Mouth of the Saint Louis, August, 1846.

By looking on the map you will observe that this river enters Lake Superior on the extreme west. I had not the means of ascertaining its precise length, but was told that above the Savannah, where I struck it, it is an inconsiderable stream. From that point to the lake it is quite a majestic river, and I should suppose the distance to be nearly one hundred and fifty miles. It has more the appearance of a wild New England river than any other that I have seen in the western country. It is exceedingly rocky, and so full of sunken boulders and dangerous rapids, that it never could be made navigable further up than Fon du Lac, which is twenty miles from Lake Superior. The water is perfectly clear, but of a rich snuff color, owing probably to the swamps out of which it runs. It is said to rise and fall very suddenly. Its entire shores are without a solitary habitation (excepting at the trading post already mentioned), and the scenery is picturesque, wild and romantic. But I hear the roar of its glorious cataracts, and must attempt a description of them.

There is a place on this river called the Knife Portage, from the fact that the rocks here are exceedingly sharp and pointed, where the stream forms a large bend, and where the voyager has to make a portage of twelve miles. The length of this bend may be sixteen miles, and in that distance the water has a fall of about three hundred and twenty feet. The width of the river may be from three to four hundred yards. At this point (just above Fon du Lac) are three nameless waterfalls, whose dimensions are indeed stupendous: they are said to be the largest in the northwest. The water of the first tumbles over a pile of pointed rocks, and after twisting itself into every possible variety of schutes and foaming streams, finally murmurs itself to sleep in a pool eighty feet below the summit whence it takes its first leap.

The second fall, or rather cataract, is about one hundred and forty feet high, nearly perpendicular, and the water rushes over almost in a solid and unbroken body.

The walls of slate on either side are lofty, and “crowned with a peculiar diadem of trees;” and as the roaring of the fall is perfectly deafening, its effect upon me was allied to that of Niagara. The pools at the bottom appeared to be black and fathomless, but the spray was whiter than snow, and the rainbows beautiful beyond comparison. When I gazed upon the features of this superb water-wonder, united as they were in one complete picture; when I listened to the scream of an hundred eagles mingling with its roar, and thought of the uninhabited wilderness in every direction around me, I was most deeply impressed with the power of the Omnipotent.

I visited this cataract accompanied by a party of Indians, and owing to the length of time it took us to reach it, we were compelled to spend the night in its immediate vicinity. And then it was that the effect of this cataract upon my mind was so impressive as actually, at times, to be exceedingly painful. We built our watch-fire on the southern shore, in a sheltering bay, about one hundred yards from the fall, and on a spot where we could command a complete view of the superb picture.

Our supper on that occasion was composed exclusively of venison, as one of the party had succeeded in killing a deer in one of his morning excursions; and though I had not eaten for nine or ten hours, I seemed to have lost my appetite, and took my food merely as a matter of necessity;—the fact was, I thought myself the inhabitant of a “fantastic realm,” and could hardly feel that I was a mere mortal, the creature of an hour. After our repast was ended, two of the Indians lighted their birchen torches and jumped into a canoe for the purpose of spearing fish. I watched them with peculiar interest, and saw them perform one feat which was truly wonderful. They had wounded an immense pike on a shoal, very near a column of the falling element, when the stricken creature floundered away into the foaming water, and the canoe darted on in quick pursuit, as if its inmates were determined to capture or die. One moment it seemed as if the torrent of water must be pouring into the canoe, and the torches be extinguished, and then again, I could only see a halo of light, looking like the sun rising at midnight, as the fishermen glided behind a sheet of water or a cloud of spray. They were successful in their sport, and finally returned and presented their prize at my feet. The party then enjoyed a pipe for about twenty minutes, when the younger Indians commenced playing their favorite moccason game, and I spent the remainder of the evening conversing with the chief and patriarch of the band, from whom I gathered the following tradition respecting the cataract.

“More moons ago than I can count,” said the old man, “the country lying between the big lake (Superior) and the place where the sun goes down, was owned by the Sioux nation, which was then immensely powerful. They were very cruel in their warfare, and did every thing in their power to annihilate the Chippeway nation. The Great Spirit was not their friend, but ours, and once, when a multitude of their warriors were pursuing some of our hunters down the river, the Great Spirit suddenly kicked out the bottom in this place, and the principal enemies of our nation were all destroyed. Since that time we have been the possessors of this vast country, and the children of our ancient enemies catch the buffalo in a far distant prairie land.”

With this legend deeply impressed on my brain (the telling of which occupied my companion for nearly two hours) I ordered more wood to be placed on the fire, and leaving the others to take care of themselves, rolled myself up in my blanket, and was soon asleep. I was awakened only once during the night, and that was by the distant howl of a wolf, mingling with the solemn anthem of the cataract. I sat up for a moment to look upon the scene, but the sky was covered with clouds, and it was exceedingly dark. Even the embers of our watch-fire had ceased blazing. Around me lay my companions in a deep sleep. Once more did I listen to that dreadful howl, and that Godlike voice of many waters, until, like a frightened child, I hastily covered my head, and wept myself to sleep. On the following morning we resumed our journey in the midst of a rain storm, the memory of that night and that cataract, however, haunting me like a dream.

