That the Iroquois, with their adopted children, have not lost in numbers up to the present day, is a curious fact.  About six thousand of the descendants of the “Six Nations” are at Forestville, Wisconsin, on government reservations; and the official agent reports that nearly two thousand of them can read and write; that they have twenty-nine day schools, and two manual-labor schools; that they cultivate their lands so diligently that they pay all the expenses of their living.  They are reported as advancing in church discipline, growing in temperance; and are making rapid progress towards a complete civilization.

These six thousand, with other descendants of the Iroquois in Canada, will no doubt make up a total equal in number to the members of the old “Indian Confederacy,” so graphically pictured in the glowing pages of Mr. Francis Parkman, the reliable historian, who has given us such vivid descriptions of the French rule in America as have called forth the unqualified praise of students of American history on both sides of the Atlantic.

Having rowed forty-three miles in twelve hours, I reached the town of Vevay, Indiana, which was first settled by a Swiss colony, to whom Congress granted lands for the purpose of encouraging grape-culture.  Keeping close under the banks of the river, I entered a little creek a mile below the village, where a night, restful as usual, was passed.

On Tuesday I rose with the moon, though it was as late as five o’clock in the morning; but, although fertile farms were stretched along the river’s bank, and the land gave every sign of careful culture, it was anything but an enjoyable day, as the rain fell in almost uninterrupted showers from eight o’clock A. M. until dusk, when I was glad to find an inviting creek on the Kentucky shore, about one mile below Bethlehem, and had the great satisfaction of logging thirty-eight miles as the day’s run.

It was necessary to make an early start the next day, as I must run the falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, or make a portage round them.  The river was enveloped in fog; but I followed the shore closely, hour after hour, until the sun dispelled the mists, and my little duck-boat ran in among the barges at the great Kentucky city.  Here, at Louisville, is the only barrier to safe navigation on the Ohio River.  These so-called Falls of the Ohio are in fact rapids which almost disappear when the river is at its full height.  At such times, steam-boats, with skilful pilots aboard, safely follow the channel, which avoids the rocks of the river.  During the low stage of the water, navigation is entirely suspended.  The fall of the current is twenty-three feet in two miles.  To avoid this descent, in low water, and to allow vessels to ascend the river at all times, a canal was excavated along the left shore of the rapids from Louisville to Shippingsport, a distance of two miles and a half.  It was a stupendous enterprise, as the passage was cut almost the entire distance through the solid rock, and in some places to the great depth of forty feet.