with comfortable accommodations for one hundred passengers. We had three hundred, and consequently were not very comfortable. Among our number, were a great many families, going to establish for themselves new homes in the beautiful prairies and groves of Minnesotathe land of "sky-tinted waters." One poor family met with a sad disaster on our way up, and their grief appealed strongly to our sympathy. They came from Michigan, the father, mother, and five children. They had sold their little all; and converted it into money, which amounted to only two hundred dollars. With this they intended to purchase land and build a temporary abode, while the labor of their hands was to supply their bread through the approaching winter. The first night that they were on the boat, the father went out upon the guards; it was very dark, and he stepped overboard and was drowned. All their money was in his pocket, and was lost. The wife and daughters were overwhelmed in grief. They were surrounded with sympathy, and a liberal contribution among the passengers supplied their present want. But, oh! how sad was their future! A few miles below St. Paul, we landed them, at a lonely spot on the shore, from whence they were to make their way to their new and unknown home: the snow was falling, and when we had a last glimpse of them, they were standing around their scanty household goods, as if they knew not where to turn, or what to do next. Kind reader, shed a tear over the fate of John Besse, and pity his forlorn family. There are no large towns on the Mis sissippi river between Dubuque and St. Paul, but there are landing places and small settlements, which are rapidly growing into villages and cities. They are backed by beautiful lands, which are now being rapidly settled. The boat approaches the shore. The bell rings for the engine to stop. We are about to land some passengers at one of these new settlements. Let us look over the guards, and see who goes off. There is no wharf, the gang-way is pushed out, and rests on the sandy shore. The boatmen "set to," and put ashore a two horse wagon, in pieces, a span of horses, with their harness, a cooking stove, and two or three bedsteads, a bureau, chairs, trunks and boxes. Now the family goes ashore. The father, a middle-aged man, with an intelligent face, and a brave heart to battle with hardships, sets himself to put the wagon together. The mother, in her tidy travelling dress, locks over the trunks and household wares, to see that all are there. Thomas leads off the cow by a rope, ties her to a tree, and then comes back to get the baby wagon. Lucy carries the baby, and Mary carries the looking-glass. Eddy looks out that Rover, the dog, is not left behind, and William and Jane take each other by the hand, and walk quietly off. Now they are all on shore. The bell rings for the engine to start, and, while we move quietly up the river, they are loading their things into their wagon, and going to their new farm. We wave to them a good-bye, and inwardly izvoke blessings on that enter prising happy family. The scene we | ly requires the aid of moonlight, and a little imagination, to see, carved in the rock, pillared temples, castles, fortresses, and ivy covered ruins, that cannot be outdone in the most classic places of the earth. have pictured is one of many that are daily occurring. Not a boat passes up, but it scatters just such families all along those beautiful shores. These families carry with them industry, intelligence, and virtue, and, in a short time, the beautiful groves and prairies of Minnesota will be dotted all over with thriving happy homesteads. To one who has never sailed on the upper Mississippi, it is difficult to give a correct idea of the scenery. There is nothing that resembles it in any other part of the world, where we have been. In beauty and variety of outline, it surpasses the scenery of the Rhine; but it lacks the sombre ruins, the tasteful husbandry, and the historic associations that so attract the voyager on that classic river. 、 Between these conical bluffs, that stand as sentinels, all along the banks of upper Mississippi, are shaded ravines, extending back from the river, and stretching away to the prairies, which are on an average eighty or a hundred feet above the river. These ravines, and the slopes of the bluffs, are not heavily wooded, but are covered with rank grass and straggling trees, which at a distance look like a thrifty old orchard. They serve as shade and ornament, and produce a very pleasing effect. This is the season for prairie fires. The frost has killed the green leaves. The grass is dry; and when it once gets on fire, as it often does by the carelessness of hunters, it burns with astonish the wind almost as fast as a horse can trot, and it spreads over, and blackens the whole country for