Chapter V · THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

There was fog on the river in the morning. Across the broad expanse of field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from the Wisconsin, we could see the great white mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the broad channel like a dense coverlid of down. Soon after seven o'clock, the cloud lifted by degrees, and then broke into ragged segments, which settled sluggishly for a while on the tops of the southern line of bluffs and screened their dark amphitheaters from view, till at last dissipated into thin air.

We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or twenty men coming down to the railway-bridge to watch the operation. One of them helped us materially with our bundles, while the rest sat in a row along the trestle, dangling their feet through the spaces between the stringers, and gazing at us as though we were a circus company on the move. A drizzle set in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we descended the Kickapoo under much the same conditions of atmosphere as those we had experienced in pulling against its swirling tide the evening before.

But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and we had, for a time, a calm, quiet journey, a gray light which harmonized well with the wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west breeze which helped us on our way. We were now but twenty miles from the mouth. The parallel ranges of bluff come nearer together, until they are not much over a mile apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter, and deeper, is less encumbered with islands. Upon the peaty banks are the tall white spikes of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses of balsam-apple vines, the gleaming lobelia cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going out of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze-weed, which deserves a better name.

At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there are domiciled two German families, and on the shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the spring, to work up the logs which farmers bring down from the gloomy mountains which back the scene.

Bridgeport, four miles farther,—still on the northern side,—is chiefly a clump of little red railway buildings set up on a high bench carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts resting on the road-bed and their rears on high scaffolding. A few big bowlders rolling down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport over into the river. There is a covered country toll-bridge here, and the industrial interest of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It is the last hamlet on the river.

A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge over the peaks and giving them a far distant aspect; dark clouds now and then lowered and rolled through the upper ravines, reflecting their inky hue upon the surface of the deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had for many miles closely abutted the stream, at last gradually swept away to the north and south, to become part of the great wall which forms the eastern bulwark of the Upper Mississippi. At their base spreads a broad, flat plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy meadows, the delta of the Wisconsin, which, below the Lowertown bridge of the Burlington and Northern railway, is cut up into flood-washed willow islands, flanked by a wide stretch of shifting sand-bars black with tangled roots and stranded logs, the debris of many a spring-time freshet.

It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we came to the junction of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef edging the swamp, which extends northward for five miles to the quaint, ancient little city of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies stranded. A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail, which overhangs the rushing waters as they here commingle. We landed with something akin to reverence, for this must have been about the place where Joliet and Marquette, two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed with rapture upon the mighty Mississippi, which they had at last discovered, after so many thousands of miles of arduous journeying through a savage-haunted wilderness. And indeed it is an imposing sight. To the west, two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on the Iowa side of the great river. Northward there are pretty glimpses of cliffs and rocky beaches through openings in the heavy growth which covers the islands of the upper stream. Southward is a long vista of curving hills and glinting water shut in by the converging ranges. Eastward stretches the green delta of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing bluffs, between whose bases for two centuries has flowed a curious throng of humanity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred and profane, representing many clashing nationalities.

The rain descended in a gentle shower as I was lighting a fire on which to cook our last canoeing meal of the season; and W—— held an umbrella over the already damp kindling in order to give it a chance. We no doubt made a comical picture as we crouched together beneath this shelter, jointly trying to fan the sparks into a flame, for the fisherman, who had been heretofore speechless, and apparently rapt in his occupation, burst out into a hearty laugh. When we turned to look at him he hid his face under his upturned coat-collar, and giggled to himself like a schoolgirl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and after we had presented him with a cup of coffee and what solids we could spare from our now meager store, he warmed into a very communicative mood, and gave us much detailed, though rather highly colored, information about the locality, especially as to its natural features.

The rain had ceased by the time dinner was over; so we bade farewell to the happy fisherman and the presiding deities of the Wisconsin, and pulled up the giant Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, stopping on our way to visit an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous, where flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum—America's nearest approach to the lotus of the Nile.

And thus was accomplished the season's stint of six hundred miles of canoeing upon the Historic Waterways of Illinois and Wisconsin.