Fountain City about noon. Bluffs further apart & channels more numerous than yesterday. 2 or 3 miles from bluff to bluff. Take wood boat along with us. Oaks commonly open on hills. Indians encamped below Wabashaw with Dacotah shaped wigwams. Loon on lake & fish leap. Every town has a wharf with a storage building or several & as many hotels as anything & commission merchants – “Storage, Forwarding, & Commission” – one or all these words on the most prominent new building close to the waterside. Perhaps a heap of sacks filled with wheat on the natural quay or levee close by – or about Dubuque & Dunleith a blue stack of pig lead which is in no danger of being washed away. See where they have dug for lead in the sides of the bluffs for many miles above Galena.
The steamer whistles, then strikes its bell about 6 times funereally & with a pause after the 3rd & You see the whole village making haste to the landing – commonly the raw stony or sandy shore. The postmaster with his bag, the passengers, & almost every dog & pig in the town of commonly one narrow street under the bluff & back yards at angles of about 45 with the horizon. If there is more flat space between the water & the bluff, it is almost sure to be occupied by a flourishing & larger town.
We deserted the outside at a few miles above Red Wing where there was a remarkable bluff (Red-Wing Bluff) standing apart before the town as we approached it. Reached St. Pauls at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. The bluffs are here very much lower & even below Red Wing they had been far more interrupted by hollows. We wooded up again before making Lake Pepin, taking the boat along with us, now on this side, then on that. White maple, &c. See more & more white birch on bluffs.
