CHAPTER 59

Legends and Scenery

WE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others an

old gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early

settlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably proud of

it, too. He said--

'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the Hudson

points. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high, and

just as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres; and Trempeleau

Island, which isn't like any other island in America, I believe, for it

is a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is full of Indian

traditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun

just right there, you will have a picture that will stay with you. And

above Winona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come the Thousand

Islands, too beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage so

green, nor packed so thick; it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat

on a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrous

bluffs on both sides of the river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--just

the frame that's wanted; you always want a strong frame, you know, to

throw up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out.'

The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not

very powerful ones.

After this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery, and

described it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands to St. Paul;

naming its names with such facility, tripping along his theme with such

nimble and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here and

there, with such a complacent air of 't

isn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off fine

surprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals, that I

presently began to suspect--

But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--

'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly at

the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward the

blue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have

known no other contact save that of angels' wings.

'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendous

aspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration, about

twelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, with

romantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloud

shadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing

Mount Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted.

'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six hundred

feet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is attracted

by a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the ideal

mountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface girding its

sides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator to wonder

at nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb views of the

forests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyond for miles are

brought within its focus. What grander river scenery can be conceived,

as we gaze upon this enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point of

these bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and awful

loneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God, excite

feelings of unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which can

never be effaced from the memory, as we view them in any direction.

'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature's

hand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon the

river widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley

before us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with

verdant forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding in

their lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, puissant

foe of Bright's disease, and that grandest conception of nature's

works, incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon the

tourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture unappeased and

unappeasable.

'And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic domes,

the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter,

romantic superstition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as the

birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears

the soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song

and story.

'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summer

tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and

preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and

anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant

young chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the

van of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization,

carving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise,

sounding the warwhoop of Christian culture, tearing off the reeking

scalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the

school-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance,

crime, despair; ever in his wake bloom the jail, the gallows, and the

pulpit; and ever--'

'Have you ever traveled with a panorama?'

'I have formerly served in that capacity.'

My suspicion was confirmed.

'Do you still travel with it?'

'No, she is laid up till the fall season opens. I am helping now to work

up the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St. Louis and St.

Paul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the benefit of

travelers who go by that line.'

'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-departed

Winona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the maiden of the

rock?--and are the two connected by legend?'

'Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most celebrated, as

well as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the Mississippi.'

We asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational vein and

back into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as follows--

'A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as Maiden's

Rock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of romantic

interest from the event which gave it its name, Not many years ago this

locality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on account of the

fine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large numbers of them were

always to be found in this locality. Among the families which used

to resort here, was one belonging to the tribe of Wabasha. We-no-na

(first-born) was the name of a maiden who had plighted her troth to a

lover belonging to the same band. But her stern parents had promised her

hand to another, a famous warrior, and insisted on her wedding him. The

day was fixed by her parents, to her great grief. She appeared to accede

to the proposal and accompany them to the rock, for the purpose of

gathering flowers for the feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na ran

to its summit and standing on its edge upbraided her parents who were

below, for their cruelty, and then singing a death-dirge, threw herself

from the precipice and dashed them in pieces on the rock below.'

'Dashed who in pieces--her parents?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say. And moreover,

there is a startling kind of dramatic surprise about it which I was not

looking for. It is a distinct improvement upon the threadbare form of

Indian legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from

whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the only

jump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way. What

became of Winona?'

'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself together

and disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot; and 'tis

said she sought and married her true love, and wandered with him to

some distant clime, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle spirit

mellowed and chastened by the romantic incident which had so early

deprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother's love and a father's

protecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended, upon the cold charity of

a censorious world.'

I was glad to hear the lecturer's description of the scenery, for it

assisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to imagine

such of it as we lost by the intrusion of night.

As the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with Indian

tales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually merely

mention this fact--doing it in a way to make a body's mouth water--and

judiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impression left, was that

these tales were full of incident and imagination--a pleasant impression

which would be promptly dissipated if the tales were told. I showed him

a lot of this sort of literature which I had been collecting, and he

confessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly sorry rubbish; and I

ventured to add that the legends which he had himself told us were of

this character, with the single exception of the admirable story of

Winona. He granted these facts, but said that if I would hunt up Mr.

Schoolcraft's book, published near fifty years ago, and now doubtless

out of print, I would find some Indian inventions in it that were very

far from being barren of incident and imagination; that the tales in

Hiawatha were of this sort, and they came from Schoolcraft's book; and

that there were others in the same book which Mr. Longfellow could have

turned into verse with good effect. For instance, there was the legend

of 'The Undying Head.' He could not tell it, for many of the details

had grown dim in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it and

enlarge my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale,

and most of the others in the book, were current among the Indians

along this part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and that

the contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indian

lips, and had written them down with strict exactness, and without

embellishments of their own.

I have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several legends

in it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them--'The Undying

Head,' and 'Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons.' The latter

is used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the original form, if

only that one may see how effective a genuine poem can be without the

helps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm--

PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.

An old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side of a frozen

stream. It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out, He

appeared very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and

he trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and he

heard nothing but the sound of the tempest, sweeping before it the

new-fallen snow.

One day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached and

entered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth,

his eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips. He

walked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a wreath

of sweet grass, in place of a warrior's frontlet, and he carried a bunch

of flowers in his hand.

'Ah, my son,' said the old man, 'I am happy to see you. Come in. Come

and tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have been to

see. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowess and

exploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will

amuse ourselves.'

He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe, and having

filled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leaves,

handed it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they began to

speak.

'I blow my breath,' said the old man, 'and the stream stands still. The

water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.'

'I breathe,' said the young man, 'and flowers spring up over the plain.'

'I shake my locks,' retorted the old man, 'and snow covers the land. The

leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them away.

The birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land. The animals

hide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as hard as

flint.'

'I shake my ringlets,' rejoined the young man, 'and warm showers of

soft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of

the earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice

recalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Music

fills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.'

At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place.

The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began

to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door,

and the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly on the vernal

breeze.

Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his

entertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of

Peboan.{footnote [Winter.]} Streams began to flow from his eyes. As the

sun increased, he grew less and less in stature, and anon had melted

completely away. Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the

miskodeed,{footnote [The trailing arbutus.]} a small white flower, with

a pink border, which is one of the earliest species of northern plants.

'The Undying Head' is a rather long tale, but it makes up in weird

conceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of

movement, for what it lacks in brevity.{footnote [See appendix D.]}