Even our great resource, the cheering, animating songs of our voyageurs, was out of the question; for the river, though deep, is so narrow that, in many places, there is no room for the regular play of the oars; and the voices of Frenchmen can never "keep tune" unless their oars can "keep time." Lapierre, one of our men, did his best with a paddle, or, as he called it, the "_little row_," but it was to no purpose--it _would not go_.
Besides this, the wild rice abounds to such an extent in many places, that it almost completely obstructs the progress of even a moderate-sized boat, so that a passage through its tangled masses is with difficulty forced by the oars.

Tedious and monotonous as was the whole course of the two following days, the climax of impatience and discouragement was not reached until we arrived in sight of the white walls of Fort Winnebago, looking down from a rising ground upon the vast expanse of low land through which the river winds.
The Indians have a tradition that a vast serpent once lived in the waters of the Mississippi, and that, taking a freak to visit the Great Lakes, he left his trail through the prairies, which, collecting the waters from the meadows and the rains of heaven as they fell, at length became the Fox River.
The little lakes along its course were probably the spots where he flourished about in his uneasy slumbers at night.

He must have played all the antics of a kitten in the neighborhood of the Portage.

When the fort was first pointed out to me, I exclaimed, with delight, "Oh, we shall be there in half an hour!" "Not quite so soon," said my husband, smiling.

"Wait and see." We sat and watched.