ich was paid in lead. As soon as the government had
finished it, a man stepped forward and proved his right of pre-emption
on the land upon which the building was erected, and it was decided
against the government, although the land was actually government land!

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

(This chapter incomplete at end) I remained a week at Prairie du Chien,
and left my kind entertainers with regret; but an opportunity offering
of going up to St Peters in a steam-boat, with General Atkinson, who
was on a tour of inspection, I could not neglect so favourable a chance.
St Peters is situated at the confluence of the St Peters River with
the Upper Mississippi, about seven miles below the Falls of St Anthony,
where the River Mississippi becomes no longer navigable; and here,
removed many hundred miles from civilisation, the Americans have an
outpost called fort Snelling, and the American Fur Company an
establishment. The country to the north is occupied by the Chippeway
tribe of Indians; that to the east by the Winnebagos, and that to the
west by the powerful tribe of Sioux or Dacotahs, who range over the
whole prairie territory between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

The river here is so constantly divided by numerous islands, that its
great width is not discernible: it seldom has less than two or three
channels, often more: it courses through a succession of bold bluffs,
rising sometimes perpendicularly, and always abruptly from the banks or
flat land, occasionally diversified by the prairies, which descend to
the edge of the stream. These bluffs are similar to those I have
described in the Wisconsin river and Prairie do Chien, but are on a
grander scale, and are surmounted by horizontal layers of limestone
rock. The islands are all covered with small timber and brushwood, and
in the spring, before the leaves have burst out, and the freshets come
down, the river rises so as to cover the whole of them, and then you
behold the width and magnificence of this vast stream. On the second
day we arrived at Lake Pepin, which is little more than an expansion of
the river, or rather a portion of it, without islands. On the third, we
made fast to the wharf, abreast of the American Fur Company's Factory, a
short distance below the mouth of the River St Peters. Fort Snelling
is about a mile from the factory, and is situated on a steep promontory,
in a commanding position; it is built of stone, and may be con