In going forward we passed two canoes of Menomonies, going out on their fall hunt, on the Chippewa River.  These people have no hunting grounds of their own, and are obliged to the courtesy of neighboring nations for a subsistence.  They are the most erratic of all our tribes, and may be said to be almost nomadic.  We had already passed the canoes, when Mr. Lewis, the portrait painter, called out stoutly behind us, from an island in the river.  “Oh! ho!  I did not know but there was some other breaking of the canoe, or worse disaster, and directed the men to put back.  See, see,” said he, “that fellow’s nose!  Did you ever see such a protuberance?” It was one of the Menomonies from Butte des Morts, with a globular irregular lump on the end of his nose, half as big as a man’s fist.  Lewis’s artistic risibles were at their height, and he set to work to draw him.  I could think of nothing appropriate, but Sterne and Strasbourg.

23d.  A heavy fog detained us at Caramani’s village, till near 6 A.M.  The fog, however, still continued, so thick as to conceal objects at twenty yards distance.  We consequently went cautiously.  Both this day and yesterday we have been constantly in sight of Indian canoes, on their return from the treaty.  Wooden canoes are exclusively used by the Winnebagoes.  They are pushed along with poles.

We passed a precipitous range of hills near Pine Creek, on one of which is a cave, called by our boatmen L’diable au Port.  This superstition of peopling dens and other dark places with the “arch fiend,” is common.  If the “old serpent” has given any proofs to the French boatmen of his residence here, I shall only hope that he will confine himself to this river, and not go about troubling quiet folks in the land of the Lakes.

At Pine River we went inland about a mile to see an old mine, probably the remains of French enterprise, or French credulity.  But all its golden ores had flown, probably frightened off by the old fellow of L’diable au Port.  We saw only pits dug in the sand overgrown with trees.

Near this spot in the river, we overtook Shingabowossin and his party of Chippewas.  They had left the prairie on the same day that we did, but earlier.  They had been in some dread of the Winnebagoes, and stopped on the island to wait for us.

In passing the channel of Detour, we observed many thousand tons of white rock lying in the river, which had lately fallen from the bank, leaving a solid perpendicular precipice.  This rock, banks and ruins, is, like all the Wisconsin Valley rocks, a very white and fine sandstone.

We passed five canoes of Menomonies, on their way to hunt on Chippewa River, to whom I presented some powder, lead, and flour.  They gave me a couple of fish, of the kind called pe-can-o by the Indians.