reached Prairie du Chien on the 21st, making the whole
journey from Mackinack in twenty-one days.

We found a very large number of the various tribes assembled. Not only
the village, but the entire banks of the river for miles above and below
the town, and the island in the river, was covered with their tents. The
Dakotahs, with their high pointed buffalo skin tents, above the town,
and their decorations and implements of flags, feathers, skins and
personal "braveries," presented the scene of a Bedouin encampment. Some
of the chiefs had the skins of skunks tied to their heels, to symbolize
that they never ran, as that animal is noted for its slow and
self-possessed movements.

Wanita, the Yankton chief, had a most magnificent robe of the buffalo,
curiously worked with dyed porcupine's quills and sweet grass. A kind of
war flag, made of eagles' and vultures' large feathers, presented quite
a martial air. War clubs and lances presented almost every imaginable
device of paint; but by far the most elaborate thing was their pipes of
red stone, curiously carved, and having flat wooden handles of some four
feet in length, ornamented with the scalps of the red-headed woodpecker
and male duck, and tail feathers of birds artificially attached by
strings and quill work, so as to hang in the figure of a quadrant. But
the most elaborately wrought part of the devices consisted of dyed
porcupines' quills, arranged as a kind of aboriginal mosaic.

The Winnebagoes, who speak a cognate dialect of the Dacotah, were
encamped near; and resembled them in their style of lodges, arts, and
general decorations.

The Chippewas presented the more usually known traits, manners and
customs of the great Algonquin family--of whom they are, indeed, the
best representative. The tall and warlike bands from the sources of the
Mississippi--from La Point, in Lake Superior--from the valleys of the
Chippewa and St. Croix rivers, and the Rice Lake region of Lac du
Flambeau, and of Sault Ste. Marie, were well represented.

The cognate tribe of the Menomonies, and of the Potawattomies and
Ottowas from Lake Michigan, assimilated and mingled with the Chippewas.
Some of the Iroquois of Green Bay were present.

But no tribes attracted as intense a degree of interest as the Iowas,
and the Sacs and Foxes--tribes of radically diverse languages, yet
united in a league against the Sioux. These tribes were encamped on the
island, or opposite coast. They came to the