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In the evening I saw it from	above; next	morning from below. What amazed
me, and I would not have believed	it if I had	not talked with a man	named Sam
Patch sprang down the	fall	without getting hurt.	He traveled around and made
money by jumping over	the	greatest waterfalls of	America. Finally	he killed
himself jumping. As a proof of the power of Niagara, I will tell a story I heard about it. Two Englishmen (officers) got permission to send three condemned workmen over	the	fall. Two went around	on the island, but	the third
went over. Although a	reward of twenty dollars was offered to anyone	who could
find a piece of him, none was ever found. The river Niagara which makes the falls runs twelve English miles from Lake Erie, and eighteen miles from the fall to Lake Ontario.
I stayed there one day, then went to Pittsburgh, where I took hire on the steamboat "Argus", bound for St.	Louis.	In	three days we ran out	into the
muddy Mississippi and went up the	river.	The	banks are much higher	here than
they were lower down and more thickly settled. On the west side of the river are immense lead mines which furnish all America with lead. Anyone has permission to dig for the lead, and any vein he finds is his. I knew a man who found a vein and then sold it at once for three thousand dollars. I watched them make shot. The smelters are wooden houses built on the edge of a high cliff. It did not look safe to me. At the bottom is a cistern to receive the shot, which, falling from the long distance, are made round.
St. Louis lies sixty miles below where the Missouri River falls into the Mississippi, but still the muddy water of the Mississippi is not mixed with the clear water of the Missouri. St. Louis is a pretty big city and growing fast. Here we loaded with clothing and eatables at the expense of the government, to take up the river to St. Peters, where there is a fort with three hundred men to keep the Indians down.
The farther up the river you go the fewer houses you see, and at last none. Here it is beautiful. I have never seen such landscapes. Especially the color play of the trees was wonderful, for, though it was only September, it was quite cold, and the trees were dressed in their high colors, which makes Autumn in America so wonderful and beautiful. So far we had seen only woods with cultivated ground in between, but as we went higher up we saw immense, so called, prairies with high grass and flowers but not one tree. Sailing by one could see much wild game. We sometimes killed an elk, a kind of big deer almost as large as a horse and with immense antlers, so large I could not reach between the tips.
The Americans have here two forts, Bock and St. Peters. The first is built of wood, but the second is a strong stone fort. As we came higher up nobody lived there, and we had to stop every day and cut our wood. One day we landed, and I sprang ashore to make the ship fast and came within an inch of stepping on a rattlesnake. I have never been so frightened of anything, and came near forgetting to run away. The captain got his gun and shot it. It was the largest I have ever seen - six feet long, and had seven rings on the tail.
Ten days after leaving St. Louis we passed through Pipin Lake. The river runs through it. It is full of small islands. Swans, pelicans, and other water birds are here in great swarms. On the tenth day we landed at the fort. It lies at the mouth of St. Peters River. Steamships can go no further up, as eight miles is the waterfall, St. Anthony. Here live a lot of Indians, a tribe of the best looking ones I have seen in North America. In exchange for "fire water" one can buy nearly all they have. The women can work beautiful things
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