received his materials from. Though the books are pleasing from their
grace and luminous arrangement, yet, with the exception of the Tour to
the Prairies, they have a stereotype, second-hand air. They lack the
breath, the glow, the charming minute traits of living presence. His
scenery is only fit to be glanced at from dioramic distance; his Indians
are academic figures only. He would have made the best of pictures, if
he could have used his own eyes for studies and sketches; as it is, his
success is wonderful, but inadequate.

McKenney's Tour to the Lakes is the dullest of books, yet faithful and
quiet, and gives some facts not to be met with elsewhere.

I also read a collection of Indian anecdotes and speeches, the worst
compiled and arranged book possible, yet not without clues of some
value. All these books I read in anticipation of a canoe-voyage on Lake
Superior as far as the Pictured Rocks, and, though I was afterwards
compelled to give up this project, they aided me in judging of what I
afterwards saw and heard of the Indians.

In Chicago I first saw the beautiful prairie flowers. They were in their
glory the first ten days we were there--

"The golden and the flame-like flowers."

The flame-like flower I was taught afterwards, by an Indian girl, to
call "Wickapee;" and she told me, too, that its splendors had a useful
side, for it was used by the Indians as a remedy for an illness to which
they were subject.

Beside these brilliant flowers, which gemmed and gilt the grass in a