water along its banks, and is now in flower. The copper-head snake is found at the Yellow River; also the thirteen striped squirrel.

NUDE INDIANS.-The Indians whom we met casually on the Namakagun, had nothing whatever on them, but the auzeaun. They put on a blanket, when expecting a stranger. The females have a petticoat and breastpiece. When we passed the Woodpecker Chief's party, an old woman, without upperments, who had been poling up one of the canoes, hastily landed, and hid herself in the bushes, when her exclamation of Nyau! Nyau! revealed her position as we passed. Two young married women had also landed, but stood on the banks with their children; one of the latter screaming, in fear, at the top of its lungs.

The men were much fatigued with this day's journey. They had to use the pole when the water became shallow. Yet they went about thirty-six miles. At night one of them screamed out with pains in his arms. We were up and on the river again at six the next morning (the 4th). The word with me was, PUSH; to accomplish the object, not a day, not half a day was to be lost, and the men all entered into the spirit of the thing. At half past nine, we reached our breakfast place of the 30th, and there gummed our canoes. We noticed yesterday the red haw, and pembina—the latter of which is the service berry. This day the calamus was often seen in quantity.

GEOLOGY.-Rapids were encountered at various points, at which there appeared large boulders of syenite and greenstone trap. No rock stratum appears in place, but from the size of the boulders, it seems probable that the trap formation crosses the bed of the Namakagun. There is no limestone-no slate. Small boulders of amygdaloid, quartz, granite, and sandstone mark the prevalence of the drift stratum, such as overspreads the upper Mississippi uplands. The weather was cloudy and overcast, producing coolness. I found the air but 64° at 2 o'clock, when the water stood at 69°. Some fish are caught in this stream, which serve to eke out the very scanty and precarious subsistence of the Indians at this At the lodge of an Indian, whom we knew as the "Jack of Diamonds"-being the same who loaned us a canoe-I observed

season.

some small pieces of duck in a large kettle of boiling water, which was thickened with whortleberries, for the family supper.

PORTAGE TO LAC COURTORIELLE.-We reached the portage at two o'clock A. M., and immediately began to cross it, the men carrying all our baggage at one load. Just after passing the middle pause, the path mounts and is carried along a considerable ridge, from which there is a good view of the country. It is open as far as the eye can reach. Sometimes there is a fine range of large pines in by far the largest space ancient fires appear to have spread, destroying the forest and giving rise to a young growth of pines, aspen, shadbush, and bramble. Some portions are marshy. A deep cup-shaped cavity exists a little to the right of the path on the ridge, denoting it to be cavernous or filled with springs.

We saw evidences of Lieut. Clary and Mr. Woolsey's march and encampment on this height. We saw also evidences of Old Laporte's prowess in voyageur life and exploits, by a notice of one of his long pauses, recorded by Lieut. Clary in pencil, on a blazed

tree.

LAKE OF THE ISLES.-On reaching the Lake of the Isles at three o'clock P. M., we found, by a little bark letter on a pole, that Lieut. Clary and Mr. Woolsey had slept at that spot on the 1st of August. All things had proceeded well. They were ahead of us but four days.

While the men were sent back to the other end of the portage after the canoes, I embarked on the lake in a small canoe found in the bushes, with Mr. Johnston, to search out the proper channel. We found it to draw to a narrow neck and then widen out, with six or seven islands, giving a very sylvan and beautiful appearance. We passed through it, then crossed a short portage that connects the path with Lac du Grès, and then returned to the south end of Lake of the Isles, where I determined to encamp and light up a fire, while Mr. Johnston was sent back in the little Indian canoe to bring up the canoes and men. While thus awaiting the arrival of the party, I scrutinized the mineralogy of the pebbles and drift of its shores, where I observed small fragments

of the agates, quartz, amygdaloids, &c., which characterize all the drift of the upper Mississippi.

I was

But Mr. Johnston did not return till long after sunset. growing uneasy and full of anxieties when he hove in sight in the same small Indian hunting-canoe, with Dr. Houghton and one voyageur, bringing the tent, beds, and mess-basket. They reported that the men had not yet arrived with the large canoe, and it was doubted whether they would come in in season to cross the lake. But they came up and joined us during the night.

The next morning (Aug. 5th) we crossed the portage at Lac du Grès before sunrise. This is the origin of the north-west fork of Chippewa River. The atmosphere was foggy, but, from what we could see, we thought the lake pretty. Pine on its shores, bottom sandy, shells in its bed, no rock seen in place, but loose pieces of coarse gray sandstone around its shores.

The outlet of this lake proved to be the entrance into Ottawa Lake—the Lac Courtorielle of the French-a fine body of water some ten miles long. It was still too foggy on reaching this point to tell which way to steer. A gun was fired; it was soon answered by Lieut. Clary and Mr. Woolsey from the opposite side of the lake. The sound was sufficient to indicate the course, and we crossed in safety, rejoining our party at the hour of early breakfast. We found all well.

