Black Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts;as was Keokuk's,further down.A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de Mort--Death's-head rock,or bluff--to the top of which the French drove a band of Indians,in early times,and cooped them up there,with death for a certainty,and only the manner of it matter of choice--to starve,or jump off and kill themselves.
Black Hawk adopted the ways of the white people,toward the end of his life;and when he died he was buried,near Des Moines,in Christian fashion,modified by Indian custom;that is to say,clothed in a Christian military uniform,and with a Christian cane in his hand,but deposited in the grave in a sitting posture.
Formerly,a horse had always been buried with a chief.
The substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty nature was really humbled,and he expected to walk when he got over.
We noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi was olive-green--rich and beautiful and semi-transparent,with the sun on it.
Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexion as it is in some other seasons of the year;for now it was at flood stage,and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from caving banks.
The majestic bluffs that overlook the river,along through this region,charm one with the grace and variety of their forms,and the soft beauty of their adornment.The steep verdant slope,whose base is at the water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken,turreted rocks,which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark browns and dull greens,but splashed with other tints.
And then you have the shining river,winding here and there and yonder,its sweep interrupted at intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded by silver channels;and you have glimpses of distant villages,asleep upon capes;and of stealthy rafts slipping along in the shade of the forest walls;and of white steamers vanishing around remote points.
And it is all as tranquil and reposeful as dreamland,and has nothing this-worldly about it--nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.
Until the unholy train comes tearing along--which it presently does,ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil's warwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels--and straightway you are back in this world,and with one of its frets ready to hand for your entertainment:for you remember that this is the very road whose stock always goes down after you buy it,and always goes up again as soon as you sell it.It makes me shudder to this day,to remember that I once came near not getting rid of my stock at all.
It must be an awful thing to have a railroad left on your hands.
The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost the whole way from St.Louis to St.Paul--eight hundred miles.
These railroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce.
The clerk of our boat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built.In that day the influx of population was so great,and the freight business so heavy,that the boats were not able to keep up with the demands made upon their carrying capacity;consequently the captains were very independent and airy--pretty 'biggity,'as Uncle Remus would say.The clerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former time and the present,thus--'Boat used to land--captain on hurricane roof--mighty stiff and straight--iron ramrod for a spine--kid gloves,plug tile,hair parted behind--man on shore takes off hat and says--
"Got twenty-eight tons of wheat,cap'n--be great favor if you can take them."'Captain says--
"'ll take two of them"--and don't even condescend to look at him.
'But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch,and smiles all the way around to the back of his ears,and gets off a bow which he hasn't got any ramrod to interfere with,and says--"Glad to see you,Smith,glad to see you--you're looking well--haven't seen you looking so well for years--what you got for us?""Nuth'n",says Smith;and keeps his hat on,and just turns his back and goes to talking with somebody else.
'Oh,yes,eight years ago,the captain was on top;but it's Smith's turn now.
Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every stateroom full,and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor;and a solid deck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below,into the bargain.
To get a first-class stateroom,you'd got to prove sixteen quarterings of nobility and four hundred years of descent,or be personally acquainted with the nigger that blacked the captain's boots.
But it's all changed now;plenty staterooms above,no harvesters below--there's a patent self-binder now,and they don't have harvesters any more;they've gone where the woodbine twineth--and they didn't go by steamboat,either;went by the train.'
Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down--but not floating leisurely along,in the old-fashioned way,manned with joyous and reckless crews of fiddling,song-singing,whiskey-drinking,breakdown-dancing rapscallions;no,the whole thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stern-wheeler,modern fashion,and the small crews were quiet,orderly men,of a sedate business aspect,with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere.
Along here,somewhere,on a black night,we ran some exceedingly narrow and intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light.
Behind was solid blackness--a crackless bank of it;ahead,a narrow elbow of water,curving between dense walls of foliage that almost touched our bows on both sides;and here every individual leaf,and every individual ripple stood out in its natural color,and flooded with a glare as of noonday intensified.
The effect was strange,and fine,and very striking.
We passed Prairie du Chien,another of Father Marquette's camping-places;and after some hours of progress through varied and beautiful scenery,reached La Crosse.Here is a town of twelve or thirteen thousand population,with electric lighted streets,and with blocks of buildings which are stately enough,and also architecturally fine enough,to command respect in any city.
It is a choice town,and we made satisfactory use of the hour allowed us,in roaming it over,though the weather was rainier than necessary.