166 YANKEE PROMPTITUDE. and I must say, for the credit of our Yankee friends, that in no part of the world are the inconveniences of a wild country more promptly remedied, by the establishment of speedy and commodious means of locomotion than in America. PART III.-MINNESOTA. CHAPTER XV. CAMPING OUT ON THE ST LOUIS. It was upon a lovely morning, about the middle of August 1854, that we bade adieu to our Superior friends, and, with a voyageur at each end of the canoe, stowed away our four selves at the bottom of it, having made a convenient disposition of the luggage and stores for that purpose. The St Louis, the river we were about to ascend in our bark canoe, is here about two miles wide. Soon after leaving Superior, we paddled past a few log huts, the residences of our own voyageurs and others of the same fraternity, who originally settled here many years ago as British subjects, and servants of the NorthWest Company. They pointed out to us the remains of the Old Fort, and a little beyond it we saw the debris of the rival establishment which had belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company. Voyageurs and Yankee speculators have all the Indian trade to the south of the boundary-line to themselves now. At the head of the bay, where the river takes a sharp turn to the south-west, it is full of fields and islands of wild rice, intersected with so many channels that an inexperienced voyageur might easily lose himself. Although we were so far north, as the banks of the river approached one another we might have imagined ourselves in the tropics. The massive foliage on either side dipped into the water; the stream was dark and sluggish; and a burning mid-day sun rendered the labour of paddling a heavily laden canoe somewhat irksome. We were, therefore, seven hours in reaching the Indian village of Fond du Lac, twentyone miles from Superior. Here we determined to lighten our work, by taking two Indians with us as far as they would go, with another canoe for some of the baggage. This consisted principally of provisions, as we carried no tent, and our spare wardrobe was limited to a flannel-shirt a-piece. There will no doubt be a town built shortly at Fond du Lac, as it is navigable for steamers drawing six feet of water, and there are good mill-sites at the falls of the St Louis, the head of the navigation. The Manhattan is the only steamer which navigated the river to this point in 1850. The trading-house of the American Fur Company is situated on the north shore of the river, and immediately opposite is the corner of the state of Wisconsin; it is also the corner |