at the head of the portage at St. Mary's. I had
organized it strictly on temperance principles, observation having
convinced me, during frequent expeditions in the wilderness, that not
only is there no situation, unless administered from the medicine-chest,
where men are advantaged by its use, but in nearly every instance of
fatigue or exhaustion their powers are enfeebled by it, while, in a
moral and intellectual sense, they are rendered incapable, neglectful,
or disobedient. This exclusion constituted a special clause in every
verbal agreement with the men, who were Canadians, which I thought
necessary to make, in order that they might have no reason to complain
while inland of its exclusion. They were promised, instead of it,
abundance of good wholesome food at all times. The effects of this were
apparent even at the start. They all presented smiling faces, and took
hold of their paddles with a conscious feeling of satisfaction in the
wisdom of their agreement.

The military and their supplies occupied a large Mackinack boat; my
heavy stores filled another. I traveled in a _canoe-elege,_ as being
better adapted to speed and the celerity of landing. Each carried a
national flag. We slept the first night at Point Iroquois, which
commands a full view of the magnificent entrance into the lake. We were
fifteen days in traversing the lake, being my fifth trip through this
inland sea. We passed up the St. Louis River by its numerous portages
and falls to the Sandy Lake summit, and reached the banks of the
Mississippi on the third of July, and ascertained its width above the
junction of the Sandy Lake outlet to be 331 feet. We were six days in
ascending it to the central island in Cass Lake. This being the point at
which geographical discovery rests, I decided to encamp the men, deposit
my heavy baggage, and fitted out a light party in hunting canoes to
trace the stream to its source. The Indians supplied me with five canoes
of two fathoms each, and requiring but two men to manage each, which
would allow one canoe to each of the gentlemen of my party. I took three
Indians and seven white men as the joint crew, making, with the sitters,
fifteen persons. We were provisioned for a few days, carried a flag,
mess-basket, tent, and other necessary apparatus. We left the island
early the next morning, and reached the influx of the Mississippi into
the Lake at an early hour. To avoid a very circuitous bay, which I
called Allen's Ba