craggy, and more picturesque hills. What an animated scene it was! and I was once more alone with America, with my beloved, my great and beautiful sister, with the sibyl at whose knee I sat listening and glancing up to her with looks full of love. Oh what did she not communicate to me that day, that morning full of inspiration, as amid her tears she drank in the heavenly light, and flung those dark shadows, like a veil, back from her countenance, that it might be only the more fully illumined by the Divine light! Never shall I forget that morning! They came again and again, during the morning, those dark clouds, spreading night over those deep abysses; but again they yielded, again they gave place to the sun, which finally prevailed, alone, triumphant, and shone over the Mississippi and its world in the most beautiful summer splendor; and the inner light in my soul conversed with the outward light. It was glorious!

The further we advanced, the more strangely and fantastically were the cliffs on the shore splintered and riven, representing the most astonishing imagery. Half way up, probably four or five hundred feet above the river, these hills were covered with wood now golden with the hue of autumn, and above that, rising, as if directly out of it, naked, ruin-like crags, of rich red brown, representing fortifications, towers, half-demolished walls, as of ancient, magnificent strongholds and castles. The castle ruins of the Rhine are small things in comparison with these gigantic remains of primeval ages; when men were not, but the Titans of primeval nature, Megatheriums, Mastodons, and Ichthyosaurians rose up from the waters, and wandered alone over the earth.

It was difficult to persuade one's self that many of these bold pyramids and broken temple-façades had not really been the work of human hands, so symmetrical, so architectural were these colossal erections. I saw in two places human dwellings, built upon a height; they looked like

birds'-nests upon a lofty roof; but I was glad to see them, because they predicted that this magnificent region will soon have inhabitants, and this temple of nature worshipers in thankful and intelligent human hearts. The country on the other side of these precipitous crags is highland, glorious country, bordering the prairie-land-land for many millions of human beings! Americans will build upon these hills beautiful, hospitable homes, and will here labor, pray, love, and enjoy. An ennobled humanity will live. upon these heights.

Below, in the river, at the feet of the hill-giants, the little green islands become more and more numerous. All were of the same character; all were lovely islands, all one tangle of wild vine. The wild grapes are small and sour, but are said to become sweet after they have been frosted. It is extraordinary that the wild vine is every where indigenous to America. America is of a truth Vineland.

I have heard the prophecy of a time and a land where every man shall sit under his own vine, and none shall make him afraid; when the wolf and the lamb shall sport together, and the desert shall blossom as the rose, and all in the name of the Prince of Peace.

These hills, spite of their varieties of form and of their ruin-like crags, have a general resemblance; they are nearly all of the same height, not exceeding eight or nine hundred feet. Good republicans, every one of them!

Last evening, just at sunset, I saw the first trace of the Indians in an Indian grave. It was a chest of bark laid upon a couple of planks supported by four posts, standing underneath a tree golden with autumnal tints. It is thus that the Indians dispose of their dead, till the flesh is dried off the bones, when these are interred either in the earth or in caves, with funeral rites, dances, and songs. Thus a coffin beneath an autumnal tree, in the light of the pale evening sun, was the first token which I perceived of this poor, decaying people.

er.

Soon after we saw Indian huts on the banks of the rivThey are called by themselves "tepees" (dwellings), and by the English "lodges;" they resemble a tent in form, and are covered with buffalo hides, which are wrapped round long stakes, planted in the ground in a circle, and united at the top, where the smoke passes out through an opening something like our Laplander's huts, only on a larger scale. There is a low opening in the form of a door to each hut, and over which a piece of buffalo hide can be let down at pleasure. I saw through the open doors the fire burning on the floor in many of the huts; it had a pleasant, kindly appearance. Little savage children were leaping about the shore. It was the most beautiful moonlight evening.

