WINTER AT NIAGARA.
A CANDIDATE FOR MEDICINE MAN BEFORE A COUNCIL OF MENOMINE INDIANS.—The Menomines are a small tribe, living in the eastern part of Wisconsin, who are in what may be called the transition period from savagery to civilization. Some of the younger ones appear to be thoroughly civilized, so far as outward indications go, while the old patriarchs remain steadfast in the faith of their fathers and their confidence in the wisdom and saving powers of the medicine man. But even these have so far advanced, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, that all candidates for this important office are required to be able to read and write, and to possess more or less knowledge of medicines. The ceremony of initiation is an important event in the life of the candidate, and is regarded with a degree of superstition and reverential awe by his friends and relatives.
THE SUGAR-BOWL, DELLS OF THE WISCONSIN.
Wisconsin is very justly famous for many things: its semi-civilized Indian tribes, its lakes, dense pine forests, and above all for its wondrous scenery, particularly along the Wisconsin River, where wonders the equal of those to be seen in Watkins’ Glen, New York, are met with in rapid succession some six miles north and south of Kilbourn City. It was to Kilbourn City, therefore, that we proceeded, by way of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, to view and photograph the truly marvelous scenery and whimsically erratic formations that characterize that section of the river known as the Dells. The river is deep, but at places so tortuously narrow between projecting elbows of the limestone walls that only such a dimity and fairy-like steamboat as the Dell Queen can thread a passage, and we accordingly committed ourselves to this frail little craft for the trip which is made by tourists first to the Upper Dells, eight miles above the city, and then to the Lower Dells, which are three miles below. For many, many centuries the Wisconsin, probably always a rapid stream, has rasped its soft Potsdam sandstone-bed, and constantly wearing its shore, has finally carved out a way that is fantastically curious. Now the stream rolls laughing along under vertical walls sometimes a hundred feet high, and wrought into the most weirdly grotesque forms imaginable. All along, its capricious course is marked by caves, caverns, grottos, glens, and eccentric pillars of stone that are as humorously dressed as a zany in caps and bells. In making the ascent from Kilbourn City one of the first objects to arrest attention is “Angel Rock,” whose broad stretch of petrified wing is said to guard against intrusion into the spectral haunts that lie beyond. “Swallow’s Fortress” next appears, a perpendicular wall of very great height, and unbroken length of two hundred feet, garrisoned by myriads of swallows that have perforated the face until it looks like the lid of a huge pepper-box. Having passed this castle of many loop-holes, we enter a section where “Romance Cliffs” pays eternal greetings to “High Rock,” with their strange configurations and picturesque statuary; a spot that is favored by speckled trout as it is by lovers. “Chimney Rock” next bursts into view, built up of as many strata as a tower of pan-cakes, which from a distance the chimney somewhat resembles. From the “Gate’s Ravine” there is a splendid sight of “Sturgeon Rock,” which is so perfectly reflected as to appear twice its natural size. Why it is called Sturgeon Rock not even tradition tells us; but it is manifest in many cases that those who bestowed names upon these pictorial surprises were so arbitrary as to be indifferent to appropriateness, like the colored woman who called her first-born Beelzebub, because she heard that some prince bore that name.