es, who, during this season of enchantment hold, it is said, at
midnight, high carnival on the islands of this upper and beautiful
river. Be that as it may, they certainly add to the attractions of a
sail along this "Father of Waters," and give picturesqueness to the
landscape which, before seeing, we had not credited with so much of
interest and beauty as we found it to possess.

A couple of hours' additional steaming brings us to the lofty peaks
standing on the left of the river, one of which, from the resemblance of
its crest to the crown of England, has given rise to the names of
Victoria and Albert. They are over five hundred feet in height, and
believed to be the tallest of any of the cliffs along the river. Beyond,
on the right, stands boldly the lone sentinel of Mountain Island, at the
base of which is the small village of Trempeleau, where a moment's halt
is made, and the wheels of the great ship splash through the water
again, all tremulous with nervous energy and pent-up power as they bend
slowly to their slavish labor; and, the only labor that man has any
right to make a slave of is that with iron arms and metallic lungs. He
may compel these to work and groan and sweat at every pore with honor to
himself and the added respect of all mankind.

A few miles further and the city of

WINONA

is in view. This is the most populous town in the State of Minnesota
south of St. Paul. It occupies a low, level tract projecting from the
base of the bluffs, which circle its rear in the shape of an ox-bow,
and, in times of high water, becomes an island, owing to its great
depression at its junction with the bluffs. The town stands on the front
of this low plateau, along the channel of the river, and has a
population of nine thousand people, counting the nomadic lumbermen, who
live half the year in the piny woods many hundred miles to the north,
and the other half are floating on the rafts down the river; a rough but
useful people, who betimes will lose their heads and winter's wages in a
single drunken fray, which they seem to consider the highest pleasure
vouchsafed to them each season as they return to the walks of civilized
life.

The pleasant sounding name of Winona is one of the many Dakota words
abounding along the river and over the State, and was the appellation of
the beautiful Indian girl who so tragically ended her life by leaping
from the top of Maiden's Bluff, bordering the eastern shore of Lake
Pepin a