miles. As soon as the darkness of night comes on, you can see the horizon lighted up, on every side, with these fires, some of which are near, and some a great many miles away. If the bluffs that skirt the Mississippi, are not as high as some of the German mountains, you, notwithstanding, get an idea of grandeur, and of almost bound-ing fury. Sometimes the fire runs before less extent of continent, which you will seldom get elsewhere. The banks, all along, rise in irregular hillocks, from one hundred to six hundred feet high, and look as if they had been fashioned by the hand of man. Sometimes they are round, and sometimes, they rise up like a sugar-loaf: not unfrequently the The first night that we were on the side next to the water seems to have Mississippi, it was very dark, and the been cut off, so that it presents a flat rain was falling fast. Our pilot could surface of rock. This rock has either not see where to go, and just as we had been worn by the water, or acted upon gone to sleep, down came one of our by the atmosphere, so that it is often per- great tall smoke chimneys, with an awforated like a honey-comb, or wrought ful crash, upon deck. The passengers into all imaginable shapes. Often it on- | started from their berths, or from their sleeping place on the floor, (for more than half had no softer bed than the carpet,) and rushed out to see what was the matter. It appeared that the boat had taken advantage of the darkness, and attempted to perform an overland route, in order to shorten the distance. But she was brought up by some large oak trees on the bank, that stretched out their great arms, and held her fast. There we lay, helpless and immoveable, seven hours. At length the limbs were cut away, a temporary chimney was erected, and we proceeded on our way. Our chimney did not work very well, and we sailed the remainder of the way, like a duck with one broken wing. See that little cabin standing all alone on the river bank, not a house within ten miles. There are little children playing before the door, two pigs are nestling together by a log, and the dog is watching the approach of our boat; now the mother has come to the door to see us pass-poor woman-she must have homesick times there, for she has come from a happy home in the East, and is not used to such solitude. This is a chopper's family. See yonder is the chopper preparing wood for the steamboats, and up on the side of the kluff don't you see the oxen grazing? The oxen are used to haul the wood to the river side. The wood-chopper leads a solitary life, but he makes his money easy. Cutting the wood from government lands, it costs him nothing, and he readily sells to the steamboats all that he can prepare, for two to three dollars a cord. In a little more than two days after we left Dunleith, we came to Lake Pepin. This is a beautiful lake, through which the Mississippi flows. It is about twenty or twenty-five miles long, and from one to three or four miles wide Its waters are clear, and the surrounding bluffs and hills are very picturesque. The shores of Lake Pepin are celebrated for the beautiful agates and cornelians, that are found there. At Red Wing, a few miles above Lake Pepin, there was once an Indian village, and a missionary station. They are removed, and a flourishing town is now growing up there, and a college is being founded, which promises to be a fine institution. At Kaposia, a few miles further up, is another station, where our missionaries labored among the Dakotah Indians. Two neat white houses, built for missionary purposes, remain there; but the Indian tents are now all removed, and the children of the forest, with their teachers, have, two or three years ago, taken up their march farther towards the setting sun. The white men are coming in to cultivate the fertile acres that the Indians valued only as hunting grounds, and civilization is spreading her wing over realms long under the dark dominion of barbarism. The evening was just setting in, when from the high bluffs the cheerful lights from St. Paul (greeted our approach. Standing on successive terraces that rise one above another in a grand amphitheatre, three or four miles in diameter, St. Paul is unsurpassed for beauty of loca tion. More of this in my next. R. M. Young Birds and Children. BY MRS. C. W. WEBBER. of knowing all about bird's nests for miles around. These localities are a kind of in CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24. HERE is a way | should be, in all cases, that the robber should tip the nest. And then there were no tracks of human feet about. At length we found a nest, with a clear round hole through the bottom of it, and the eggs all abstracted; and we forthwith swore vengeance against all snakes. stinct with us, and we can tell where there is, or ought to be one, a hundred yards