[203] This was the route by which the trail crossed from the waters of the Colorado to those of the Lewis, a difficult mountain path in Bannock County, Idaho, approximating the route of the Oregon Short Line Railway.—Ed.
[204] The captain and guide of this expedition was Thomas Fitzpatrick, for whom see Townsend's Narrative, in our volume xxi, p. 192, note 40. See De Smet's letter recommending his services, in Chittenden and Richardson, De Smet, iv, p. 1465.—Ed.
[205] The Portneuf River, for which see our volume xxi, p. 209, note 49 (Townsend). This characteristic of the Portneuf—a series of dams of mineral deposit—make it a beautiful succession of still, dark pools and foaming cascades, and may now be noted from the windows of trains on the Oregon Short Line Railway.—Ed.
[206] Beaverhead River is the main branch of the Jefferson, one of the three great sources of the Missouri. It runs through a mountainous valley in a county of the same name, in which is located Dillon, the chief town of southwestern Montana. The valley is named for a rocky point that bears a resemblance to the head of a beaver. Lewis and Clark were the first white men known to have visited this locality. The cliff they called "Beaverhead" is now known as "Point of Rocks," about eighteen miles north of Dillon. See Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, ii, p. 321.—Ed.
[207] The principal chief of the Flathead tribe was an hereditary officer. This chief, whose Indian name was Tjolzhitsay, the equivalent of Big or Long Face, was the first of the nation to be baptized in 1840. For a further account of his life see letter [ix], post.—Ed.
[208] Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750) was by many accounted the foremost scholar and antiquarian of his time. Born near Modena, he was appointed keeper of public archives at that place, and seldom left the city. His chief work was in the classics, publishing Anecdota Græca and Anecdota Latina, valuable collections of hitherto unedited fragments. Through a fellow-townsman who went as missionary to the Jesuit community in Paraguay, Father Muratori became interested in that land and wrote in Italian Il Christianesimo Felice nelle Missione dei Padri della Compagnia di Jesu nel Paraguai (Venice, 1743). He states in the preface that his information was derived from the memoirs of the Jesuits, and from conversations and correspondence with those who had lived in Paraguay. This work was translated into several languages, the English version having been published at London in 1759. Muratori represents the Jesuit community of converted Indians as a veritable earthly paradise. De Smet's reference to this work shows his ambition to establish a Paraguayan régime in the continent of America.—Ed.
[209] With his party, De Smet advanced up the Snake or Lewis River to its forks, of which Henry's is the most northern, rising in Henry's Lake (see ante, p. 175, note [45]). This arid valley, of which the missionary speaks, has been proved fertile under the influence of irrigation. Several millions of dollars have in recent years been invested in irrigation canals, along the valley of the upper Lewis, through which runs a spur of the Oregon Short Line Railway.—Ed.
[210] For the Three Buttes and Three Tetons see Townsend's Narrative, in our volume xxi, p. 209, note 49.—Ed.
[211] The travellers passed by Beaverhead Valley, where the main body of the Flathead met them, by the well-known trace along the Big Hole and across the divide into Deer Lodge Valley—the route now followed substantially by the Oregon Short Line Railway. "Father's Defile" must have been near the Deer Lodge divide.—Ed.
[212] Deer Lodge takes its name from a spring around which many white-tailed deer were wont to assemble. The mineral deposit had piled in a conical heap, forming the shape of an Indian lodge. These are now called Warm Springs, and used for medicinal purposes. The name Deer Lodge is now applied to the river and its valley, to a Montana county, and to the seat of that county. The valley is fertile. In its lower course the river called Hell Gate united with Bitterroot (or St. Mary's) at Missoula.—Ed.