Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/61

 long and navigable. It is eminently the river of Minnesota (for she shares the Mississippi with Wisconsin) and it is of incalculable value to her. It flows through a very fertile country, destined to be famous for its wheat; but it is a remarkably winding stream, so that Redwood is only half as far from its mouth by land as by water. There was not a straight reach a mile in length as far as we went; generally you could not see a quarter of a mile of water, and the boat was steadily turning this way or that. At the greater bends, as at the Traverse des Sioux, some of the passengers were landed, and walked across, to be taken in on the other side. Two or three times you could have thrown a stone across the neck of the isthmus, while it was from one to three miles round it.

It was a very novel kind of navigation to me. The boat was perhaps the largest that had been up so high, and the water was rather low; it had been fifteen feet higher. In making a short turn we repeatedly and designedly ran square into the steep and soft bank, taking in a cartload of earth,—this being more effectual than the rudder to fetch