27th.  A very severe shower of rain fell about three o’clock A.M.; it detained us in our camp until five, when we embarked.  Why should I relate to you our dull progress through fields of rice—­through intricate channels, and amidst myriads of ducks and wild water fowl.  This day has been hot, beyond any experience on the journey.  I sank back in my canoe, in a state of apathy and lassitude, partly from the heat, and partly from indisposition.  My thoughts were employed upon home.  A thousand phantoms passed through my head.  I tried to imagine how you were employed at this moment, whether busy, or sick in your own room.  It would require a volume to trace my wandering thoughts.  Let it suffice that another day is nearly gone, and it has lessened the distance which separated us, about seventy miles.

28th.  I encamped, last night, near a large village of Winnebagoes and Menomonies.  They complained to me of want of food and ammunition.  I distributed among them a quantity of powder, ball, and shot, and some bread, hard biscuit, pork, and tobacco.  Never were people more grateful, and never, I believe, was a more appropriate distribution made.  I had purchased these articles for the Chippewa Nation, to be used on my contemplated voyage home, from the Prairie, through Chippewa River and Lake Superior, before the design of going that way was relinquished.  The fact was, I could get no men to go that way, so alarmed were they by the recent murder of Finley and his party.

About two o’clock A.M.  I was awoke by a very heavy storm of rain and wind, attended with loud peals of thunder.  The violence of the wind blew down my tent, and my blankets, &c. received some damage.  After this mishap the wind abated, and having got my tent re-arranged, I again went to sleep.  I dreamt of attending the funeral of an esteemed friend, who was buried with honors, attended to the grave by a large train.  I have no recollection of the name of this friend, nor whether male or female.  I afterwards visited the house of this person, and the room in which he (or she) died.  I closed the door with dread and sorrow, afflicted by the views of the couch where one so much esteemed had expired.  The mansion was large, and elegantly furnished.  I lost my way in it, and rung a large bell that hung in the hall.  At this, many persons, male and female, came quickly into the hall from folding doors, as if, I thought, they had been summoned to dinner.  As you have sometimes inclined to believe in these fantastic operations of the human mind, when asleep, I record them for your amusement, or reflection.  Was this an allegory of the destructive effects of the storm, mixed with my banquet to my Indian friends, the Menomonies and Winnebagoes?

After descending the river more than twenty miles we landed at la Butte des Morts to cook breakfast.  Immediately on landing my attention was attracted by a small white flag hanging from a high pole.  I went to It and found a recent Indian grave, very neatly and carefully covered with boards.  The Indian had been struck dead by lightning a few days previous.  Is this the interpretation of my dream, or must I follow my fears to St. Mary’s, to witness some of our family suffering on the bed of sickness.  God, in his mercy, forbid!