Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the vegetable, chi-goug; both words were used to indicate strong odors. What is now known as the North Branch was then known as River Guarie, named after the first trader that followed La Salle. The field he cultivated was traceable on the prairie by the distinct marks of the cornhills. MUD LAKE?ISLE LA CACHE.?STARVED ROCK. ? FORT CLARK. ? ENCOUNTER WITH AN INDIAN.?ST. LOUIS. After a few days at Chicago, spent in repairing our boats, we struck camp and proceeded up the lagoon, or what is now known as the South Branch, camping at a point near the present commencement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, where we remained one day preparing to pass our boats through Mud Lake into the Aux Plaines River. Mud Lake drained partly into the Aux Plaines and partly through a narrow, crooked channel into the South Branch, and only in very wet seasons was there sufficient water to float an empty boat. The mud was very deep, and along the edge of the lake grew tall grass and wild rice, often reaching above a man’s head, and so strong and dense it was almost impossible to walk through them. Our empty boats were pulled up the channel, and in many places, where there was no water and a hard clay bottom, they were placed onshort rollers, and in this way moved along until the lake was reached, where we found mud thick and deep, but only at rare intervals was there water. Forked tree branches were tied upon the ends of the boat poles, and these afforded a bearing on the tussocks of grass and roots, which enabled the men in the boat to push to some purpose. Four men only remained in a boat and pushed with these poles, while six or eight others waded in the mud alongside, and by united efforts constantly jerking it along, so that from early dawn to dark we succeeded only in passing a part…