It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we came to the junction of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef edging the swamp, which extends northward for five miles to the quaint, ancient little city of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies stranded. A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail, which overhangs the rushing waters as they here commingle. We landed with something akin to reverence, for this must have been about the place where Joliet and Marquette, two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed with rapture upon the mighty Mississippi, which they had at last discovered, after so many thousands of miles of arduous journeying through a savage-haunted wilderness. And indeed it is an imposing sight. To the west, two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on the Iowa side of the great river. Northward there are pretty glimpses of cliffs and rocky beaches through openings in the heavy growth which covers the islands of the upper stream. Southward is a long vista of curving hills and glinting water shut in by the converging ranges. Eastward stretches the green delta of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing bluffs, between whose bases for two centuries has flowed a curious throng of humanity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred and profane, representing many clashing nationalities.
The rain descended in a gentle shower as I was lighting a fire on which to cook our last canoeing meal of the season; and W—— held an umbrella over the already damp kindling in order to give it a chance. We no doubt made a comical picture as we crouched together beneath this shelter, jointly trying to fan the sparks into a flame, for the fisherman, who had been heretofore speechless, and apparently rapt in his occupation, burst out into a hearty laugh. When we turned to look at him he hid his face under his upturned coat-collar, and giggled to himself like a schoolgirl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and after we had presented him with a cup of coffee and what solids we could spare from our now meager store, he warmed into a very communicative mood, and gave us much detailed, though rather highly colored, information about the locality, especially as to its natural features.
The rain had ceased by the time dinner was over; so we bade farewell to the happy fisherman and the presiding deities of the Wisconsin, and pulled up the giant Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, stopping on our way to visit an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous, where flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum—America's nearest approach to the lotus of the Nile.
And thus was accomplished the season's stint of six hundred miles of canoeing upon the Historic Waterways of Illinois and Wisconsin.
INDEX.
Allouez, Father Claude, [176], [228], [229].
American Fur Co., [145].