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44

bastions; all neatly whitewashed. The country around Fort Howard is wild and picturesque, although not greatly elevated, affording a fine field for the chase. Here we also remained several days, partaking of the hospitality of the commandant, Major Whistler, in order to obtain suitable boats for the navigation of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers.

  Our journey up the Fox river and down the Wisconsin was marked by no incident uncommon to such travelling, but after we had entered the Mississippi we were overtaken by winter, which set in unusually early this year, and on lake Pipin we were caught in a storm which made entire shipwreck of our keelboat. The storm came upon us while sailing near the eastern shore where the bluffs rise precipitously, in a bold rocky face, directly from the waters edge, without an intervening sand beach as in many other places. Against these rocks our boat beat with such violence as to cause her to spring a leak, and we had but just sufficient time to pass the cliffs and to secure her to the shore, and flee to the land when she sank to the bottom carrying down every thing with her. Here we had to devote several days to raising her and drying the clothing, bedding, and such other articles as the water had not entirely destroyed. After repairing damages we proceeded but had not gone more than two thirds of the way across the lake before the ice obstructed our furcut word