38 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

valley, and Soda Creek—a most round-about, but the
only possible, way. That visit was never to be paid.
Father Morice could now give out short, simple and, of
course, not perfect instructions in Chilcotin—all the
Déné languages are very hard of acquisition!—and he
catechized without an interpreter to the apparent
satisfaction of every one, when, early in August, 1885,
that is, just after his return from Lhkacho, he received
from Bishop D’Herbomez marching orders for Stuart
Lake Mission, toward which he had never ceased to
aspire.

His most cherished ambition was now to become a
reality! Therefore he lost no time in hesitation or
preparations, and, late in the evening of August 20,
he reached the outlet of that beautiful lake, some two
hundred and thirty miles north of William’s Lake,
slept among the Indians camped on an island for
salmon fishing, and, on the morrow, was saying his
first Mass in the country he has loved before, during,
and after his stay therein.

He was now in the lake region of British Columbia.
Stuart Lake is a picturesque sheet of water fifty miles
long by six and a quarter in its greatest breadth,
bordered north and south by real elongated mountains,
not mere hills, with numerous bays, generally not
very deep and dotted over with numberless islands,
though vast expanses of free water contribute also
to render it imposing to the visitor. Indeed, when
you are a certain distance from its outlet you can see
no shore, but have the very picture of the sea. Four
Indian villages, the Mission, or Nakaztli, Pinche, Tache
and Yekhuche,” nestle in nooks of its northern coast.

14 We do not pretend to give here, and elsewhere through this

volume, anything like the proper aboriginal pronunciation of these terms.
Type with the necessary diacritical marks is not available therefor.

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