the enthusiast taste the coveted liquid!
Thick, viscous, brackish, utterly scorned and
rejected of the stomach, prolific of parched
lips and summer complaint, it is never drank
more than once by a sane man. The fourth-
proof brandy, which he, who has prudently
fore-armed himself with three or four bottles,
mixes with it, it brings into reproach; and
the tea or coffee which tills the breakfast-cup,
tastes as if made from plants that grew on
the banks of this Stygian stream. What
wonder that so many poor souls are stranded
at the bar, near the captain's office, where
liquids curious in colour, suspicious in
appearance and in what is jocularly called their
bouquet, are sold under borrowed names, at
a monopolist's prices? It is said that below
the junction of the Missouri with the
Mississipi, the river water is both palatable and
healthy: but few who have drunk it above
that point, can bring themselves to believe
the statement.

With a praiseworthy regard for the eternal
harmonies, the commissariat department of
the Defiance strove to tone down the quality
of the eatables to an accord with that of the
water. The attempt could not but fail. Still
such success was attained as led all of us to
partake sparingly of the more substantial
viands, and some to subsist mainly upon bread
and beans.

But for its water, the Mississipi would be
in all respects an admirable river. With
slow and measured steps, for the most part,
it marches down a single channel, from a
half-mile to a mile in width; but occasionally
discipline is relaxed, and its streams part
company, and run races among low, wooded
islands. On both sides tower limestone
bluffs, near the base overgrown with bushes,
and adorned with clumps of scrub oaks,
hanging vines and flowers, but bare, castellated
rock at the top. No two of these formations
are alike. Sometimes the structure
is covered with green so far towards the
summit as to be at once recognised as a
long since ruined stronghold of robber
chieftains. Sometimes the fortress is in such
complete preservation, that the eye instinctively
runs along the ramparts in quest of
their giant defenders. Sometimes a line of
rowers seems to block up further passage;
but no sooner does the Defiance blow her
steam-horn, than the portcullis rises. Generally,
the cliffs come down to the water's
edge, but sometimes they retire a mile or two,
and are transformed into well-rounded hills,
clad in rough under-garments of woods, but
wiih an exquisitely delicate mantle of shade
and shine flung carelessly over their shoulders.
The picturesque little prairies, or patches of
forest, thus left upon the river-side, are
often crossed by streams, which join our
river, babbling, as they run, of cool sequestered
glens, and deer, and waterfalls, and all
the mysteries of the forest further inland. In
such places as these, fresh, pale-faced villages,
with pretty Indian names, such as Winona,
Winneiska, Dacotah, or Wacouta, or horrible
American names, as Homer, Cassville, Thing's
Leanding, Badaxe City, are always building,
never built. Most of those which are two
years of age, already boast of a newspaper
office, two or three grogshops, ten or a dozen
lawyers, a huge barn of a hotel, and an
immense forwarding-house, which receives
and disburses whatever freight the steamboats
leave. The few detached log-huts,
which we see clinging to the side of a cliff,
or asquat at its foot, belong to the wood-
choppers, who supply the river-craft with
fuel, and are brown enough to have been
built by the earliest settlers. Now and then,
we meet a raft of logs bound for New Orleans,
with a wigwam upon it, in which the
drivers, and their families, sleep and eat;
and more rarely a steamboat, which
exchanges a currish greeting with the Defiance.

It matters not that our fellow-passengers
prove as uninteresting as they promised to
be at the start, and that even the romance of
Dr Jones and Helen scarcely merits a second
reading.  Nature fills the day with beauty.
Every curve of the river discloses or suggests
a new curve.  At sunset, light, fleecy, clouds
throng the sky, which huddle together and
change colour, when left alone in the twilight,
like frightened children.  A new and more
delicious charm comes upon the river; and
others beside Helen, seated upon deck
between her Menelaus and Paris, grow
sentimental. With the nearer approach of night, sublimity takes the place of beauty,  The
scenery becomes wilder, and the old back-woodsmen seem to be listening for the war-
whoop. There it is, out of the breast of
yonder black cloud, hurrying down stream; it
bursts, and every bluff that hears the sound,
repeats it.  Such a thunder-storm I never
witnessed elsewhere. There was so little
rain that we were able to stay upon deck, in
the lee of the furious wind, until the clouds
had nearly passed, listening to the roar or
crack of the thunder, catching sudden glimpses
of the ghastly shore-line and the grisly heads
of the bluffs above us, and following the flash
of the sword of fire, drawn every instant and
then sheathed again. These magnificent
displays are said to be frequent in Minnesota
during the summer season, when the rains
mostly fall in the night.

The elements do all the war-whooping and
war-dancing, that is done in these days below
Saint Paul. Such of the aborigines as linger
in their old haunts seem quite incapable of
doing either for themselves. At one landing-
place, we saw a small party of fat, copper-
coloured fellows, gorgeously arrayed in
coloured blankets and glass beads, and squatting
upon their hams, while they stupidly
stared at our great fireship, as if wondering
whether it had brought them a fresh supply
of fire-water. Of savages more worthy than