We had now seventy miles to pass through a country perfectly monotonous and uninteresting, the distastefulness of which was aggravated by the knowledge that we could, had we been provided with horses or a carriage of any kind, have crossed over to the Portage from Gleason’s, through a pleasant country, in little more than three hours.  Even our great resource, the cheering, animating songs of our voyageurs, was out of the question; for the river, though deep, is so narrow that, in many places, there is no room for the regular play of the oars; and the voices of Frenchmen can never “keep tune” unless their oars can “keep time.”  Lapierre, one of our men, did his best with a paddle, or, as he called it, the “little row,” but it was to no purpose—­it would not go.  Besides this, the wild rice abounds to such an extent in many places, that it almost completely obstructs the progress of even a moderate-sized boat, so that a passage through its tangled masses is with difficulty forced by the oars.  Tedious and monotonous as was the whole course of the two following days, the climax of impatience and discouragement was not reached until we arrived in sight of the white walls of Fort Winnebago, looking down from a rising ground upon the vast expanse of low land through which the river winds.

The Indians have a tradition that a vast serpent once lived in the waters of the Mississippi, and that, taking a freak to visit the Great Lakes, he left his trail through the prairies, which, collecting the waters from the meadows and the rains of heaven as they fell, at length became the Fox River.

The little lakes along its course were probably the spots where he flourished about in his uneasy slumbers at night.  He must have played all the antics of a kitten in the neighborhood of the Portage.  When the fort was first pointed out to me, I exclaimed, with delight, “Oh, we shall be there in half an hour!”

“Not quite so soon,” said my husband, smiling.  “Wait and see.”  We sat and watched.  We seemed approaching the very spot where we were to disembark.  We could distinguish the officers and a lady on the bank waiting to receive us.  Now we were turning our backs on them, and shooting out into the prairie again.  Anon we approached another bank, on which was a range of comfortable-looking log houses.  “That’s the Agency,” said my husband; “the largest house belongs to Paquette, the interpreter, and the others are the dwellings of our Frenchmen.  The little building, just at the foot of the hill, is the blacksmith’s shop, kept there by the Government, that the Indians may have their guns and traps mended free of expense.”

“But are we going to stop there?”

“No; do you not see we are going back to the fort?”

And, to be sure, our course had now turned, and we were setting in our first direction.  In this manner, after tacking to the right and left and putting backwards and forwards during the greater part of two hours, we at length reached the little landing, on which the assembled party stood ready to greet us.