and partly from indisposition. My thoughts were employed upon home. A
thousand phantoms passed through my head. I tried to imagine how you
were employed at this moment, whether busy, or sick in your own room. It
would require a volume to trace my wandering thoughts. Let it suffice
that another day is nearly gone, and it has lessened the distance which
separated us, about seventy miles.

_28th_. I encamped, last night, near a large village of Winnebagoes and
Menomonies. They complained to me of want of food and ammunition. I
distributed among them a quantity of powder, ball, and shot, and some
bread, hard biscuit, pork, and tobacco. Never were people more grateful,
and never, I believe, was a more appropriate distribution made. I had
purchased these articles for the Chippewa Nation, to be used on my
contemplated voyage home, from the Prairie, through Chippewa River and
Lake Superior, before the design of going that way was relinquished. The
fact was, I could get no men to go that way, so alarmed were they by the
recent murder of Finley and his party.

About two o'clock A.M. I was awoke by a very heavy storm of rain and
wind, attended with loud peals of thunder. The violence of the wind blew
down my tent, and my blankets, &c. received some damage. After this
mishap the wind abated, and having got my tent re-arranged, I again went
to sleep. I dreamt of attending the funeral of an esteemed friend, who
was buried with honors, attended to the grave by a large train. I have
no recollection of the name of this friend, nor whether male or female.
I afterwards visited the house of this person, and the room in which he
(or she) died. I closed the door with dread and sorrow, afflicted by the
views of the couch where one so much esteemed had expired. The mansion
was large, and elegantly furnished. I lost my way in it, and rung a
large bell that hung in the hall. At this, many persons, male and
female, came quickly into the hall from folding doors, as if, I thought,
they had been summoned to dinner. As you have sometimes inclined to
believe in these fantastic operations of the human mind, when asleep, I
record them for your amusement, or reflection. Was this an allegory of
the destructive effects of the storm, mixed with my banquet to my Indian
friends, the Menomonies and Winnebagoes?

After descending the river more than twenty miles we landed at _la Butte
des Morts_ to cook breakfast. Immediately on landing my attention was
attra