OTTAWA LAKE.-We were received with a salute from the Indians. I counted twenty-eight canoes turned up on the beach. Mozojeed and Waubezhais, the son of Miscomoneto (or The Red Devil), were present. Also Odabossa and his band. The Indians crowded down to the beach to shake hands. I informed them, while tobacco was being distributed, that I would meet them in council that day at the firing of three guns by the military.

COUNCIL.-At eleven o'clock I met the Indians in council. The military were drawn up to the best advantage, their arms glittering in the sun. My auxiliaries of the Michico-Canadian stock and the gentlemen of my party were in their best trim. We occupied the beautiful eminence at the outlet of the lake. The assemblage of Indians was large, but I was struck by the great disproportion, or excess, of women and children.

Mozojeed, the principal man, was a tall, not portly, red-mouthed, and pucker-mouthed man,* with an unusual amount of cunning and sagacity, and exercising an unlimited popularity by his skill and reputation as a jossakeed, or seer. He had three wives, and, so far as observation went, I should judge that most of the men present had imitated his voluptuous tastes and apparently lax morals. He had an elaborately-built jaunglery, or seer's lodge, sheathed with rolls of bark carefully and skillfully united, and stained black inside. Its construction, which was intricate, resembled the whorls of a seashell. The white prints of a man's hand, as if smeared with white clay, was impressed on the black surface. I have never witnessed so complete a piece of Indian architectural structure, nor one more worthy of the name of a temple of darkness.

This man, who had effectually succeeded to the power and influence of Miscomoneto (or the Red Devil), had been present at the treaty of Prairie du Chien, in 1825, and heard Gens. Clark and Cass address the assembled Indians on that memorable occasion. I had been in communication with him there. He was perfectly familiar with the principles of pacification advanced and established on that occasion. It was the more easy for me, therefore, to revive and enforce these principles.

WAR PARTY.-Mozojeed's son was himself one of Neenaba's leaders in the war party, and was now absent with the volunteers which he had been able to raise in and about the Ottawa Lake village. He was directly implicated in this movement against the Sioux. Mozojeed's village was, in fact, completely caught almost in the very act of sending out its quota of warriors. They had, but a short time before, marched to join the main party at Rica Lake on the Red Cedar Fork of the Chippewa. He felt the embarrassment of his position, but, true to the character of his race, exhibited not a sign of it in his words or countenance. Stolid and unmoved, he pondered on his reply. Divested of its unnecessary points and personal localisms, this speech was substantially as follows:

MOZOJEED'S SPEECH.-"Nosa. I have listened to your voice. I have listened to it heretofore at Kipesaugee. It is to me the

* He was named by the Indians from these two traits.

voice of one that is strong and able to do. Our Great Father speaks in it. I hear but one thing. It is to sit still. It is not to cross the enemies' lines. It is to drop the war club. It is to send word of all our disputes to him.

"Nosa. This is wise. This is good. This is to stop blood. But my young men are foolish. They wish to go on the war path. They wish to sing triumphs. My counsels too are weak and as nothing. It seems like trying to catch the winds and holding them in my fists, when I try to stay their war spirit. How shall we dance? How shall we sing? These are their words.

"Nosa. I do not lift the war-club. My words are for peace. I helped to draw the lines at Kipesaugee six years ago. I will keep them. My advice to my people is to sit still. You have shown, by bringing your flag here and hoisting it with your own hands in my village, that you are strong, and able, and willing. You are the Indian's friend. You encourage us by this hard journey through our streams when the waters are low. You have spied us out and see how we live, and how poor we are."

Waubezhais, the son of Miscomoneto, and bearing his medal and authority, then spoke, responding frankly. Odebossa, of the Upper Pukwaéwa, spoke also favorably to my object, and thanking me for my visit to his village on the Namakagun, which he said, metaphorically, "had rekindled their fires, which were almost

out."

All agreed that the waters were too low to go to the Lac du Flambeau, and that my proposed council with the Indians at that point must be given up or deferred. Besides, if the war party on the Red Cedar or Folavoine Fork of the Chippewa was to be arrested, it could only be done by an immediate move in that direction. I therefore determined to leave Ottawa Lake the same day. I invested Mozobodo with a silver medal of the first class, and a U. S. flag. Presents of ammunition, provisions, iron works, a few dry goods, and tobacco were given to all, and statistics of their population and of their means taken. For a population of eighteen men, there were forty-eight women and seventy-one children. Thirteen or fourteen of the latter were Mozojeed's. Red Devil's son's band numbered forty-nine men, twenty-seven women, and forty-six children. Odabossa's village consisted of eighteen men, thirty