The next perpendicular fall within the bend I have mentioned, is some two miles down the stream, and is only about fifty feet in height, but its grandeur is somewhat enhanced by the rapids which succeed it, and have a fall of some forty or fifty feet more. An old trader tells me that I am the first traveller from the states who has ever taken the trouble actually to visit these cataracts. If this is a fact, and as the Indians, so far as I can learn, have never christened them, I claim the privilege of giving them a name. Let them, then, be known hereafter as the Chippeway Falls. It is a singular circumstance that a pine tree might be cut in this interior wilderness, and if launched in one of the tributaries of the Mississippi, or in the Saint Louis River, and propelled by favorable winds alone, could, in process of time, be planted in the hull of a ship at any sea-port on the globe.

The navigable portion of the Saint Louis, as before remarked, extends only about twenty miles from the Lake, at which point is the place legitimately called Fon du Lac. It is an ancient trading post, and contains about half a dozen white inhabitants, viz., a worthy missionary and his interesting family. The agent of the Fur Company and his assistants are half-breeds, and a most godless set of people they are. It is a general rendezvous for several Indian tribes, and when I was there was quite crowded with the barbarians.

Fon du Lac, so far as the scenery is concerned, is one of the most truly delightful places that I ever met with in my life. The first white man who traded here was my friend Morrison, after whom the highest hill in the vicinity was named. Upon this eminence I spent a pleasant afternoon revelling over a landscape of surpassing loveliness. Far below me lay an extensive natural meadow, on the left of which was a pretty lake, and on the right a little hamlet composed of log cabins and bark wigwams. The broad valley of the Saint Louis faded away to the east, studded with islands, and protected on either side by a range of high wood-crowned hills, beyond which reposed in its conscious pride the mighty lake-wonder of the world. The atmosphere which rested upon the whole scene seemed to halo every feature, and with the occasional tinkling of a solitary cow-bell, combined to fill my heart with an indescribable joy.

Most of my rambles about this place were performed in company with the missionary already mentioned. He informed me that the surrounding country abounded in rich copper ore, in agates and cornelians of the first water, and that all the smaller streams of the country afforded rare trout fishing. If this end of Lake Superior should become, as I doubt not it will, famous for its mines, Fon du Lac would be a most agreeable place to reside in, as it is easily reached by vessels. I was hospitably entertained by this gentleman, and could not but contrast the appearance of his dwelling with that of his neighbor the French trader. In the one you might see a small library, a large family Bible, the floor covered with matting, &c., a neat, tidy, and intelligent wife and children; in the other, a pack of cards, a barrel of whisky, a stack of guns, and a family whose filthiness was only equalled by the total ignorance of its various members. And this contrast only inadequately portrays the difference between Christianity and heathenism.

I left Fon du Lac about day-break, and with a retinue of some twenty canoes, which were freighted with Indians bound to a payment at La Pointe. It was one of those misty summer mornings when every object in nature wears a bewitching aspect, and her still small voice seems to whisper to the heart that it is not the “whole of life to live, nor the whole of death to die,” and when we feel that God is omnipotent and the mind immortal. But the scenery of this portion of the river is beautiful—beautiful beyond any thing I had imagined to exist in any country on the globe. The entire distance from Fon du Lac to this place, as before mentioned, is not far from twenty miles. The river is very broad and deep and completely filled with wooded islands, while on either side extends a range of mountains which are as wild and solitary, as when brought into existence.

Every member of the voyaging party seemed to be perfectly happy, and we travelled at our ease, for the purpose of prolonging the enjoyment of the voyage. At one time we landed at the base of a cliff, and while I made a drawing or ransacked the shore for agates and cornelians, and the young Indians clambered up a hillside for roots or berries, the more venerable personages of the party would sit in their canoes, quietly puffing away at their pipes as they watched the movements of their younger companions. Ever and anon might be heard the report of a gun, or the whiz of an arrow, as we happened to pass the feeding place of a flock of ducks, the nest of an eagle or raven, or the marshy haunt of a muskrat or otter. Now we surprised a couple of deer swimming across the river, one of which the Indians succeeded in capturing; and now we hauled up our canoes on a sandy island, to have a talk with some lonely Indian family, the smoke of whose wigwam had attracted our attention, rising from between the trees. Our sail down the river occupied us until about ten o’clock, when we reached the mouth of the river, and disembarked for the purpose of preparing and eating our breakfast. We landed on the river side of a long sandy point, and while the Indians were cooking a venison steak and a large trout, I rambled over the sand hills, and as the sun came out of a cloud and dissipated every vestige of the morning mist, obtained my first view of Lake Superior, where, above the apparently boundless plain I could only discover an occasional gull wheeling to and fro as if sporting with the sunbeams.