242 EXPEDITION TO THE 



them. The hills are generally elevated from three hundred 

 to four or five hundred feet above the valleys ; they are hand- 

 somely rounded upon their top, but abrupt and precipitous 

 on their sides, and almost inaccessible except through the 

 numerous ravines by which they are cut. The valleys are 

 many of them broad, and appear well adapted to tillage 

 and pasture ; the highlands are also well calculated for the 

 raising of grain. The country is generally prairie land, 

 but the hills and valleys are in some places covered with a 

 scattering growth of fine timber, consisting of white, red, 

 and post oak, hickory, white walnut,* sugar tree, maple, 

 white and blue ash, American box, &z:c." 



It is probable that Prairie du Chien was formerly the 

 seat of a large Indian population. The beauty of the coun- 

 try, its favourable characters for hunting, its delightful 

 jsituation on the banks of the river, must have made it a 

 pleasant abode for Indians ; it is doubtful, or at least we 

 have not been able to ascertain, to what nation belonged 

 the family of the Dog Indians, whose name it bears. This 

 family has become extinct; the traditions concerning the 

 fate of its members are very indistinct; it is said that a 

 large party of Indians came down the Wisconsan from 

 Greenbay, and after having massacred nearly the whole of 

 them, returned again to the Bay ; that a few of the Dogs, 

 who had succeeded in making their escape to the woods, 

 returned after their enemies had evacuated the prairie, and 

 reestablished themselves in their former residence ; and 

 that these were the Indians found at that place by the first 

 French settlers. 



This spot, like many of those early settled, has been graced 

 with traditions, which, if they contribute but little to the 

 history of our north-west Indians, adorn at least with the 

 * Jiiglans cinerea. 



