NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 273 



I had now readied the summit between the St. Croix and Lake 

 Superior. The elevation of this summit has not been scientifically 

 determined; but from the great fall of the Brule, cannot be less 

 than 600 feet. The length of the Bruld is about 100 miles, in 

 which there are 240 distinct rapids. Some of these are from eight 

 to ten feet each. Four of them require portages, at which all the 

 canoes are discharged. The river itself, on looking down it, ap- 

 pears to be a perfect torrent, foaming and roaring ; and it could 

 never be used by the traders at all, were it not that it had abund- 

 ance of water, being the off-drain for an extensive plateau of lakes 

 and springs. To give an adequate idea of this foaming torrent, 

 it is necessary to conceive of a river flowing down a pair of stairs, 

 a hundred miles long. 



The portage from the St. Croix to it begins on marsh, ascending 

 in a hundred yards or so, to an elevated sandy plain, which 

 has been covered, at former times, with a heavy forest of the 

 pinus resinosa ; that having been consumed, there is left here and 

 there a dry trunk, or auk^ as the Indians call it. The length of 

 the portage path is 3,350 yards, or about two miles. At this dis- 

 tance, we reach a small, sandy-bottomed brook, of four feet wide 

 and a foot deep, of most clear crystalline cold water, winding its 

 way, in a most serpentine manner, through a boggy tract, and 

 overhung with dense alder bushes. It is a good place to slake 

 one's thirst, but appears like anything else than a stream to 

 embark on, with canoes and baggage. Nobody but an Indian 

 would seem to have ever dreamed of it. Yet on this brook we 

 embarked. It was now six o'clock in the evening. By going a 

 distance below, and damming up the stream, a sufficient depth of 

 water was got to float the canoes. The axe was used to cut away 

 the alders. The men walked, guiding the canoes, and carrying 

 some of the baggage. In this way we moved slowly, about one 

 mile, when it became quite dark, and threatened rain. The voya- 

 geurs then searched about for a place on the bog dry enough to 

 sleep on, and came, with joy, and told me that they had found a 

 kind of bog, with bunches of grassy tufts, which are called by 

 them tete de femme. The very poetry of the idea was something, 

 and I was really happy, amid the intense gloom, to rest my head, 

 for the night, on these fair tufts. The next morning we were 

 astir as soon as there was light enough to direct our steps. After 

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