“In the land of the Dacotahs,
Where the Falls of Minnehaha,
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley.”

St. Paul, “the diadem city of the northwest,” situated on high bluffs, at a bend of the river, looked very imposing in the light of a glowing sunset. The noisy cries of the hackmen and runners for the different hotels filled the air as the boat touched the wharf. Fourteen of the passengers took the stage for St. Anthony’s Falls. Norman was seated on the top of the stage-coach. The glimmering twilight and the pale moonlight were not, however, very favorable for distant views of a new country. Companies of emigrants had pitched their tents and 101kindled their fire to cook their evening meal. The light played upon the faces of parents and children grouped around the fire, and fell upon the white cover of the prairie wagons, near which the horses were tied.

There were glimpses of the Mississippi, of a large hotel and a high observatory; and exclamations from sleepy children at the great musquetos lighting upon their faces in the darkness. There was a sound of waters in the air, and a great building loomed up in the dim light, and they were at the Winslow House. Great halls, large parlors richly furnished, and bed-rooms with velvet carpets and luxuriously stuffed chairs. Very grand for the northwest. It was past eleven o’clock, and the wearied travelers were glad to seek repose.

At four o’clock in the morning Mrs. Lester was awakened by a knock at her door. It was from an untiring fellow-traveler, 102who wished to see all that was to be seen in time to return to the Grey Eagle at ten. Mrs. Lester thanked her, but said she could not get ready in time, and from her window she watched the lady, her brother, and her niece on their way to the falls and the bridge. Sightseeing seemed particularly unattractive in that grey morning twilight that clothes the landscape with a more sober livery than that of evening.

After some ineffectual attempts to arouse Norman, Mrs. Lester went to the observatory, at the top of the great hotel, to see the sun rise. It was a noble view; the town of St. Anthony immediately beneath the eye; the Mississippi, with its falls, suspension bridge, and wooded island above, and the rocky chasm below; Minneapolis, with its spires and fine hotels, on the opposite side of the river, and the boundless prairie meeting the sky in that encircling horizon.
103

No. 666.

FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.

105At length Norman was awakened, and after sundry calls from his mother to hasten his movements, he sallied forth with her for a walk. Walking down the street for some distance, they crossed a little bridge leading past a large stone mill, and after scrambling over a stony path, they came to the edge of the river and in view of the falls. Norman’s disappointment was great. “Why, mother,” said he, “have we come all this distance to see these falls?”

In truth they were not very imposing. The stream above was filled with logs, floated down to be sawed in the mill, and many of them were lodged above and below the fall, while a shingle-machine was built in the center. Man’s work had taken away all the wild grace of nature.

The fall is only seventeen feet high, but the whole scene looks finely from the bridge below, and from the Minneapolis side, whence it was seen by the party that 106set out on their rambles at four o’clock in the morning.

It was a very warm morning, but near the river the air was cool and refreshing, and Norman gathered wild roses and rose-buds in all their dewy freshness. The charm of early birds, too, was not wanting at Owah-Menah, the musical Indian name, changed by Father Hennepin, a French missionary, who visited this spot in 1680, to St. Anthony’s Falls.

As the falls of a mighty river, they are worth seeing; and they are at the point of transition from the prairies of the Upper Mississippi, to the rugged limestone bluffs below; oaks growing above, and cedars and pines below.

On their way to the hotel Norman gathered some purple flowers growing in great profusion, while his mother wandered to the suspension bridge so gracefully thrown over the river, looked at the 107pretty wooded island, and at the mass of drift logs collected in the boom.

After a nice and beautifully served breakfast, Norman and his mother got into a carriage to return to St. Paul and the Grey Eagle. They would have liked to spend the day at St. Paul, but Mrs. Lester was anxious to return home, as she thought she would be able to do, before the Sabbath. They crossed the suspension bridge, drove through Minneapolis, called to say good-by to Mrs. Lisle and the children, who had added so much to the pleasure of their river travel, and then rapidly over the broad prairie.

Their attention was attracted by a lonely tomb, deeply shaded with trees, on the banks of the Minnehaha, and the driver told them that it was the tomb of the young wife and child of an officer of the army, who, when stationed at Fort Snelling, buried his beloved ones on the banks of this romantic stream.

108The driver stopped; they were on the prairie, with nothing to excite expectation.
“The falls of Minnehaha[2]
Did not call them from a distance;
Did not cry to them............