At five o'clock the next morning (12th) we were on our feet, and resumed the ascent. The day was rainy and disagreeable. There was little strength of current, but quite a sufficient depth of water; the stream was excessively tortuous. Owing to the sudden bends, we often frightened up the same flocks of brant, ducks, and teals again and again, who did not appear to have been in times past much subjected to these intrusions. The flora of this valley appeared unfavorable. Dr. Houghton has reported a new species of malva and some five or six other species or varieties from the general region, but these have not, I think, been elaborately described. The localities of the known species of fauna might be marked by the occurrence, on this fork, of the cervus virginianus, which had not been seen after leaving the Sandy Lake summit till after getting above the primary forks, which flow from the south and west.
We toiled all day without intermission from daybreak till dark. The banks of the river are fringed with a species of coarse marshland grass. Clumps of willows fringe the stream. Rush and reed occupy spots favorable to their growth. The forest exhibits the larch, pine, and tamarack. Moss attaches itself to everything. Water-fowls seem alone to exult in their seclusion. After we had proceeded for an hour above Lake Plantagenet, an Indian in the advance canoe fired at and killed a deer. Although fairly shot, the animal ran several hundred yards. It then fell dead. The man who had killed it brought the carcass to the banks of the river. The dexterity with which he skinned and cut it up, excited admiration. He gave the moze, which I understood to mean the hide and feet, to my guide, Ozawindib. Signs of this animal were frequent along the stream. But we were impelled forward by higher objects than hunting. It was, indeed, geographical and scientific facts that we were hunting for. To trace to its source an important river, and to fix the actual point of its origin, furnished the mental stimulus which led us to care but little where we slept or what we ate.
When the usual hour for breakfast arrived, the banks of the river proved too marshy to land, and we continued on till a quarter past twelve P. M., before a convenient landing could be made. After this recruit to stomach and spirits, the men again pushed forward, threading the stream as it wound about in a savanna, seldom halting more than a few minutes at a time. Frequently, a shot was fired at the numerous water-fowl, so abundant on these waters. Sometimes a small unio or anadonta was picked up from the shores; occasionally a plant pulled up, for the botanical press. Nowhere was the water found too shallow for our canoes, which were only embarrassed at some points by the density of vegetable tissue. Rain showers were encountered during the whole of the day, the equilibrium of the atmosphere being disturbed by rolling, cumulous clouds, which often poured down their contents with little warning, and without, indeed, driving us from our canoes. For, on these occasions, where a fixed point is to be made, and the showers are not anticipated to be long or heavy, it is better to travel in the rain and submit to the wetting, than to attempt landing. Neither can the meal of dinner be stopped for. At length, at half past five o'clock in the evening, we came to the base of the highlands of the Itasca or Hauteurs de Terre summit. The flanks of this elevation revealed themselves in a high, naked precipice of the drift and boulder stratum, on the immediate margin of the stream which washed against it. Our pilot, Ozawindib, was at the moment in the rear; halting a few moments for him to come up, he said that we were within a few hundred yards of the Naiwa rapids, and that the portage around them commenced at this escarpment. We had seen no rock of any species, in place, thus far.
