51* LIFE ON F£TE MISSISSIPPI,
* Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded
summer tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff
impressive and preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and
the St. Croix; and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and
steeples of St. Paul, giant young chief of the North, marching with
seven-league stride in the van of progress, banner-bearer of the highest?
and newest civilisation, carving his beneficent way with the torn* -!
hawk of commercial enterprise, sounding the warwhoop of Christian
culture, tearing off the reek^ scalp of sloth and superstition to plant
there the steam-plough and the school-house—ever in his front stretch
arid lawlessness, ignorance, crime, despair; ever in his wake bloom
the jail, the gallows, and the pulpit; and ever------'
' Have you ever travelled with a panorama ? *
' I have formerly served in that capacity.1
My suspicion was confirmed.
* Do you still travel with it!f
' No, she is laid up till the fall season opens. I am helping now
to work up the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St, Louisand
St. Paul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the
benefit of travellers who go by that line/
* When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-
departed Winona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the
maiden of the rock?—and are the two connected by legend $'
*Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most
celebrated, as well as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the
Mississippi/
We asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational
rein and back into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as
follows—
* A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as
Maiden's Bock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of
romantic interest from the event which gave it its name. Not many
years ago this locality was a favourite resort for the Sioux Indians
on account of the fine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large
numbers of them were always to be found in this locality. Among
the families which used to resort here, was one belonging to the tribe
of Wabasha, We-no-na (first-born) was the name of a maiden wfctf