and the principal enemies of our nation were all destroyed. Since that time we have been the possessors of this vast country, and the children of our ancient enemies catch the buffalo in a far distant prairie land."

With this legend deeply impressed on my brain (the telling of which occupied my companion for nearly two hours) I ordered more wood to be placed on the fire, and leaving the others to take care of themselves, rolled myself up in my blanket, and was soon asleep. I was awakened only once during the night, and that was by the distant howl of a wolf, mingling with the solemn anthem of the cataract. I sat up for a moment to look upon the scene, but the sky was covered with clouds, and it was exceedingly dark. Even the embers of our watch-fire had ceased blazing. Around me lay my companions in a deep sleep. Once more did I listen to that dreadful howl, and that Godlike voice of many waters, until, like a frightened child, I hastily covered my head, and wept myself to sleep. On the following morning we resumed our journey in the midst of a rain storm, the memory of that night and that cataract, however, haunting me like a dream.

The next perpendicular fall within the bend I have mentioned, is some two miles down the stream, and is only about fifty feet in height, but its grandeur is somewhat enhanced by the rapids which succeed it, and have a fall of some forty or fifty feet more. An old trader tells me that I am the first traveller from the states who has ever taken the trouble actually to visit these cataracts. If this is a fact, and as the Indians, so far as I can learn, have never christened them, I claim the privilege of giving them a name. Let them, then, be known hereafter as the Chippeway Falls. It is a singular circumstance that a pine tree might be cut in this interior wilderness, and if launched in one of the tributaries of the Mississippi, or in the Saint Louis River, and propelled by

favorable winds alone, could, in process of time, be planted in the hull of a ship at any sea-port on the globe.

The navigable portion of the Saint Louis, as before remarked, extends only about twenty miles from the Lake, at which point is the place legitimately called Fon du Lac. It is an ancient trading post, and contains about half a dozen white inhabitants, viz., a worthy missionary and his interesting family. The agent of the Fur Company and his assistants are half-breeds, and a most godless set of people they are. It is a general rendezvous for several Indian tribes, and when I was there was quite crowded with the barbarians.

Fon du Lac, so far as the scenery is concerned, is one of the most truly delightful places that I ever met with in my life. The first white man who traded here was my friend Morrison, after whom the highest hill in the vicinity was named. Upon this eminence I spent a pleasant afternoon revelling over a landscape of surpassing loveliness. Far below me lay an extensive natural meadow, on the left of which was a pretty lake, and on the right a little hamlet composed of log cabins and bark wigwams. The broad valley of the Saint Louis faded away to the east, studded with islands, and protected on either side by a range of high woodcrowned hills, beyond which reposed in its conscious pride the mighty lake-wonder of the world. The atmosphere which rested upon the whole scene seemed to halo every feature, and with the occasional tinkling of a solitary cowbell, combined to fill my heart with an indescribable joy.

Most of my rambles about this place were performed in company with the missionary already mentioned. He informed me that the surrounding country abounded in rich copper ore, in agates and cornelians of the first water, and that all the smaller streams of the country afforded rare trout fishing. If this end of Lake Superior should become,

as I doubt not it will, famous for its mines, Fon du Lac would be a most agreeable place to reside in, as it is easily reached by vessels. I was hospitably entertained by this gentleman, and could not but contrast the appearance of his dwelling with that of his neighbor the French trader. In the one you might see a small library, a large family Bible, the floor covered with matting, &c., a neat, tidy, and intelligent wife and children; in the other, a pack of cards, a barrel of whisky, a stack of guns, and a family whose filthiness was only equalled by the total ignorance of its various members. And this contrast only inadequately portrays the difference between Christianity and heathenism.

I left Fon du Lac about day-break, and with a retinue of some twenty canoes, which were freighted with Indians bound to a payment at La Pointe. It was one of those misty summer mornings when every object in nature wears a bewitching aspect, and her still small voice seems to whisper to the heart that it is not the "whole of life to live, nor the whole of death to die," and when we feel that God is omnipotent and the mind immortal. But the scenery of this portion of the river is beautiful-beautiful beyond any thing I had imagined to exist in any country on the globe. The entire distance from Fon du Lac to this place, as before mentioned, is not far from twenty miles. The river is very broad and deep and completely filled with wooded islands, while on either side extends a range of mountains which are as wild and solitary, as when brought into existence.

Every member of the voyaging party seemed to be perfectly happy, and we travelled at our ease, for the purpose of prolonging the enjoyment of the voyage. At one time we landed at the base of a cliff, and while I made a drawing or ransacked the shore for agates and cornelians, and the young Indians clambered up a hillside for roots or berries, the more venerable personages of the party would sit in their

canoes, quietly puffing away at their pipes as they watched the movements of their younger companions. Ever and anon might be heard the report of a gun, or the whiz of an arrow, as we happened to pass the feeding place of a flock of ducks, the nest of an eagle or raven, or the marshy haunt of a muskrat or otter. Now we surprised a couple of deer swimming across the river, one of which the Indians succeeded in capturing; and now we hauled up our canoes on a sandy island, to have a talk with some lonely Indian family, the smoke of whose wigwam had attracted our attention, rising from between the trees. Our sail down the river occupied us until about ten o'clock, when we reached the mouth of the river, and disembarked for the purpose of preparing and eating our breakfast. We landed on the river side of a long sandy point, and while the Indians were cooking a venison steak and a large trout, I rambled over the sand hills, and as the sun came out of a cloud and dissipated every vestige of the morning mist, obtained my first view of Lake Superior, where, above the apparently boundless plain I could only discover an occasional gull wheeling to and fro as if sporting with the sunbeams.

CHAPTER XXI.

SAULT ST. MARIE, August, 1846.

I HAVE finished my pilgrimage around the shores of Lake Superior, given away my birchen canoe, and parted with my Indian guides and fellow-voyagers. It now remains for me to mould into an intelligible, form the notes which I have recorded from time to time, while seated in my canoe or lounging beside the watch-fires of my barbarous companions.

Lake Superior, known to be the largest body of fresh water on the globe, is not far from four hundred miles long from east to west, and one hundred and thirty wide. It is the grand reservoir whence proceed the waters of Michigan, Huron, and Erie; it gives birth to Niagara, the wonder of the world, fills the basin of Ontario, and rolls a mighty flood down the valley of the Saint Lawrence to the Atlantic. It lies in the bosom of a mountainous land, where the red man yet reigns in his native freedom. Excepting an occasional picketed fort or trading house, it is yet a perfect wilderness. The entire country is rocky and covered with a stunted growth of vegetation, where the silver fur, the pine, hemlock, the cedar and the birch are most abundant. The soil is principally composed of a reddish clay, which becomes almost as hard as brick on being exposed to the action of the air and sun. In some of the valleys, however, the soil is rich and suitable for purposes of agriculture.

The waters of this magnificent lake are marvellously clear, and even at midsummer are exceedingly cold. In