-WESTERN FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.--WOMEN IN THE
WEST.--KISHWAUKIE.--BELVIDERE.--FAREWELL.

In the afternoon of this day we reached the Rock River, in whose
neighborhood we proposed to make some stay, and crossed at Dixon's
Ferry.

This beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks,
traversing a distance of near two hundred miles, to reach the
Mississippi. Great part of the country along its banks is the finest
region of Illinois, and the scene of some of the latest romance of
Indian warfare. To these beautiful regions Black Hawk returned with
his band "to pass the summer," when he drew upon himself the warfare
in which he was finally vanquished. No wonder he could not resist the
longing, unwise though its indulgence might be, to return in summer to
this home of beauty.

Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked, that it bears the
character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled
like the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in
landscape-gardening. The villas and castles seem to have been burnt,
the enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower-gardens,
the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous
hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that
make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind
of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of Nature.
Especially is this true of the Rock River country. The river flows
sometimes through these parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs,
whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees, or broken with
crumbling stone, that easily assumes the forms of buttress, arch, and
clustered columns. Along the face of such crumbling rocks, swallows'
nests are clustered, thick as cities, and eagles and deer do not
disdain their summits. One morning, out in the boat along the base of
these rocks, it was amusing, and affecting too, to see these swallows
put their heads out to look at us. There was something very hospitable
about it, as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them. What
a morning that was! Every sight is worth twice as much by the early
morning light. We borrow something of the spirit of the hour to look
upon them.

The first place where we stopped was one of singular beauty, a beauty
of soft, luxuriant wildness. It was on the bend of the river, a place
chosen by an Irish gentleman, whose absenteeship seems of the wisest
kind, since