a salutary sorrow. A great number had not approached the tribunal of penance during long years; immediately after the funeral, they repaired one after another to my cabin to confess.
Five more passengers were also fatally attacked, but received before expiring the consolations of my ministry. The languor and weakness to which the fever had reduced me, quitted me insensibly : after a lapse of some days I found myself perfectly recovered, so that I was able to celebrate mass on board and devote my whole time to the sick.
As the boat ascended the river and penetrated further into the country, attaining the higher and more open portions of the Indian territory, the- epidemic gradually disappeared. We could again give a little time to the contemplation of the beauties of the wilderness, to reflections on the future of these interesting solitudes-above all, of their poor, despised inhabitants. I will describe them in my future letters. They will inform you whatever striking or edifying events happened in my relations with the Indians during the long and dangerous journey which I have just terminated.
Accept, etc., -
P. J. DE SMET.
P. S.-The following notice of the death of Rev. F. Hoecken, from "The Shepherd of the Valley," a weekly journal, is attributed to His Grace the Archbishop of St. Louis :
"The Rev. Father Christian Hoecken, of the Society of Jesus, died of cholera,. on board the St. Ange, on the Missouri. Those only who have had the happiness of an acquaintance with the deceased can form any idea of the loss religion has sustained by his death. To the knowledge of several Indian languages he joined a perfect understanding of the manners, prejudices, and predilections of the savages. He showed the most devoted attention to their interests, as well temporal as eternal. He enjoyed a robust constitution, ; united with a great energy of character, which induced him' to undertake without hesitation any work that seemed likely to redound to an increase of the glory of God. The qualities which most distinguished him amid his labors and privations were his admirable frankness, his simplicity, his sound judgment, an ever-joyous and peaceful disposition of mind and heart, and an imperturbable contentment, which the author of this notice has never found to the same degree in any individual. It would be impossible to find a missionary more apostolic, and we are convinced that the illustrious Society of which be was a member, counts no more faithful and fervent religious among her children."