Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/326

Rh What the negroes say about themselves and the other races I know not; but this appears to me certain, that they stand in closer proximity to the people of the day than to the people of the twilight in their capacity for spiritual development; that they have a grander future before them than the latter, and less self-love than either.

Fort Snelling lies on the western bank of the Mississippi, where the St. Peter flows into that river; and at this point the view is glorious over the broad St. Peter river, called by the Indians the Minnesota, and of the beautiful and extensive valley through which it runs. Farther up it flows through a highland district, and amid magnificent scenery inland five hundred miles westward. “There is no doubt,” writes a young American in his travels through Minnesota, “but that these banks of the St. Peter will some time become the residence of the aristocracy of the country.”

This must be a far-sighted glance one would imagine; but things advance rapidly in this country.

We visited, on our way to Fort Snelling, a waterfall, called the Little Falls. It is small, but so infinitely beautiful that it deserves its own picture, song, and saga. The whitest of foam, the blackest of crags, the most graceful, and at the same time wild and gentle fall! Small things may become great through their perfection.

Later.—I have to-day visited, in company with a kind young clergyman, the so-called Fountain Cave, at a short distance from the city. It is a subterranean cavern with many passages and halls, similar probably to the celebrated Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Many such subterranean palaces are said to be found in Minnesota, although they have not yet been explored; neither has this grotto been thoroughly penetrated. I enjoyed myself sitting under its magnificent arched portico, drinking of its crystalline fountain, and listening to the song of its falling water in the far interior of the grotto.