common. The cliffs here are high and interrupted, or in promontories.
We reached Fountain City about noon. The bluffs grow farther apart, and the rain channels more numerous than yesterday; sometimes there are two or three miles from bluff to bluff. We take a wood-boat along with us. Oaks,—commonly open,—on both sides the river. We see Indians encamped below Wabasha, with Dakota-shaped wigwams; also a loon on a lake, and fish leaping.
Every town has a wharf, with one storage building or several on it, and as many hotels,—this is everything, except commission merchants. "Storage," "Forwarding," or "Commission," one or all these words are on the most prominent new buildings close to the waterside. Perhaps there will be a heap of sacks filled with wheat on the natural jetty or levee close by; or about Dubuque and Dunleith a blue stack of pig-lead, which is in no danger of being washed away. We see where they have dug for lead in the sides of the bluffs for many miles above Galena.
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