24th.  We were again detained by the fog, till half past five A.M., and after a hard day’s fatiguing toil, I encamped at eight o’clock P.M. on a sandy island in the centre of the Wisconsin.  The water in the river is low, and spreads stragglingly over a wide surface.  The very bed of the river is moving sand.  While supper was preparing, I took from my trunk a towel, clean shirt, and cake of soap, and spent half an hour in bathing in the river upon the clean yellow sand.  After this grateful refreshment, I sank sweetly to repose in my tent.

25th.  The fog dispersed earlier this morning than usual.  We embarked a few minutes after four A.M., and landed for breakfast at ten.  The weather now, was quite sultry, as indeed it has been during the greater part of every day, since leaving Tipesage—­i.e. the Prairie.  Our route this day carried us through the most picturesque and interesting part of the Wisconsin, called the Highlands or River Hills.  Some of these hills are high, with precipitous faces towards the river.  Others terminate in round grassy knobs, with oaks dispersed about the sides.  The name is supposed to have been taken from this feature.[44] Generally speaking, the country has a bald and barren aspect.  Not a tree has apparently been cut upon its banks, and not a village is seen to relieve the tedium of an unimproved wilderness.  The huts of an Indian locality seem “at random cast.”  I have already said these conical and angular hills present masses of white sandstone, whereever they are precipitous.  The river itself is almost a moving mass of white and yellow sand, broad, clear, shallow, and abounding in small woody islands, and willowy sandbars.

[Footnote 44:  Sin, the terminal syllable, is clearly from the Algonquin, Os-sin, a stone.  The French added the letter g, which is the regular local form of the word, agreeably to the true Indian.]

While making these notes I have been compelled to hold my book, pencil and umbrella, the latter being indispensable to keep off the almost tropical fervor of the sun’s rays.  As the umbrella and book must be held in one hand, you may judge that I have managed with some difficulty; and this will account to you for many uncouth letters and much disjointed orthography.  Between the annoyance of insects, the heat of the sun, and the difficulties of the way, we had incessant employment.

At three o’clock P.M. we put ashore for dinner, in a very shaded and romantic spot.  Poetic images were thick about us.  We sat upon mats spread upon a narrow carpet of grass between the river and a high perpendicular cliff.  The latter threw its broad shade far beyond us.  This strip of land was not more than ten feet wide, and had any fragments of rock fallen, they would have crushed us.  But we saw no reason to fear such an event, nor did it at all take from the relish of our dinner.  Green moss had covered the face of the rock, and formed a soft velvet covering, against which we leaned.  The broad and cool river ran at our feet.  Overhanging trees formed a grateful bower around us.  Alas, how are those to be pitied who prefer palaces built with human hands to such sequestered scenes.  What perversity is there in the human understanding, to quit the delightful and peaceful abodes of nature, for noisy towns and dusty streets.