SOURCE OF ST. PETEr's RIVER. 235 



CHAPTER VI. 



Prairie du Chien. Indian remains. Division of the 

 party. Mississippi. Dacota villages. Fort St. ^dn^ 

 thony. Falls. River St. Peter. 



OUR arrival at Prairie du Chien, at a late hour in the 

 evening of the 1 9th of June, prevented us from obtain- 

 ing a sight of the Mississippi ; but early the next morn- 

 ing we hastened to take a view of this important river 

 which, from its extent, the number and size of its tributa- 

 ries, the importance of the country which it drains, will 

 bear a comparison with any known stream of the old or 

 new continent. It is one of those grand natural objects, 

 the sight of which forms an era in one's life. 



To have been the first civilized man, who viewed the 

 mighty Mississippi, was, as we conceive, by no means an 

 undesirable distinction. And however diflicult it may be, 

 at this distant epocha, to ascertain who that man may have 

 been, the inquiry is not the less interesting or useful in 

 the history of human discoveries. So far as our reading 

 extends at present, injustice is done to Alvar Nuiiez Ca- 

 beza de Vaca. He traversed North America from Espiritu 

 Santo (Tampa) Bay to New Galicia, between the years 

 1528 and 1537, and consequently must have seen this river, 

 having ci'ossed it above or at its mouth ; though in his 

 " Naufragios" he has given neither name nor description by 

 which it can be identified 5 his curiosity was repressed by 

 extreme suffering and the little hope he entertained of 

 again seeing his country. Hernando de Soto arrived at 

 its banks below the Arkansaw in 1541, and found it there 

 called " Chucagua ;" his body was thrown into it the next 



