WE added several passengers to our list,at La Crosse;among others an old gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early settlers,and was familiar with every part of it.
Pardonably proud of it,too.He said--
'You'll find scenery between here and St.Paul that can give the Hudson points.You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high,and just as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres;and Trempeleau Island,which isn't like any other island in America,I believe,for it is a gigantic mountain,with precipitous sides,and is full of Indian traditions,and used to be full of rattlesnakes;if you catch the sun just right there,you will have a picture that will stay with you.And above Winona you'll have lovely prairies;and then come the Thousand Islands,too beautiful for anything;green?why you never saw foliage so green,nor packed so thick;it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat on a looking-glass--when the water 's still;and then the monstrous bluffs on both sides of the river--ragged,rugged,dark-complected--just the frame that's wanted;you always want a strong frame,you know,to throw up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out.'
The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not very powerful ones.
After this excursion into history,he came back to the scenery,and described it,detail by detail,from the Thousand Islands to St.Paul;naming its names with such facility,tripping along his theme with such nimble and confident ease,slamming in a three-ton word,here and there,with such a complacent air of 't isn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to,and letting off fine surprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals,that I presently began to suspect--But no matter what I began to suspect.Hear him--'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City,nestling sweetly at the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts,Jovelike,toward the blue depths of heaven,bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have known no other contact save that of angels'wings.
'And next we glide through silver waters,amid lovely and stupendous aspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration,about twelve miles,and strike Mount Vernon,six hundred feet high,with romantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloud shadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing Mount Vernon,town of early days,now desolate and utterly deserted.
'And so we move on.Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six hundred feet;then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is attracted by a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the ideal mountain pyramid.Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface girding its sides,and its apex like that of a cone,cause the spectator to wonder at nature's workings.From its dizzy heights superb views of the forests,streams,bluffs,hills and dales below and beyond for miles are brought within its focus.What grander river scenery can be conceived,as we gaze upon this enchanting landscape,from the uppermost point of these bluffs upon the valleys below?
The primeval wildness and awful loneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God,excite feelings of unbounded admiration,and the recollection of which can never be effaced from the memory,as we view them in any direction.
'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head,carved by nature's hand,to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream;and then anon the river widens,and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley before us suddenly bursts upon our vision;rugged hills,clad with verdant forests from summit to base,level prairie lands,holding in their lap the beautiful Wabasha,City of the Healing Waters,puissant foe of Bright's disease,and that grandest conception of nature's works,incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon the tourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours,with rapture unappeased and unappeasable.
'And so we glide along;in due time encountering those majestic domes,the mighty Sugar Loaf,and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter,romantic superstition has invested with a voice;and oft-times as the birch canoe glides near,at twilight,the dusky paddler fancies he hears the soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona,darling of Indian song and story.
'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision,delightful resort of jaded summer tourists;then progressive Red Wing;and Diamond Bluff,impressive and preponderous in its lone sublimity;then Prescott and the St.Croix;and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St.Paul,giant young chief of the North,marching with seven-league stride in the van of progress,banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization,carving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise,sounding the warwhoop of Christian culture,tearing off the reeking scalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the school-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness,ignorance,crime,despair;ever in his wake bloom the jail,the gallows,and the pulpit;and ever----'
'Have you ever traveled with a panorama?'
'I have formerly served in that capacity.'
My suspicion was confirmed.
'Do you still travel with it?'
'No,she is laid up till the fall season opens.I am helping now to work up the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St.Louis and St.Paul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the benefit of travelers who go by that line.'
'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock,you spoke of the long-departed Winona,darling of Indian song and story.
Is she the maiden of the rock?--and are the two connected by legend?'
'Yes,and a very tragic and painful one.Perhaps the most celebrated,as well as the most pathetic,of all the legends of the Mississippi.'