We portaged around the island end of the Neenah dam and met the customary shallows below the obstruction. But soon finding a narrow, rock-imbedded channel, we glided swiftly down the stream, through the thrifty town, past the mills and under the bridges, just as the six o'clock bells had sounded and the factory hands were thronging homeward, their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun. Scores of them stopped to lean over the bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we threaded the shallows; for canoes long ago ceased to be a daily spectacle at Winnebago Rapids.
Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below, is where the river spreads to a full mile in breadth, the average width of the stream being less than one half that. The wind was fair, and we came swooping down into the lake, which is two or three miles long. A half-hour before sunset we hauled up at a high mossy glade on the north shore, and had delightful down-stream glimpses of deep vine-clad, naturally terraced banks, the slopes and summits being generally well wooded. A party of young men and women were having a camp near us. The woods echoed with their laughing shouts. A number, with their chaperone, a lovely and lively old lady, in a white cap with satin ribbons, came down to the shore to inspect our little vessel and question us as to our unusual voyage. We returned the call and played lawn tennis with fair partners, until the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night suddenly dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty farewell to our joyous wayside friends.
It was a charming run down to Appleton, between the park-like banks, which rise to an altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and then a pretty summer residence stands prominently out upon a bluff-head, an architectural gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines. At their bases flows the deep flood of the Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the shadows, but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight, and thickly decked with great bubbles which fairly leap along the course, eager to reach their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far than the bubbles went our canoe as we set the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for the waters were strange to us, the night was setting in, and Appleton must be made. It will not do to traverse these rivers after dark unless well acquainted with the currents, the snags, and the dams, for disaster may readily overtake the unwary.
Cautiously we now crept along, for in the fast-fading twilight we could just discern the outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air fairly trembled with the mingled roar of water and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid stream shot piercing rays from the windows of the electric works, whose dynamos furnish light for the town and power for the street railway. A fisherman, tugging against the current, shouted to us to keep hard on the eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we glided by the stone pier which buttresses the upper dam, and pulled up in a little dead-water cove at the base of the Milwaukee and Northern railway bridge. The bridge-tender's children came down to meet us; the man himself soon followed; we were permitted to chain up for the night at his pier, and to deposit our bulky baggage in his kitchen; he accompanied us over the long bridge which spans the noisy apron and the rushing race. A misstep between the ties would send one on a short cut to the hereafter, but we safely crossed, ascended two or three steep flights of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a minute or two more were speeding up town to our hotel, aboard an electric street railway car.
FIFTH LETTER.
LOCKED THROUGH.
Little Kaukauna, Wis., June 11, 1887.
My Dear W——: We took an extended stroll around Appleton after breakfast. It is a beautiful city,—the gem of the Lower Fox. The banks are nearly one hundred feet high above the river level. They are deeply cut with ravines. Hillside torrents, quickly formed by heavy rains, as quickly empty into the stream, draining the plateau of its superfluous surface water, and in the operation carving these great gulches through the soft clay. And so there are many steep inclines in the Appleton highways, and the ravines are frequently bridged by dizzy trestle-works; but the greater part of the city is on a high, level plain, the wealthy dwellers courting the summits of the river banks, where the valley view is panoramic. The little Methodist college, with its high-sounding title of Lawrence University, is an excellent institution, and said to be growing; it gives a certain scholastic tinge to Appleton society, which might otherwise be given up to the worship of Mammon, for there is much wealth among the manufacturers who rule the city, and prosperity attends their reign.