17th. Sunshiny, but cold. We have Indian territory through the whole of our course on the right; it is the territory of Minnesota, and we now see Indians encamped on the banks in larger or smaller numbers. The men, standing or walking, wrapped in their red or yellow-gray blankets; the women, busied at the fires either within or without the tents, or carrying their children on their backs in the yellow blankets in which they themselves are wrapped. All are bareheaded, with their black locks hanging down like horses' tails, or sometimes plaited. A great number of children, boys especially, leap about shouting on the shores. We proceeded very slowly, and stuck fast on the shallows continually as we wound among the islands. In the mean time, little canoes of Indians glided quickly, and, as it were, shyly hither and thither along the shores and the islands, the people seeming to be looking for something among the bushes. They appeared, for the most part, to be women in the boats; but it is not easy to distinguish a man from a woman, as they sit there wrapped in their blankets, with their bare, unkemped hair. They were seeking for wild berries and herbs, which they collect among the bushes. How savage and

like wild beasts they looked! And yet it is very entertaining to see human beings so unlike the people one sees every day, so unlike our own selves!

The Indians we see here are of the Sioux or Dacotah nation, still one of the most powerful tribes in the country, and who, together with the Chippewas, inhabit the district around the springs of the Mississippi (Minnesota). Each nation is said to amount to twenty-five thousand souls. The two tribes live in hostility with each other; but have lately held, after some bloody encounters, a peace congress at Fort Snelling, where the American authorities compelled these vengeful people, although unwillingly, to offer each other the hand of reconciliation.

Mr. Sibley, who has lived many years among the Sioux, participating in their hunting and their daily life, has related to me many characteristic traits of this people's life and disposition. There is a certain grandeur about them, but it is founded on immense pride; and their passion for revenge is carried to a savage and cruel extreme. Mr. Sibley is also very fond of the Indians, and is said to be a very great favorite with them. Sometimes, when we sail past Indian villages, he utters a kind of wild cry, which receives an exulting response from the shore.

Sometimes we see a little log-house, with two or three Indian lodges beside it. Such houses belong to half-blood Indians, that is to say, one whose father was a white man and mother an Indian, and these are his relations by the mother's side, or the relatives of his Indian wife, who have come to dwell near him. He is commonly engaged in trade, and is a link between the Indian and European.

We have now also some Indians on board, a family of the Winnebagoes, husband, wife, and daughter, a young girl of seventeen, and two young warriors of the Sioux tribe, adorned with fine feathers, and painted with red and yellow, and all colors, I fancy, so that they are splendid. They remain on the upper deck, where I also remain, on

account of the view being so much more extensive. The Winnebago man is also painted, and lies on deck, generally on his stomach, propped on his elbows, and wrapped in his blanket. The wife looks old and worn out, but is cheerful and talkative. The girl is tall and good-looking, but has heavy features, and broad, round shoulders; she is very shy, and turns away if any one looks at her. I saw the three have their dinner: they took a piece of darkcolored meat, which I supposed to have been smoke-dried, out of a bag, and alternately tore a piece from it with their teeth. I offered them cakes and fruit, which I had with me; the wife laughed, and almost snatched them from me. They were well pleased to receive them, but expressed no thanks. The young Sioux warriors look like some kind of great cock. They strut about now and then, and look proud, and then they squat themselves down on their hams, like apes, and chatter away as volubly as any two old gossips ever did. All the men have noses like a hawk's bill, and the corners of their mouths are drawn down, which gives a disagreeable, scornful expression to the countenance. Nothing, however, about them has struck me so much as their eyes, which have a certain hard, inhuman expression. They seem to me like those of wild beasts, cold, clear, with a steady, hard, and almost cruel glance. One could fancy that they had caught sight of some object, some prey a long way off in the forest. The glance is not deficient in intelligence or acuteness, but it is deficient in feeling. There is an immense difference between their eyes and those of the negroes. The former are a cold day, the latter a warm night.

Last night we passed through Lake Pepin in the moonlight. It is an extension of the Mississippi, large enough to constitute a lake, surrounded by magnificent hills, which seem to inclose it with their almost perpendicular cliffs, one among which is particularly prominent, and is called Wenona's Cliff, from a young Indian girl who here sang