Minnesota and Dacotah | Page 7

passengers than it could well accommodate. I myself went aboard the " Lady Franklin," one of the mail boats, and was accommodated with a state-room. But what a scene is witnessed for the first two hours after the passengers begin to come aboard! The cabin is almost filled, and a dense crowd surrounds the clerk's office, just as the ticket office of a theatre is crowded on a benefit night. Of course not more than half can get state-rooms and the rest must sleep on the cabin floor. Over two hundred cabin passengers came up on the Lady Franklin. The beds which are made on the floor are tolerably comfortable, as each boat is supplied with an extra number of single mattresses. The Lady Franklin is an old boat, and this is said to be its last season.1 Two years ago it was one of the excursion fleet to St. Paul, and was then in its prime. But steamboats are short lived. We had three tables set, and those who couldn't get a seat at the first or second sat at the third. There was a choice you may believe, for such was the havoc made with the provisions at the first table that the second and third were not the most inviting. It was amusing to see gentlemen seat themselves in range of the plates as soon as they were laid, and an hour before the table was ready. But the officers were polite-- as is generally the case on steamboats till you get down to the second mate-- and in the course of a day or two, when the passengers begin to be acquainted, the time wears away pleasantly. We were nearly four days in making the trip. The line of boats of which the Lady Franklin is one, carries the mail at fifty dollars a trip. During the boating season I believe the fare varies from seven to ten dollars to St. Paul.2 This season there have been two lines of boats running to Minnesota. All of them have made money fast; and next season many more boats will run. The "Northern Belle" is the best boat this season, and usually makes the trip up in two days. The advertised time is thirty hours.
[1 Three weeks after this trip the Lady Franklin was snagged, and became a total toss.]
[2 The following is a table of distances from Galena to St. Paul:
Dubuque,
24
Dunleith,
1
25
Potosi Landing,
14
39
Waupaton,
10
49
Buena Vista,
5
54
Cassville,
4
58
Guttenberg,
10
68
Clayton,
12
80
Wyalusing,
5
85
McGregor's,
6
91
Prairie du Chien,
4
95
Red House,
5
100
Johnson's Landing,
2
102
Lafayette,
30
132
Columbus,
2
134
Lansing,
1
135
De Soto,
6
141
Victory,
10
151
Badaxe City,
10
161
Warner's Landing,
6
167
Brownsville,
10
177
La Crosse,
12
189
Dacotah,
12
201
Richmond,
6
207
Monteville,
5
212
Homer,
10
222
Winona,
7
229
Fountain City,
12
241
Mount Vernon,
14
255
Minneiska,
4
259
Alma,
15
274
Wabashaw,
10
284
Nelson's Landing,
3
287
Reed's Landing,
2
289
Foot of Lake Pepin,
2
291
North Pepin,
6
297
Johnstown,
2
299
Lake City,
5
304
Central Point,
2
306
Florence,
3
309
Maiden Rock,
3
312
Westerville,
3
315
Wacouta,
12
327
Red Wing,
6
333
Thing's Landing,
7
340
Diamond bluff,
8
348
Prescott,
13
361
Point Douglass,
1
362
Hastings,
3
365
Grey Cloud,
12
377
Pine Bend,
4
381
Red Rock,
8
389
Kaposia,
3
392
St. Paul,
5
397
]
The scenery on the upper Mississippi is reputed to be beautiful. So it is. Yet all river scenery is generally monotonous. One gets tired of looking at high rocky ridges quite as quickly as at more tame and tranquil scenery. The bluffs on either side of the Mississippi, for most of the way between Dunleith and St. Anthony's Falls, constitute some of the most beautiful river scenery in the world. It is seldom that they rise over two hundred feet from the water level, and their height is quite uniform, so that from a distant point of view their summit resembles a huge fortification. Nor, as a general thing, do they present a bold or rocky front. The rise from the river is gradual. Sometimes they rise to a sharp peak, towards the top of which crops out in half circles heavy ridges of limestone. The ravines which seem to divide them into separate elevations, are more thickly wooded, and appear to have been grooved out by the rolling down of deep waters. The most attractive feature of these bluffs-- or miniature mountains, as they might be called-- is their smooth grassy surface, thinly covered over with shade trees of various kinds. Whoever has seen a large orchard on a hill side can imagine how the sides of these bluffs look. At this season of the year the variegated foliage of the trees gives them a brilliant appearance. It is quite rare to see a bluff which rises gradually enough to admit of its being a good town site. Hence it is that settlements on the banks of the river will never be very numerous. Nature has here interposed against that civilization which adorns the lower Mississippi. It appears to me that all the available points for town sites on the river are taken up as far as the bluffs extend; and some of these will require a great amount of excavation before they can grow to importance.
But there are several thrifty and pleasant villages in Minnesota, on the river, before reaching St. Paul. The first one of importance is Brownsville, where, for some time, was a United States land office. It is 168 miles above Dunleith. Winona,