PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 25 



enjoyed together. Finding no arguments available, and, in 

 fact, that he had already executed his purpose of a second 

 marriage, she observed her opportunity, launched her light 

 bark canoe, and placing her children in it, pushed off into the 

 stream above the fall. Her death song was heard, clear and 

 shrill, by her friends upon the banks of the river. She 

 recited, with a mournful voice, the pleasure she had enjoyed 

 when the undivided object of her husband's affection. As 

 she fell faster and faster down the current, her voice became 

 lost in the sound of the cataract. Her boat was borne to the 

 edge of the cascade, was seen for a moment in the spray and 

 mist that hovered over the water, and disappeared, to be seen 

 no more. The Indians say that, often, in the morning, a 

 voice is heard singing a mournful requiem, the burden of 

 which is the inconstancy of her husband. And some assert 

 that the spirit of Ampato Sapa has been seen wandering 

 about the place with her children in her bosom. 



For a description of the head-waters and superior course of 

 the Missisippi, I quote Mr. Nicollet, the most recent, the 

 most accurate, the most lively, and the most graphic descrip- 

 tion given of this stream. 



" The Missisippi holds its own from its very origin ; for it 



is not necessary to suppose, as has been done, that Lake 



Itasca may be supplied with invisible sources, to justify the 



character of a remarkable stream, which it assumes at its 



issue from this lake. There are five creeks that fall into it, 



formed by innumerable streamlets oozing from the clay beds 



at the bases of the hills, that consist of an accumulation of 



sand, gravel, arid clay, intermixed with erratic fragments, 



being a more prominent portion of the great eiTatic deposit 



previously described, and which here is known by the name 



of hauteurs des terres — heights of land. 



" These elevations are commonly flat at top, varying in 



3 



