Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/273

Rh no social life, but are extremely peaceable and no way guilty of any violation of law. All that they desire is, to be at peace and to have free elbow-room. They live very amicably with the Indians, not so well with the American whites. When these latter come with their schools, their churches, and their shops, then the Squatters withdraw themselves farther and still farther into the Wilderness, in order to be able, as they say, to live in innocence and freedom. The whole of the Western country beyond the Mississippi, and as far as the Pacific Ocean, is said to be inhabited by patches with these Squatters, or tillers of the land, the origin of whom is said to be as much unknown as that of the Clay-eaters of South Carolina and Georgia. Their way of life has also a resemblance. The Squatters, however, evince more power and impulse of labour; the Clay-eaters subject the life of nature. The Squatters are the representatives of the Wilderness, and stand as such in stiff opposition to cultivation.

&emsp; Again up and again well, after two days of severe headache, during which I was waited upon, and cared for in the kindest manner by a kind-hearted little Irish girl belonging to the house. I could scarcely have been better attended to in my own home. And no one could possibly perform that uneasy journey through Wisconsin without having something to remember as long as he lived; but with it the severest part of my Western journey is accomplished. And I am sound in body and limb, have possession of reason and of all my senses, and everything has gone on so well, and I now feel myself so perfectly restored to my usual good state of health, that I can only be heartily contented and thankful.

I shall not leave Galena until Monday, because the good steam-boat Menomonie, so called from an Indian tribe, does not proceed up the Mississippi to St. Paul before