Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/304

Rh and upon stocks and stones and precipices and sheer descents; all this I shall not attempt to describe, because it is indescribable. I considered many a passage wholly and altogether impracticable, until my conductors, both gentlemen and ladies, convinced me that it was to them a simple and everyday path. Uh!

The day was cold and chilly, and for that reason the excursion was more fatiguing to me than pleasant.

I have had several rambles in the immediate neighbourhood, sometimes alone and sometimes in company, with the agreeable Governor Ramsay, or with a kind clergyman of this place. In this way I have visited several small farmers, most of them French, who have come hither from Canada. They all praise the excellence of the soil, and its fertility; they were capital people to talk with, seemed to be in a prosperous condition, had many children, but that neatness and general comfort which distinguish the homes of the Anglo-Americans, I did not find in their dwellings, but rather the contrary. On all sides the grass waved over hills and fields, tall and of an autumnal yellow. There are not hands enough here to mow it. The soil is a rich, black mould, which is superb for the growth of potatoes and grain, but not so agreeable for pedestrians in white stockings and petticoats. A fine black dust soils everything. The most lovely little lakes lie among the hills, like clear mirrors, in romantic peace and beauty. It is a perfectly Arcadian landscape; but there yet lack the shepherds and shepherdesses. The eastern shore of the Mississippi, within Minnesota only, belongs to the whites, and their number here does not as yet amount to more than seven thousand souls. The whole western portion of Minnesota is still Indian territory, inhabited principally by the two great nations, Sioux or Dacotahs, and Chippewas, who live in a continual state of hostility, as well as by some of the lesser Indian tribes. It is said that the Government is intending