WE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among othersan old gentleman who had come to this north-western regionwith the early settlers, and was familiar with every part of it.

Pardonably proud of it, too. He said--'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can givethe Hudson points. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundredfeet high, and just as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres;and Trempeleau Island, which isn't like any other island in America,I believe, for it is a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides,and is full of Indian traditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes;if you catch the sun just right there, you will have a picture thatwill stay with you. And above Winona you'll have lovely prairies;and then come the Thousand Islands, too beautiful for anything;green? why you never saw foliage so green, nor packed so thick;it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat on a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrous bluffs on both sides ofthe river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--just the frame that's wanted;you always want a strong frame, you know, to throw up the nice pointsof a delicate picture and make them stand out.'

The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not very powerful ones.

After this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery,and described it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islandsto St. Paul; naming its names with such facility, tripping alonghis theme with such nimble and confident ease, slamming in athree-ton word, here and there, with such a complacent air of 'tisn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting offfine surprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals,that I presently began to suspect--But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly at the feetof cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward the blue depthsof heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have known no other contactsave that of angels' wings.

'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendousaspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration,about twelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high,with romantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perchedfar among the cloud shadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing Mount Vernon, town of early days,now desolate and utterly deserted.

'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of sixhundred feet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention isattracted by a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the ideal mountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surfacegirding its sides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectatorto wonder at nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb viewsof the forests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyondfor miles are brought within its focus. What grander river scenerycan be conceived, as we gaze upon this enchanting landscape,from the uppermost point of these bluffs upon the valleys below?

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