MINNEHAHA FALLS IN WINTER.—If Minnehaha is beautiful in the spring and summer, dressed in its flowing drapery of white, it is sublime when folded in the crystal arms of winter, a frozen cascade of puffs and snowballs, hibernating after its season of festivity, awaiting the return of bird, flower and lover. Not many visitors go there in winter-time, for the north wind is biting cold; but those who do go are rewarded with a vision of loveliness unsurpassed in the realms of romance or fact. Beneath the winter sun it becomes a fairy palace, turreted with columns of alabaster, studded with diamonds and pearls, that sparkle and glow with the iridescent hues of the rainbow.
CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE, DEVIL’S LAKE.
In the eastern part of the State, in Howano county, lives a small tribe called the Menomines, who are in what may be called the transition period, for their manner of living is a composite of modern ways and ancient usage and belief. Some of the Menomines appear to be thoroughly civilized, at least so far as outward indications show, while the patriarchs of the tribe remain steadfast in the faith of their fathers. They have lost none of their confidence in the Medicine Man, whose counsel in political affairs is as important as their influence over diseases of the body is pronounced.
HORNET’S NEST, DELLS OF THE WISCONSIN.
A Medicine Man being questioned as to how the power which he claimed was conferred, answered thus:
“My heart told me that I should be a Medicine Man, and I went out upon a mountain and fasted and prayed for two days, awaiting a sign from the Great Spirit. At the end of the second day, as the sun was going to sleep, I saw a great light which blinded my eyes, and heard a noise as of the rushing of many waters. I looked around again, and about me were four animals—a black-tailed deer, a white-tailed deer, a wolf and a buffalo. They all spoke the speech of men. They said that the Great Spirit had heard my prayer and had sent them to me. The animals then took me over the prairies and told me what plants were hurtful and what were good for my people. They told me what diseases of men the good herb would cure, and then they vanished as suddenly as they came. I returned to my people, told the chiefs what I had seen, was made and have since been a Medicine Man.”
