May 24. Up river,—the river, say sixty rods wide, or three-quarters of a mile between the bluffs. Broad, flooded, low intervale covered with the willow in bloom (twenty feet high, rather slender), and probably other kinds—elms and white maple and cottonwood. Now boatable between the trees, and probably many ducks are there. The bluffs are (say) one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high. Rarely is there room for a village at the base of the cliffs. There are oaks on the top (white?), ash, elm, aspen, bass on the slope and by the shore. The birds are kingfishers, small ducks, swallows, jays, etc. Passengers land on the shore oftentimes with a plank. There are great rafts of boards and shingles, four or five rods wide and fifteen or twenty rods long, but very few small boats. We see holes in the sides of hills at Cassville, where lead has been dug out. Occasionally a little lonely house stands on a flat or slope, often deserted. The river banks are in their primitive condition between the towns,—which is almost everywhere.
Twenty men in ten minutes load us with
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