ROMANCE CLIFF, DELLS OF THE ST. CROIX RIVER.
Minnehaha is one of the smallest of the many beautiful and celebrated waterfalls of America, but it is also the most lovely and poetic. It is like a drapery of lace-work as it pours smoothly and gently over the cliff, keeping time to the merry music of its own laughing waters.—The accompanying photograph of Romance Cliff, on the St. Croix River, is as beautiful in its way as its twin sister of poetic renown, and the two together make pleasant company.
SIGNAL ROCK, NEAR CAMP DOUGLAS, WISCONSIN.
The bluffs of sandstone are a source of unending surprise, rising out of the water so nearly perpendicular that they defy all effort to scale them, and present a front like the walled cities of ancient times. Nature has not left them undisturbed, either, for their toussled brinks and seared sides show the finger-marks of frost in deep fissures and eccentric cleavages, while here and there fantastic images of stone stand like grim sentinels on commanding ledges, keeping unwearied watch upon the industrious river. Most curious of these erratic formations is the Devil’s Chair, which the Chippewa Indians verily believe was one time the resting-place of his sable majesty, probably when he went fishing. Anyhow, the rock bears the autographs of many adventurous persons who have been there to see. The fishing certainly was very good in this spot before Wisconsin lumbermen filled the stream so full of pine-logs that not even the devil himself could keep his line from fouling.
East of the St. Croix is Chippewa River, flowing in the same general direction, but aside from being a pretty stream it has nothing to specially interest tourists, for the banks gently shelve, and where stone appears it is in thin layers, and the shore-line never rises to the dignity of bluffs. But the Chippewa Indians, though now small in numbers, still retain their ancient homes in the vicinity of the stream, which, because of its shallowness, is not used as extensively as the St. Croix for shooting logs to the Mississippi. Though surrounded by a vigorous civilization, these Indians, if we except their clothing, exhibit little change from their original customs and manners of living, subsisting by hunting, fishing, and gathering berries for the neighboring markets. They still make birch-bark canoes, like their forefathers, and in a way, too, that white men do not appear to be able to imitate. Specimens of their deft work are on sale in all the towns of Wisconsin, from which source they derive no little profit.