A general landing was immediately made at the foot of the hill, and as the five canoes came up the baggage was prepared in bundles and packages for being carried, the canoe-paddles and poles securely tied in bundles, and the canoes lifted from the water and dried in the sun to make the transportation of them as light as possible, and mended and pitched wherever they leaked. It was found that the whole baggage, canoes and all, could be arranged for eleven back-loads, this being the precise number of our carriers, white and red; and being ready, Ozawindib led the way, having a single canoe for his share, and he was soon followed by the whole line, each one of our sitters falling in this line, charged with the particular instrument of his observation, or record of it. The hill was steep, and the footing soft and yielding in the crumbling diluvion, and the scene, as the party struggled up the ascent, presented quite a study for the picturesque. Lieutenant Allen carried his canoe-compass, which I had had mounted by an artisan of Detroit; Dr. Houghton grasped his hortus siccus under his arms; Mr. Johnston, our interpreter, had his pipe and fowling-piece, and Mr. Boutwell had wellnigh lost his pocket-bible and notes, while staying himself against the treacherous influence of a steep sand cliff. While the party thus took their way over the hill to cross a peninsula of a mile or two, and strike the river above the junction of the Naiwa River, I went to observe the rapids. The river, at this point, is forced through a narrow gorge, where the water descends with loud murmuring over a series of rapids, which form a complete check to navigation. The portage is two miles. I judged the entire descent of the channel, from the beginning to the terminus of the portage, to be forty-eight feet. Boulders of the peculiar northern sienite, highly charged with hornblende, and of trap-rock, or greenstone, quartz, and sandstone, were scattered over this elevation, and mixed with the more finely comminuted portions of the same rocks, and of amygdaloids and schistose fragments. Among these, I observed some specimens of the zoned agate, which identifies the stratum with the extensive drift formation of the upper Mississippi. It would seem that extensive amygdaloidal strata formerly extended over these heights, which have been broken down by the fierce and general rush of the oceanic currents of the north, which once manifestly swept over these elevations.
Darkness fell as we reached an elevation overlooking the river above the Naiwa Rapids, and after some deliberation as to the spot where we should suffer less annoyance from mosquitos, I proceeded to the lower part of the valley near the river, and set up my tent there for the night. On questioning Ozawindib of the Naiwa River, he informed me that it was a stream of considerable size, and that it originated in a lake on a distant part of the plateau, which was infested with the copper-head snake; hence the name. Mr. Allen's estimate of this day's journey was fifty-two miles. We had reached the second, or Assawa plateau of the Mississippi, which is, barometrically, seventy-six feet above the Queen Anne summit, and now had but one more to surmount.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Expedition having reached the source of the east fork in Assawa Lake, crosses the highlands of the Hauteurs de Terre to the source of the main or west fork in Itasca Lake.
The next morning (13th) a dense fog prevailed. We had found the atmosphere warm, but charged with water and vapors, which frequently condensed into showers. The evenings and nights were, however, cool, at the precise time of the earth hiding the sun's disk. It was five o'clock before we could discern objects with sufficient distinctness to venture to embark. We found the channel of the river strikingly diminished on getting above the Naiwa. Its width is that of a mere brook, running in a valley half a mile wide. The water is still and pond-like, the margin being encroached on by aquatic plants. It presents some areas of the zizania palustris, and appeared to be the favorite resort for several species of duck, who were continually disturbed by our progress. After diligently ascending an hour and a half, or about eight miles, the stream almost imperceptibly began to open into a lake, which the Indians called Assawa, or Perch Lake. Its borders are fringed with the monomin of the Chippewas, or wild rice, and several of the liliaceous water plants. The water is transparent when dipped up and viewed by the light, but from the falling of leaves and other carbonaceous fibre to the bottom, it reflects a sombre hue. We were just twenty minutes in passing through it, denoting a length of perhaps two miles, and a width of half a mile. Our course through it was directly south. Ozawindib, who took the advance, entered an inlet, but had not ascended it far, when he rested on his paddles, and exclaimed o-omah mekunnah, here is the path, or portage. We had, in fact, traced this branch of the river into its utmost sources. It was seven o'clock in the morning. We were surrounded by what the natives term azhiskee, or mire, broad-leaved plants extending over the surface of the water, in which I recognized a diminutive species of yellow pond-lily. There was no mode of reaching dry land but by stepping into this yielding azhiskee. The water was rather tepid. After wading about fifty yards the footing became more firm, and we soon began to ascend a slight elevation. Some traces of an Indian trail appeared here, which led to an opening in the thicket, where vestiges of the bones of birds, and old camp-poles, indicated the prior encampment of Indians.