her death-song and then threw herself into the waters below, preferring death to marriage with a young man whom she did not love.

Late last evening I noticed a tall Indian who was standing with his arms crossed, wrapped in his blanket, under a large tree. He stood as immovable as if he had grown into the tree against the boll of which he leaned. He looked very stately. All at once he gave a leap forward, and, uttering a shrill cry, bounded down to the shore; and then I saw, at no great distance, an encampment of about twenty huts in the forest near the river, where fires were burning, and there seemed to be a throng of people. Along the shore lay a considerable number of small canoes, and I imagined that the warning cry of the man had reference to these, for when our steamer swung past the place, for it was at a bend of the river where the camp stood, it occasioned a sort of earthquake to those little boats, which were hurled like nut-shells one against another, and on toward the shore. The people who were seated in the boats leaped upon the shore, others came running from the huts down to the boats; the whole encampment was in motion; there was a yelling and a barking both of men and dogs, and shrill cries which were heard long after the Menomonie had shot past on her foaming career. The camp, with its fires, its huts, and its people, was a most wild and animated scene.

At another place, during the day, we saw a large, pale red stone standing on a plain near the river. I was told that this stone, and all large stones of this kind, are regarded as sacred by the Indians, who swear by them, and around which they hold their councils, believing that they are the abiding-place of a divinity.

In the afternoon we shall reach St. Paul's, the goal of our journey, and the most northern town on the Mississippi. I am sorry to reach it so soon; I should have liked this voyage up the Mississippi to have lasted eight days

at least. It amuses and interests me indescribably. These new shores, so new in every way, with their perpetually varying scenes; that wild people, with their camps, their fires, boats, their peculiar manners and cries-it is a continual refreshment to me. And to this must be added that I am able to enjoy it in peace and freedom, from the excellent arrangement of the American steam-boats for their passengers. They are commonly three-decked-the middle deck being principally occupied by the passengerswho like to be comfortable. Round this deck runs a broad gallery or piazza, roofed in by the upper deck, within which are ranged the passengers' cabins, side by side, all round the vessel. Each cabin has a door, in which is a window opening into the gallery, so that one can either enter the gallery this way, or enjoy the scenery of the shore from the cabin itself; it has also another door, which opens into the saloon. The saloon aft is always appropriated to the ladies, and around this are their cabins; the second great saloon also, used for meals, is the assemblingplace of the gentlemen. Each little apartment, called a state-room, has commonly two berths in it, the one above the other; but if the steamer is not much crowded, one can easily obtain a cabin entirely to one's self. These apartments are always painted white, and are neat, light, and charming; one could remain in them for days with the utmost pleasure. The table is generally well and amply supplied; and the fares, comparatively speaking, are low. Thus, for instance, I pay for the voyage from Galena to St. Paul's only six dollars, which seems to me quite too little in comparison with all the good things that I enjoy. I have a charming little "state-room" to myself, and the few upper-class passengers are not of the catechising order. One of them, Mr. Sibley, is a clever, kind man, and extremely interesting to me from his knowledge of the people of this region, and their circumstances. There are also some emigrant families who are on their way to

settle on the banks of the River St. Croix and Stillwater, who do not belong to what are called the "better class," although they rank with such a couple of ladies who smoke meerschaum-pipes now and then-and, in particular, there are two half-grown girls, who are considerably in my way sometimes-especially one of them, a tall, awkward girl in a fiery-red, brick-colored dress, with fieryred hair as rough as a besom, and eyes that squint, and who, when she comes out, sets herself to stare at me with her arms crossed, her mouth and eyes wide open, as if I were some strange Scandinavian animal, and every now and then she rushes up to me with some unnecessary, witless question. I regard these girls as belonging to-the mythological monsters of the Great West, as daughters of its giants, and did not scruple to cut them rather short! Ah! people may come to this hemisphere as democratic as they will, but when they have traveled about a little they will become aristocratic to a certain extent. To a certain extent-but beyond that I shall never go, even though the daughters of the giants become so numerous as to shut out my view. And this brick-colored, foolhardy girl would-of this I am certain-with a few kind and intelligent words, assume a different mode of behavior, and, if I were to be any length of time with her, she and I should become good friends. And there is in one of these emigrant families an old grandmother, and yet not so very old after all, who is so full of anxiety, so quietly active, and so thoughtful for every one who belongs to her, and who is evidently so kind and motherly in disposition, that one must willingly take in good part all her questions and her ignorance of geography, if one has any thing good in one's self. And that one has not when one gets out of temper with the manners of the giants' daughter, and wills to be at peace.

The captain of the steamer, Mr. Smith, is an extremely agreeable and polite man, who is my cavalier on board, and in whose vessel the utmost order prevails.

We see no longer any traces of European cultivation on shore, nothing but Indian huts and encampments. The shores have become flatter since we left Lake Pepin, and the scenery tamer.

LETTER XXVII.

St. Paul's, Minnesota, October 25th. AT about three miles from St. Paul's we saw a large Indian village, consisting of about twenty hide-covered wigwams, with their ascending columns of smoke. In the midst of these stood a neat log-house. This was the home which a Christian missionary had built for himself among the savages, and here he had established a school for the children. Upon a hill beyond the village, a number of stages were placed in a half circle, upon which rested coffins of bark. Small white flags distinguished those among the departed who had been most recently brought there. The village, which is called Kaposia, and is one of the established Indian villages, looked animated from its women, children, and dogs. We sped rapidly past it, for the Mississippi was here as clear and deep as our own River Götha, and the next moment, taking an abrupt turn to the left, St. Paul's was before us, standing upon a high bluff on the eastern bank of the Mississippi; behind it the blue arch of heaven, and far below it the Great River, and before it, extending right and left, beautiful valleys, with their verdant hill-sides scattered with wood-a really grand and commanding situation-affording the most beautiful views.

We lay to at the lower part of the town, whence the upper is reached by successive flights of steps, exactly as with us on the South Hill by Mose-back in Stockholm. Indians were sitting or walking along the street which runs by the shore. Wrapped in their long blankets, they

marched on with a proud step, and were some of them stately figures. Just opposite the steamer, and at the foot of the steps, sat some young Indians, splendidly adorned with feathers and ribbons, and smoking from a long pipe which they handed from one to the other, so that they merely smoked a few whiffs each.

Scarcely had we touched the shore when the governor of Minnesota, Mr. Alexander Ramsay, and his pretty young wife, came on board, and invited me to take up my quarters at their house. And there I am now; happy with these kind people, and with them I make excursions into the neighborhood. The town is one of the youngest infants of the Great West, scarcely eighteen months old, and yet it has in this short time increased to a population of two thousand persons, and in a very few years it will certainly be possessed of twenty-two thousand, for its situation is as remarkable for beauty and healthiness as it is advantageous for trade. Here the Indians come with their furs from that immense country lying between the Mississippi and the Missouri, the western boundary of Minnesota, and the forests still undespoiled of their primeval wealth, and the rivers and lakes abounding in fish, offer their inexhaustible resources, while the great Mississippi offords the means of their conveyance to the commercial markets of the world, flowing, as it does, through the whole of Central America down to New Orleans. Hence it is that several traders here have already acquired considerable wealth, while others are coming hither more and more, and they are building houses as fast as they can.

As yet, however, the town is but in its infancy, and people manage with such dwellings as they can get. The drawing-room at Governor Ramsay's house is also his office, and Indians and work-people, and ladies and gentlemen, are all alike admitted. In the mean time, Mr. Ramsay is building himself a handsome, spacious house, upon a hill, a little out of the city, with beautiful trees VOL. II.-B