dine region; through tracts of country, the fertile soil of which would produce luxuriant harvests of corn, of wheat, potatoes, etc., through an extent of three or four hundred miles, during which it is navigable for a considerable distance, till it reaches St. Anthony. Just above this point, however, it has greatly extended itself, has embraced many greater and smaller islands, overgrown with trees and wild vines. Immediately above the falls, it runs so shallow over a vast level surface of rock that people may cross it in carriages, as we did to my astonishment. At no great distance below the falls the river becomes again navigable, and steamers go up as far as Mendota, a village at the outlet of the St. Peter's River into the Mississippi, somewhat above St. Paul's. From St. Paul's there is a free course down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The Falls of St. Anthony are the last youthful adventure of the Mississippi. For nine hundred miles the river flows along the territory of Minnesota, a great part of which is wild and almost unknown country.

But to return to the falls and to the day I spent there.

Immediately below the largest of the falls, and enveloped in its spray, as if by shapes of mist, lies a little island of picturesque, ruin-like masses of stone, crowned with rich wood-the most beautiful and the most striking feature of the whole scene. It is called the Cataract Island of the laughing water-fall. It is also called " Spirit Island," from an incident which occurred here some years since, and which I must relate to you, because it is characteristic of the life of the Indian woman.

"Some years ago, a young hunter, of the Sioux tribe, set up his wigwam on the bank of the Mississippi, a little above St. Anthony's Fall. He had only one wife, which is an unusual thing with these gentlemen, who sometimes are possessed of as many as twenty; and she was called. Ampato Sapa. They lived happily together for many years,

and had two children, who played around their fire, and whom they were glad to call their children.

"The husband was a successful hunter, and many families, by degrees, assembled around him, and erected their wigwams near his. Wishing to become still more closely connected with him, they represented to him that he ought to have several wives, as by that means he would become of more importance, and might, before long, be elected chief of the tribe.

"He was well pleased with this counsel, and privately took a new wife; but, in order to bring her into his wigwam without displeasing his first wife, the mother of his children, he said to her,

"Thou knowest that I never can love any other woman so tenderly as I love thee; but I have seen that the labor of taking care of me and the children is too great for thee, and I have therefore determined to take another wife, who shall be thy servant; but thou shalt be the principal one in the dwelling.'

"The wife was very much distressed when she heard these words. She prayed him to reflect on their former affection-their happiness during many years-their children. She besought of him not to bring this second wife into their dwelling.

"In vain. The next evening the husband brought the new wife into his wigwam.

"In the early dawn of the following morning a deathsong was heard on the Mississippi. A young Indian woman sat in a little canoe with her two small children, and rowed it out into the river in the direction of the falls. It was Ampato Sapa. She sang in lamenting tones the sorrow of her heart, of her husband's infidelity, and her determination to die. Her friends heard the song, and saw her intention, but too late to prevent it.

"Her voice was soon silenced in the roar of the fall. The boat paused for a moment on the brink of the preci

pice, and the next was carried over it and vanished in the foaming deep. The mother and her children were seen

no more."

The Indians still believe that in the early dawn may be heard the lamenting song deploring the infidelity of the husband; and they fancy that at times may be seen. the mother, with the children clasped to her breast, in the misty shapes which arise from the fall around the Spirit Island.

This incident is only one among many of the same kind which occur every year among the Indians. Suicide is by no means rare among their women.

A gentleman who wished to contest this point with me, said, that during the two years which he had lived in this region, he had only heard of eleven or twelve such occurrences. And quite enough too, I think! The occasion of suicide is, with the Indian woman generally, either that her father will marry her against her wishes and inclination, or, when she is married, that the husband takes a new wife. Suicide, a fact so opposed to the impulses of a living creature, seems to me to bear strong evidence in favor of the pure feminine nature of these poor women, and shows that they are deserving of a better lot. As young girls, their choice is seldom consulted with regard to marriage. The wooer spreads out before the girl's father his buffalo and beaver skins, he carries to the mother some showy pieces of cloth and trinkets, and the girl is -sold. If she makes any opposition, the father threatens to cut off her ears and her nose; and she, equally obstinate with him, cuts the matter short by-hanging herself; for this is the mode of death which is generally sclected. It is true that the desire for revenge may be the mainspring of suicide, and it is well known that the Indian women emulate the men in cruelty to their enemies and war-captives; still, their hard lives as women are not the less to be deplored; and their strength to die, rather

than degrade themselves, proves that these children of nature are more high-minded than many a woman in the higher ranks of civilization. The beauties of the forest are prouder and nobler than are frequently they of the saloon. But true it is that their world is a weary one, and affords them nothing but the husband whom they must serve, and the circumscribed dwelling of which he is the master.

We drank tea on a considerable island in the Mississippi, above the falls, at a beautiful home, where I saw comforts and cultivation, where I heard music, saw books and pictures-such life, in short, as might be met with on the banks of the Hudson; and how charming it was to me! Here, too, I found friends in its inhabitants, even as I had there. The dwelling had not been long on the island; and the island, in its autumnal attire, looked like a little paradise, although still in its half-wild state.

As to describing how we traveled about, how we walked over the river on broken trunks of trees which were jammed together by the stream in chaotic masses, how we climbed and clambered up and down, among, over, and upon stocks, and stones, and precipices, and sheer descents-all this I shall not attempt to describe, because it is indescribable. I considered many a passage wholly and altogether impracticable, until my conductors, both gentlemen and ladies, convinced me that it was to them a simple and every-day path. Ugh!

The day was cold and chilly, and for that reason the excursion was more fatiguing to me than pleasant.

I have had several rambles in the immediate neighborhood, sometimes alone and sometimes in company with. the agreeable Governor Ramsay, or with a kind clergyman of this place. In this way I have visited several small farmers, most of them French, who have come hither from Canada. They all praise the excellence of the soil and its fertility; they were capital people to talk with, seem

ed to be in a prosperous condition, had many children, but that neatness and general comfort which distinguish the homes of the Anglo-Americans I did not find in their dwellings, but rather the contrary. On all sides the grass waved over hills and fields, tall and of an autumnal yellow. There are not hands enough here to mow it. The soil is a rich black mould, which is superb for the growth of potatoes and grain, but not so agreeable for pedestrians in white stockings and petticoats. A fine black dust soils every thing. The most lovely little lakes lie among the hills, like clear mirrors in romantic peace and beauty. It is a perfectly Arcadian landscape; but there yet lack the shepherds and shepherdesses. The eastern shore of the Mississippi, within Minnesota only, belongs to the whites, and their number here does not as yet amount to more than seven thousand souls. The whole western portion of Minnesota is still Indian territory, inhabited principally by two great nations, Sioux or Dacotahs, and Chippewas, who live in a continual state of hostility, as well as by some of the lesser Indian tribes. It is said that the government is intending shortly to purchase the whole of this country; and that the Indian tribes are willing to treat, and to withdraw themselves to the other side of the Missouri River, to the steppland of Nebraska and the Rocky Mountains. These Indian tribes have already become so degraded by their intercourse with the whites, that they value money and brandy higher than their native soil, and are ready, like Esau, to sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage. But that cruel race which scalps children and old people, and which degrades women to beasts of burden, may as well move off into the wilderness, and leave room for a nobler race. There is, in reality, only a higher justice in it.

October 26th. I went yesterday with my kind entertainers into the Indian territory, by Fort Snelling, a fortress built by the Americans here, and where military are