off, long before the little grassy tuft becomes apparent. And out of our experience, we can tell you, by way of preliminary, that the world is by no means an unmitigated paradise to birds, either. For, last spring, we used to know of more than fifty nests which we used to take a cautious peep into, once a day, for we never ventured to touch them. Suddenly, to our great consternation, we perceived, that nest after nest had been robbed! And many a lovely tream of pleasant play-fellows was dissipated in rapid succession. We were sadly bewildered for the cause, and finally came to the conclusion that all the bad and vagabond darkies of the neighborhood must be dogging our steps, and, watching us when we peeped in at our dainty treasures, came immediately when we disappeared, and carried them off. At last the sidelong appearance of the nests, thus robbed, attracted our attention We began to wonder why it The next day we marched forth with gun in hand, and the painful cries of a pair of sparrows, whose secrets we knew, attracted our attention, and we went forthwith to ascertain the cause of their troubles. As we approached the nest, we saw a huge black snake, glide glistening away in the clear morning sunlight. The thieving scamp, when he saw us approaching, reared his head aloft for battle; but in a twinkling it was taken clean off with a rifle bulletand then the poor brooding birds of all the neighborhood had a temporary "sur cease of sorrow." Well, we had been watching for weeks, the doings of a splendid pair of cardinal grossbeaks, or Virginia redbirds. Their family arrangements had been twice broken up by his snakeship; and now the gay attire and clarion note of the flashing male bird, soon be trayed to us the site of their third house. We found it in a little arbor of wild grape-vines, in which we had said prophetically, early in the spring, "some bird will be sure to build." We watched the cosy pair daily from a distance, and counted the hours, until we were sure the young ones must be fledged. The day on which the time was up found us peering curiously into the grape vine. But the old birds had almost been too sharp for us. On that very morning, two of the young had been coaxed entirely away from the nest, and the others we found perched, one on the side of the nest, the other perched cosily among the broad foliage of the vine. The gentleman of the vine looked as wise as Minerva's owl, and we are impressed with the belief that he really was; for, instead of attempting to get away, he stepped gingerly upon our wife's dainty finger, and crouched himself down upon it to get warm. We liked this for a philosophical beginning of an intimacy, and "Captain Red," as he was forthwith christened, became at once a "high particular." The other young one, which was a female, and the weakest in the nest, soon died. But "Captain Red" flourished apace, and soon became quite as much a gentleman of estate, as ever poor artist or naturalist could be! He peered into all our correspondence, and picked at the letters of our MS. until we are convinced that he became quite as conversant with our affairs as we were ourselves. We are quite positive that this gentleman of the top-knot was, and is, quite as wise as anybody of his day and generation. Now, we will tell you why. All that part of the world, which is wise and good, does its thinking through the heart; and so did "Captain Red," as you will see from our narrative. We took up a strange passion for the little wood-wren, which is found all through the West, with his nut-brown and blackbarred mantle, and white streak above his eyes. He is the most incorrigible music-box of anatomy in existence. He sings always. Frost and snow have no power to chill the warm pulsation of his little organ; and, sunshine in, or sunshine out, he persistently shrills a clear accordance, that defies all thought of despondency or grief. His liquid pipe, rollics and rings among the bare trunks of winter, defying its discords, as well as melts in shrilly clamors with the breezy flush of spring. It is, in a word, one of the most charming and indefatigable songsters we have in America, and the quaintest citizen of the peopled woods withal. He has a remarkably cunning way of hiding his nest, too, in old hollow trees and stumps, and in decaying logs, in odd fence-corners, and perforated eaves. Well, with all its cunning, we managed, after long and patient watching, to find a nest of these young gentry, just in their fledging time. They are very rebellious little scamps, and we got them home, with much trouble at first, and placed them in the house of " Сарtain Red," and oh, it would have done you good to see how promptly our quaint philosopher, though only six weeks old himself, took up the cause of these transplanted little ones! Het once assumed the airs of mater |