We have just got here; it is now about quarter past eleven, & we arrived here about quarter before ten. We had a very pleasant passage up the river. The cars left Chicago, Thursday morning about ten o’clock and we got to Dunleith at 20 minutes after six in the evening and went onto the boat “Itasca” & got our suppers, then I went on shore and got a few minerals out of the bluff and also a few flowers, when I went back to the boat and went to bed. The boat left Dunleith about 8:30 in the morning and went over to Dubuque across the river, and got under way about 9 o’clock in the morning We got to Prairie du Chien about 5 P.M. and had to wait till 8 P.M. for the cars with were late; in the morning we stopped at Brownsville, the first town on the river in Minnesota, about five o’clock, and at about four in the afternoon we entered Lake Pepin, arrived at Red Wing at about 7:30 P.M. and a little while after they left there we went to bed. The boat got to St. Paul about 2 or 3 o’clock this morning; we left it at six and went up in town to the American House where we got breakfast at 7:30 and at about 8:30 we left in the stage coach in a driving rain-storm and go here as I said before. The two days which we had on the river were the most beautiful days we have had this spring, they were very warm and not a bit of wind till late yesterday afternoon when a little breeze came up and sometime in the night it commenced to rain. When the sun rose this morning I thought it was going to clear off but about seven it commenced to rain and it is raining very hard now but I guess it will clear off and be a pleasant day to-morrow.

  On both sides of the Mississippi all the way from Dunleith to St. Paul there are high bluffs from 150 ft. to 250 ft. in height and from one to five miles distant from each other. They are generally pretty steep and in some places very steep and high cliffs so as to make it impossible to climb them. Where they are farthest apart the river has several different channels made by low islands in the water, and covered by the water when it is high, which are covered with thick woods. From the tops of the luffs the country lays on every side level and most[ly] prairie with a little wood on it in different places.

  We are at a house here called Tremont House, and from the window of my room I can see a little bit of the Falls of St. Anthony, though not enough to know how they look.

  I write with a pencil because my ink bottle is stuck to-gether and I cannot get it open.

  I do not know any more to say now excepting that I am well and Mr. Thoreau is pretty well too. From your loving son,

Horace Mann.

  P.S. I thought I would write a little more before I sent my letter. It is now after supper. I had a good nap in the afternoon for I slept about 3 hours. I then waked up and went down to see the Falls of St. Anthony. I will draw a little plan of them so you can see about how they lie. [He here includes a brief sketch.] The fall is divided by Hennepin Island named after a Jesuit missionary, the first white man who ever saw them and who named them, arriving on St. Anthony’s day. A little above this island is Nicholas [Nicollet] Island and above that Boom Island and the dotted line in the River represents a boom made to catch logs and keep them from going over the falls. (Look out the meaning of Boom in a dictionary). Below the falls are two or three little, inaccessible islands which will some time be entirely washed away, I think, for they seem to be going slowly now. After supper I went up onto the prairie back of the and got a few flowers for Mr. Thoreau. He is doing very well now and I think will be a great deal better before long.