CHAPTER XXIII.
The Expedition having reached the source of the east fork in Assawa Lake, crosses the highlands of the Hauteurs de Terre to the source of the main or west fork in Itasca Lake.
The next morning (13th) a dense fog prevailed. We had found the atmosphere warm, but charged with water and vapors, which frequently condensed into showers. The evenings and nights were, however, cool, at the precise time of the earth hiding the sun's disk. It was five o'clock before we could discern objects with sufficient distinctness to venture to embark. We found the channel of the river strikingly diminished on getting above the Naiwa. Its width is that of a mere brook, running in a valley half a mile wide. The water is still and pond-like, the margin being encroached on by aquatic plants. It presents some areas of the zizania palustris, and appeared to be the favorite resort for several species of duck, who were continually disturbed by our progress. After diligently ascending an hour and a half, or about eight miles, the stream almost imperceptibly began to open into a lake, which the Indians called Assawa, or Perch Lake. Its borders are fringed with the _monomin_ of the Chippewas, or wild rice, and several of the liliaceous water plants. The water is transparent when dipped up and viewed by the light, but from the falling of leaves and other carbonaceous fibre to the bottom, it reflects a sombre hue. We were just twenty minutes in passing through it, denoting a length of perhaps two miles, and a width of half a mile. Our course through it was directly south. Ozawindib, who took the advance, entered an inlet, but had not ascended it far, when he rested on his paddles, and exclaimed _o-omah mekunnah_, here is the path, or portage. We had, in fact, traced this branch of the river into its utmost sources. It was seven o'clock in the morning. We were surrounded by what the natives term _azhiskee_, or mire, broad-leaved plants extending over the surface of the water, in which I recognized a diminutive species of yellow pond-lily. There was no mode of reaching dry land but by stepping into this yielding azhiskee. The water was rather tepid. After wading about fifty yards the footing became more firm, and we soon began to ascend a slight elevation. Some traces of an Indian trail appeared here, which led to an opening in the thicket, where vestiges of the bones of birds, and old camp-poles, indicated the prior encampment of Indians.
I had now traced this branch of the Mississippi to its source, and was at the south base of the inter-continental highlands, which give origin to the longest and principal branch of the Mississippi. To reach its source it was necessary to ascend and cross these. Of their height, and the difficulty of their ascent, we knew nothing. This only was sure, from the representation of the natives, that it could be readily done, carrying the small bark canoes we had thus far employed. The chief said it was thirteen _opugidjiwenun_, or putting-down-places, which are otherwise called _onwaybees_, or rests. From the roughness of the path, not more than half a mile can be estimated to each _onwaybee_. Assawa Lake is shown, by barometric measurement, to be 1,532 feet above the Gulf. Having followed out this branch to its source, its very existence in our geography becomes a new fact.
While the baggage and canoes were being carried to the spot of our encampment, a camp-fire was kindled and the cook busied himself in preparing breakfast. The canoes were then carefully examined and repaired, and the baggage parted into loads, so as to permit the whole outfit and apparatus to be transported at one trip. These things having been arranged, and the breakfast dispatched, we set forward to mount the highlands. Ozawindib having thrown one of the canoes over his shoulders, led the way, complaisantly, being followed by the entire party.
The prevailing growth at this place is thick bramble, spruce, white cedar, and tamarak. The path plunges at once into a marshy and matted thicket, which it requires all one's strength to press through--then rises to a little elevation covered with white cedar, and again plunges into a morass strewed with fallen and decayed logs, covered with moss. From this the trail emerges on dry ground. Relieved from the entanglement about our feet, we soon found ourselves ascending an elevation of the drift stratum, consisting of oceanic sand, with boulders. On the side of this eminence we enjoyed our first _onwaybee_. The day had developed itself clear and warm, and glad indeed were we to find the chief had put down his canoe, and by the time we reached had lit his pipe. The second onwaybee brought us to the summit of this elevation; the third to the side of a ridge beyond it; the fourth to another summit; in fine, we found ourselves crossing a succession of ridges and depressions, which seemed to have owed their original outlines to the tumultuous waves of some mighty ocean, which had once had the mastery over the highlands. Trail there was often none. The day being clear, the chief, however, held his course truly, and when he was turned out of it by some defile, or thicket, or bog, he again found his line at the earliest possible point. In one of the depressions, we crossed a little lake in the canoes; in another, we followed the guide on foot, through and along the border of a shallow lake, to avoid the density of the thickets.
