Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/75

 for instance, last summer. I saw a peak at Hastings from Red Wing, which has a graveyard cross on it.

From Prairie du Chien Thoreau posted swiftly across Wisconsin to Milwaukee, and there embarked on a steamer for Mackinaw,—the propeller Edith. He noted, in the six miles up the valley of the Wisconsin River, that it was broad and shallow, with bordering bluffs two or three miles apart. He glided by the picturesque State Capitol at Madison between its lakes, which he noticed, but gave his chief attention to the flowers of the rolling prairies.

Abundance of mullein in Wisconsin. Great abundance, too, of the tall spikenard,—also the Rudbeckia, the red, white, and yellow lily, the blue flag, and the white water-ranunculus. Milwaukee, of all the settled places, has the best harbor on Lake Michigan. There are shoals and rocks up the lake, but good harbors at Traverse Bay and behind islands on the northeast side. The lake is ninety miles wide and we cannot see across