SOURCE OF ST. PETER's RIVER. 147 



Avliich we have in vain looked for on many an occasion. 

 The dreariness of our last encampment contrasted so 

 strongly with the calmness of the present, that it powerfully 

 reminded us of that constant mutability in the situation of 

 man, which perhaps finds its parallel only in the unceasing 

 changes which his ideas and his feelings undergo. 



The next day we proceeded along the southern bank of the 

 Elkheart and observed its junction with the St. Joseph. This 

 last mentioned stream is known by the appellation of St. 

 Joseph of Lake Michigan, in contradistinction to the river 

 of the same name which empties into Lake Erie, and which 

 we saw at Fort Wayne. The St. Joseph of Michigan is a 

 fine stream, deeply incased ; it is about one hundred yards 

 wide, and being at that time very full, was both deep and 

 rapid ; it is the finest stream we have met with since we 

 left the Muskingum, and perhaps even the Ohio. A beau- 

 tiful prairie with a fine rich soil, ojfifered to the party an 

 easy mode of travelling, and the occasional glimpses which 

 they caught of the St. Joseph and its adjoining forests, 

 afibrded them a series of varied but ever beautiful prospects, 

 which were rendered more picturesque by the ruins of 

 Strawberry, Rum, and St. Joseph's villages, formerly the 

 residence of Indians or of the first French settlers. It was 

 curious to trace the difference in the remains of the habi- 

 tations of the red and white man in the midst of this dis- 

 tant solitude. While the untenanted cabin of the Indian 

 presented in its neighbourhood but the remains of an old 

 cornfield overgrown with weeds, the rude hut of the 

 Frenchman was surrounded with vines, and with the 

 remains of his former gardening exertions. The asparagus, 

 the pea-vine, and the woodbine, still grow about it, as 

 though in defiance of the revolutions which have dispersed 

 those who planted them here. The very names of the vil- 