Ripe strawberries were brought to me at one of our onwaybees. I observed the diminutive rebus nutkanus on low grounds. The common falco was noticed, and the Indians remarked tracks of the deer, not, however, of very recent date. The forest growth is small, by far the most common species being the scrubby pinus banksianus, exhibiting its parasitic moss. The elevated parts of the route were sufficiently open, with often steep ascents. Over these sienite and granite, quartz and sandstone boulders were scattered. Every step we made in crossing these sandy and diluvial elevations, seemed to inspire renewed ardor in completing the traverse. The guide had called the distance, as we computed it, about six, or six and a half miles. We had been four hours upon it, now clambering up steeps, and now brushing through thickets, when he told us we were ascending the last elevation, and I kept close to his heels, soon outwent him on the trail, and got the first glimpse of the glittering nymph we had been pursuing. On reaching the summit this wish was gratified. At a depression of perhaps a hundred feet below, cradled among the hills, the lake spread out its elongated volume, presenting a scene of no common picturesqueness and rural beauty. In a short time I stood on its border, the whole cortege of canoes and pedestrians following; and as each one came he deposited his burden on a little open plat, which constituted the terminus of the Indian trail. In a few moments a little fire threw up its blaze, and the pan of _pigieu_, or pine pitch, was heated to mend the seams of the bark canoes. When this was done, they were instantly put into the lake, with their appropriate baggage; and the little flotilla of five canoes was soon in motion, passing down one of the most tranquil and pure sheets of water of which it is possible to conceive. There was not a breath of wind. We often rested to behold the scene. It is not a lake overhung by rocks. Not a precipice is in sight, or a stone, save the pebbles and boulders of the drift era, which are scattered on the beach. The water-fowl, whom we disturbed in their seclusion, seemed rather loath to fly up. At one point we observed a deer, standing in the water, and stooping down, apparently to eat moss.
The diluvial hills inclosing the basin, at distances of one or two miles, are covered with pines. From these elevations the lands slope gently down to the water's edge, which is fringed with a mixed foliage of deciduous and evergreen species. After passing some few miles down its longest arm, we landed at an island, which appeared to be the only one in the lake. I immediately had my tent pitched, and while the cook exerted his skill to prepare a meal, scrutinized its shores for crustacea, while Dr. Houghton sought to identify its plants. While here, the latter recognized the mycrostylis ophioglossoides, physalis lanceolata, silene antirrhina, and viola pedata. We found the elm, lynn, soft maple, and wild cherry, mingled with the fir species.
An arm of the lake stretches immediately south from this island, which receives a small brook. Lieutenant Allen, who estimates the greatest length of the lake at seven miles, drew the following sketch of its configuration. (See p. 243.)
The latitude of this lake is 47° 13´ 35´´.[162] The highest grounds passed over by us, in our transit from the Assowa Lake, lie at an elevation of 1,695 feet. The view given of the scene in the first volume of my _Ethnological Researches_, p. 146, is taken from a point north of the island, looking into the vista of the south arm of the lake. I inquired of Ozawindib the Indian name of this lake; he replied _Omushkös_, which is the Chippewa name of the Elk.[163] Having previously got an inkling of some of their mythological and necromantic notions of the origin and mutations of the country, which permitted the use of a female name for it, I denominated it ITASCA.[164]
[162] By the report of Governor Stevens (June, 1854), the selected pass for the contemplated railroad through the St. Mary to the Columbia valley is in 47° 30´, where there is but little snow at any time, and rich pasturage for cattle. The phenomena of the climates of our northern latitudes are but little understood.
