est, and prairie seemed illumined with
almost celestial radiance. Bird songs filled the air. The prairies
seemed crowded with all the varieties of animal life in peaceful
enjoyment. No sights of violence or suffering met the eye. No
discordant sound fell upon the ear. All was beauty, harmony, and joy.
The landscape resembled our imaginings of the world before the fall,
when it came fresh from its Maker's hands, and all the morning stars
hailed its birth.

But again clouds, like marshalling armies, hurried through and darkened
the sky. The tempest rose with its dirge-like wailing. The surface of
the river was lashed into surges which threatened to devour them. The
rain drenched them. The sleet cut their faces. Hastily they sought the
shores. Frequently they had to paddle a great distance along the
precipitous banks before they could find any place where they could
land. Reaching at length the shore, they first covered their goods with
the upturned canoe.

Black night would already envelop them. Groping through the darkness,
drenched with rain, and numbed with sleet, they would, with great
difficulty, raise some frail protection against the storm. No fire
could be kindled. No change of clothing was possible. Throwing
themselves upon the wet sod, hungry, shivering, and sleepless, they
would anxiously await the dawn. The cry of the lone night-bird, and the
howling of wolves, would be added to the discord of the angry elements.
In such hours this globe did indeed seem to be a sin-blighted world,
upon which had fallen the frown of its Maker.

Amid such changes and toils as these, Father Hennepin and his
companions, in their frail birch canoe, paddled along against the
strong current of the Mississippi. They breakfasted with the earliest
dawn, and continued their voyage through ever-varying scenes of
sublimity and beauty, until late in the afternoon. Then they began to
look eagerly for some sheltered nook suitable for their night's
encampment. The silence and solitude through which they passed, at
times seemed pleasing, and again almost awful.

For weary leagues, not a village, not a wigwam, not a solitary Indian,
appeared. They seemed to be exploring an uninhabited world. The mouths
of many rivers were passed, whose names were unknown to them. With
feelings akin to awe, they looked up the long reaches of streams, now
known by the names of the Des Moines, the Iowa, the Rock River, and the
Wisconsin. They wondered what sce