FALLS OF MINNEHAHA. 



Six miles to the west of St. Paul, between the 

 castled rocks at Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. 

 Anthony, is 



" Where the Falls of Minnehaha 

 Flash and gleam among the oak trees, 

 Laugh and leap into the valley." 



The song of Hiawatha has endeared the Laughing 

 Water. With that song passing in my mind, I start- 

 ed in quest of the falls where the ancient arrow 

 maker made his arrow heads of "flint and chalce- 

 dony." A small party of Sioux sat in the same 

 coach with me. One squaw, whose long dishevelled 

 hair was turning into gray, and whose uncouth dark 

 features gleamed with a sort of subtle wildness, par- 

 ticularly hastened the train of my thought. She 

 had not assumed, as indeed had not the others, 

 the dress of white women. Her head was bare, un- 

 less the twisted, cord-like bandana tied tightly about 

 her forehead may be called a covering ; her gown 

 was neither dress nor blanket, and she wore the 

 primitive moccasin. A large piece of black calico 

 thrown about the shoulders answered the purpose 

 of the traditional blanket. What passed before the 

 mind of this old squaw as she was hurried along by 

 a steam horse between high brick walls and over 

 great iron bridges ! She had seen the incoming of 

 the white man ; she had heard the whistle of the 

 first locomotive ; she had seen nature, wild and 

 grand, transformed into the bustle of cities and the 

 naked acres of farms. She had seen the Indian 

 disappear, to live again only in memory and the 

 names of white men's cities. Did she long for the 

 end when she should join her race, or had the mem- 

 ory of her kin been swallowed up in the encroach- 

 ments of a busy civilization ? Surely she must have 

 looked upon the face of nature as one gazes at the 

 portrait of a loved one long since dead ; the very 

 reminders of former days must be reminders of sor- 

 row that could never know a healing. None of the 

 Indians whom we see about our settlements possess 

 any expression of independence or ambition. A 

 hopelessness and a shiftlessness give evidence that 

 the spirit is crushed under the inevitable progress 

 of the white man. 



Minnehaha ! Laughing Water ! sheet of mist in 

 frame of tree-tops ! The fall reminds me of long 

 and thin fleeces of finely broken and snowy woo 

 dropped down the air, turning suddenly into water as 

 they strike the rock ; then they ripple away in a deep 

 and rocky glen with a resonant laughter. The un- 



broken line of the bed of the stream against the sky 

 and the seeming suddenness with which the water 

 breaks over the edge, suggest at once a temporary 

 and almost artificial overflow over an ordinary cliff. 

 And it was some time before I could dispel this idea. 

 If the water had fallen there for ages, why had it not 

 worn off the sharp edge of the cliff ? I afterwards 

 waded across the shallow stream above, almost on 

 the very brink of the plunge, and gathered little 

 plants which were caught in quantities in the slimy 

 alg£e on the rock floor, and broke fruiting specimens 

 from bushes of the false indigo which lay over the 

 farther edge. Upon approaching nearer the fall 

 from my original point of view from below, the idea 

 of the laughing water gave place to one of roaring 

 water. In fact, the loudness of the roar disturbed 

 me, although the volume of water then falling was 

 perhaps at the minimum. 



Midway up the precipice is a horizontal groove in 

 the rock, in which one may walk entirely around 



Another Tree of Life — the Zwa sine nmsa. , 

 15TH Century. (See page 260.) 



behind the fall. The glen below the fall is about 

 half a mile long, wooded with American elm, bass- 