[163] A The Canadian French call this animal _la Biche_, from _Biche_, a hind.
[164] This myth is further alluded to, in the following stanzas from the _Literary World_, No. 337:--
STANZAS.
ON REACHING THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN 1832.[165]
I.
Ha! truant of western waters! Thou who hast So long concealed thy very sources--flitting shy, Now here, now there--through spreading mazes vast Thou art, at length, discovered to the eye In crystal springs, that run, like silver thread, From out their sandy heights, and glittering lie Within a beauteous basin, fair outspread Hesperian woodlands of the western sky, As if, in Indian myths, a truth there could be read, And these were tears, indeed, by fair Itasca shed.
II.
To bear the sword, on prancing steed arrayed; To lift the voice admiring Senates own; To tune the lyre, enraptured muses played; Or pierce the starry heavens--the blue unknown-- These were the aims of many sons of fame, Who shook the world with glory's golden song. I sought a moral meed of less acclaim, In treading lands remote, and mazes long; And while around aerial voices ring, I quaff the limpid cup at Mississippi's spring.
H. R. S.
[165] Narrative of an Expedition to Itasca Lake. Harpers. 1834. 1 vol. 8vo. p. 307.
The line of discovery of the Mississippi, explored above Cass Lake, taking the east fork from the primary junction, as shown by Mr. Allen's topographical notes, is one hundred and twenty-three miles.[166] This is the shortest and most direct branch. The line by the Itascan or main branch of it is, probably, some twenty or twenty-five miles longer. It is evident, as before intimated, that the river descends from its summit in plateaux. From the pseudo-alpine level of the parent lake, there is a principal and minor rapids, for the former of which the Indians have the appropriate name of _Kakabikons_, which is a descriptive term for a cascade over rocks or stones. Then the river again deploys itself in a lake and a series of minor lakes on the same level, and this process is repeated, until it finally plunges over the horizontal rocks at St. Anthony's Falls, and displays itself, for the last time, in Lake Pepin. Commencing with the latter lake, it may be observed for the purposes of generalization, and to give definite notions rather of its hydrography than geology, that there are nine plateaux, of which Governor Cass, in 1820, explored six. The other three, beginning at his terminal point, have now been indicated. The heights of these are given, barometrically. The distances travelled are given from time. The annexed diagram of these plateaux, extending to the Pakagama summit, will impress these deductions on the eye.
[166] Mr. Nicollet, who ascended the same fork in 1836, makes the distance twelve miles more. _Vide_ Ex., Doc. No. 237.
The length of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing its involutions, may be stated to be three thousand miles. By estimates from the best sources made, respectively, during the expeditions of 1820 and 1832, it is shown to have a winding thread of three thousand one hundred and sixty miles. Taking the barometrical height of Itasca Lake at fifteen hundred and seventy-five feet, it has a mean descent of a fraction over six inches per mile. As one of the most striking epochs in American geography, we have known this river, computing from the era of Marquette's discovery to the present day (July 13, 1832), but one hundred and fifty-nine years--a short period, indeed! How rich a portion of the geology of the globe lies buried in the flora and fauna of the tertiary, the middle or secondary, and the palæozoic eras of its valley, we have hardly begun to inquire. It will, _doubtless_, and, so far as we know, _does_, contribute evidences to the antiquity and mutations of the earth's surface, conformably to the progress of discoveries in other parts of the globe. The immense basins of coal, found in the middle and lower parts of its valley, prove the same gigantic epoch of its flora which has been established for the coal measures of Europe,[167] and sweep to the winds the jejune theory that the continent arose from a chaotic state, at a period a whit less remote than the other quarters of the globe. While the large bones of its later eras, found imbedded in its unconsolidated strata, prove how large a portion of its fauna were involved in the gigantic and monster-period.
[167] Entire trees are often found imbedded in its rocks of the middle era, as is evidenced by an individual of the juglans nigra, of at least fifty feet long, in the River De Plaine, valley of the Illinois. _Vide_ Appendix.