Mouth of the Saint Peter’s, July, 1846.
The scenery between Lake Pepin and the Saint Croix is not as lofty nor
as picturesque as that we have already passed, but its interest is
greatly enhanced by the greater number of Indians that we here meet. The
Red Wing village is nearly midway between the two lakes mentioned, and
contains about six hundred souls. A short distance from this village are
two isolated mountains, whence may be seen a most magnificent panorama
of the wilderness, and when viewed at sunset presents more the
appearance of dream land than reality. These mountains from time
immemorial have been used as the altars where Indian war parties have
offered up their sacrifices, previous to going to battle. At the present
time, however, their only inhabitants are rattlesnakes, which slumber on
their sunny slopes or in the clefts of the rocks during the long summer.
And thus is it throughout the world, in the wilderness as well as the
city, death and the beautiful are ever linked together in an unbroken
brotherhood.
I only remained at the Red Wing village one night, but such a night I
hope never to pass again. A perfect outcast of a trader had furnished
the Indians with “fire-water,” and the whole posse of them were
perfectly mad, for spirituous liquor always makes the poor Indian
miserably crazy. For want of a better place, I had to sleep in the cabin
of this very trader. My bed was on the floor, while my host and his
family occupied a couple of beds in opposite corners of the only room in
the house. And such horrible yelling and screaming as I heard during the
first half of that night, I can never forget. The noises were perfectly
unearthly and devilish. Now, you might hear the clashing of knives, as
some of the more desperate spirits came together in a fight; and now you
might hear the sobbings and moanings of a miserable woman, as she
exposed and mutilated her body, to perpetuate the memory of a dead
husband or child.
But there was one incident which actually made my hair stand out like
the quills of the porcupine. I should premise that the few white people
of the wilderness never think of locking their doors at night; and also
that the Indians of this region claim it as a privilege to enter and
depart from your cabin whenever they please, and their intrusions are
always looked upon as matters of course. It was somewhat after midnight,
and the yelling of the savages had partly subsided. I had just fallen
into a doze, when I was startled by the stealthy opening of our cabin
door and the tread of a muffled footstep. It was intensely dark, but I
_knew_ it was an Indian, and thought that somebody was about to be
murdered. The object in the room made just noise enough to rack my
brain, and then was perfectly still. I listened, and with hardly a
particle of breath in my body,—I still kept listening,—until I actually
fainted upon my pillow with excess of fear. Finally I slept, and my
dreams were of blood, and blood only. The first peep of day, however,
awakened me, when lo! directly at my side, flat on the floor, was a huge
black Indian, breathing in his deep slumber like a porpoise. The first
intelligence that I heard on going out of the door was, that one Indian
had been killed during the night, and that another was at that moment in
the agonies of death. As may be supposed, I left the Red Wing village
with pleasure.
Lake Saint Croix empties into the Mississippi, and its principal inlet
is a river of the same name which rises in the vicinity of Lake
Superior. This is the valley through which the traders and Indians have
been in the habit of passing, for a century past, on their way from the
western prairies to Lake Superior, and from the lake back again to the
prairies. The river is only distinguished for one waterfall of uncommon
beauty. The lake is about twenty-five miles long, from two to five wide,
and surrounded with charming scenery. The water is clear but of a rich
brown color, and well supplied with fish, of which the trout is the most
abundant.
At the outlet of this lake, I visited another encampment of Sioux
Indians, where I saw a noted chief, named Little Crow. He was a handsome
man, but both of his arms had recently been broken by a rifle ball,
which was shot by one of his own brothers,—who was envious of his
station as chief. As a punishment for his wickedness Little Crow had
ordered four bullets to be fired at his brother, which of course
numbered him with the dead. I saw his new-made grave, and his youthful
wife wailing over it, like one that was sorrowing without hope.
From Saint Croix to Saint Peter’s, the banks of the Mississippi are
steep, but only about one hundred and fifty feet in height. The river is
here studded with islands whose shadowy recesses are cool during the
hottest weather;—and a more delightful region for the botanist to ramble
cannot be found elsewhere on the face of the earth. The water is clear
as crystal, and its bosom is generally covered with water-fowl, from the
graceful snow-white swan to the mallard and wood-duck. Isolated Indian
wigwams are frequently seen here, pitched on the margin of the stream,
and at the foot of vine-covered precipices.
But there are three landscape views connected with this portion of the
Mississippi, which I thought perfectly magnificent. I witnessed them all
during a single afternoon, and in the light of a mellow sunshine. The
first was of a rolling prairie that faded away to the western sky, until
its outline was actually lost in the hazy atmosphere. Not a solitary
tree did I behold, but a perfect sea of grass, that was delightfully
relieved with flowers of every variety of shape and color. Occasionally
a breeze would pass across the scene, causing unnumbered tiny billows to
quiver over the surface of mightier ones, which seemed to be careering
onward to some unknown shore. Covering the foreground of this picture
might be seen an immense flock of grouse, feeding, or chasing each other
in sport; and then, an occasional prairie squirrel as it sat at the
entrance of its hole; while in the middle distance a robber wolf glided
over one of the ridges of the prairie, with his form pictured against
the sky. The lone lost feeling which possessed my heart, when I thought
of the great prairie-world, then lying before me, I cannot describe; it
was composed of delight and melancholy, of perfect confidence and
tormenting fear.
Another picture which I witnessed from a commanding hill top, was of an
untrodden wilderness of woods, reaching to the extreme horizon on the
north. Owing to my elevated position the forest-world appeared perfectly
level, and, excepting one barren ledge, was without a single object to
mar the monotony of the scene. On that ledge, however, with the aid of
my glass I could just discern the dead body of a deer, with a black bear
reclining at its side, as if sated with his feast; while in his
neighborhood were standing some thirty vultures in a state of delightful
anticipation.
The other scene which I mentioned, was witnessed from the lofty bluff
that fronts the mouth of the Saint Peter’s river. Far beneath my feet
glided the majestic Mississippi;—on my right stood the handsome and
commanding barracks of Fort Snelling, surmounted by the stars and
stripes; on my left, the naked peak of the Pilot’s Nob, with a cluster
of trading-houses at its base; directly before me, winding away like a
mighty serpent between a multitude of islands, lay the deep and turbid
Saint Peter’s river; and far beyond,—far as the eye could reach—the
prairie land, whose western boundary is the Rocky Mountains.
The landscape was indeed glorious, and there was something to gratify my
national pride in the flag that fluttered in the breeze; but when I
thought of the _business_ of that Fort and the _end_ for which the
people of the hamlet were living in the wilderness, the poetry of the
scene was marred, and I longed to dive still deeper in the wild world
which reposed so peacefully before me.