Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/215

Rh aborigines, and hope to have opportunity of doing so during my journey in the West.

It has now become clear and certain to my mind, though I do not know myself rightly how or when, that I shall proceed up the Mississippi as far as St. Anthony's Fall, that is to say, as far as the river is navigable, into Minnesota, a young territory, not yet a state, which, for the most part, is a wilderness, and the home of the wild Indian tribes, and afterwards down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Why I should go to New Orleans I do not know; but one thing I know—I must go there. Something within me tells me so, something which I must call the inward light, the inward voice, and which guides me here like a mysterious but absolute power. I do not hesitate a moment in following its guidance, for it speaks so decidedly and clearly, that I feel glad to obey. I know that to me it is a Star of Bethlehem. From this place I go to Chicago, and thence to the Swedish and Norwegian settlements in the States of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Among the memories of Niagara are some of a most sorrowful character. One of these occurred this last summer, when a young man and his sweetheart, and her sister, a little girl, visited the fall. As they stood beside it the young man took the little girl in his arms, and threatened playfully to throw her into it. The child gave a sudden start of terror, which threw her out of his arms and into that foaming abyss. He sprang in after her. Both vanished, and were only again seen as corpses.

“Oniaagaràh,” or “Ochniagaràh,” was the original name of Niagara, and it is still called so by the Indians. The word signifies “the thunder of the waters.” It has been shortened by the Europeans into Niagara.

I have now taken my farewell look of the great scene and sight. The green colour of the water, its inexpressibly delightful, living odour, charms me as much as