SOURCE OF ST. PETEr's RIVER. 155 



mation evidently of the latest date, and which probably 

 still continues to increase ; it was filled with vegetables, 

 some of which were unaltered, while others appeared to 

 have undergone a partial decomposition. 



Having engaged an Indian to lead us back from Mr. 

 M'Coy's to the Chicago trace, we resumed our journey on 

 the 3d of June. Our guide's hoary head would have satisfied 

 even Humboldt himself, that his assertion " that the hair of 

 Indians never becomes gray," was too general.* We have 

 met with many instances, and the circumstance is so na- 

 tural that we should not have mentioned it, but for the im- 

 portance attached to the slightest observation of a traveller 

 so accurate as Humboldt generally is. After travelling 

 about ten miles through a prairie we parted from our guide, 

 who considered himself amply rewarded with about half a 

 pound of gunpowder. We then entered upon what is 

 termed the fourteen mile prairie, which for the first seven 

 miles presented an extensive plain uninterrupted by the 

 least elevation, and undiversified by the prospect of a 

 single tree. We had occasion to observe, on a for- 

 mer occasion, that the route which we travelled carried 

 us along the height of land that separates the waters 

 tributary to the Mississippi from those which empty into 

 the lakes ; and we had an opportunity of seeing this con- 

 firmed, in this place, by the fact that a communication be- 

 tween those waters has been efiected, during wet seasons, 

 through the fourteen mile prairie. It appears that a very 

 deep swamp, which we avoided by our visit to the mission 

 station, establishes a connection between two streams one 

 of which empties its waters into the Kankakee, while those 

 of the other run to the St. Joseph. This has afforded, and 

 still continues to afford every year an easy communication 



* Polit. Ess. on the Kingd. of New Spain, (Lond. 1811,) vol. i.p. 150, 



