While in Dubuque I received my first letter from home in seven months. What a relief it was, after a period of long suspense, spent in tediously traveling over an almost wilderness country,--amidst unpleasant surroundings, amongst strangers, many of them of the baser sort, drinking, card playing, gambling and quarreling,--what a relief it was to receive a letter from home with assurances of affectionate regard from those I most esteemed. Truly the lines had not fallen to me in pleasant places, and I was sometimes exposed to perils from the lawless characters by whom I was surrounded. On one occasion a dissolute and desperate miner, named Gilbert, came to Cannon's hotel, which was my boarding house while in Dubuque. He usually came over from the east side of the river once a week for a spree. On this occasion, being very drunk, he was more than usually offensive and commenced abusing Cannon, the landlord, applying to him some contemptuous epithet. I thoughtlessly remarked to Cannon, "You have a new name," upon which Gilbert cocked his pistol and aiming at me was about to fire when Cannon, quick as thought, struck at his arm and so destroyed his aim that the bullet went over my head. The report of the pistol brought others to the room and a general melee ensued in which the bar was demolished, the stove broken and Gilbert unmercifully whipped. Gilbert was afterward shot in a drunken brawl. I formed some genial acquaintances in Dubuque, amongst them Gen. Booth, Messrs. Brownell, Wilson and others, since well known in the history of the country. Price, the wood contractor, never paid me for my work. I invested what money I had left for lots in Madison, all of which I lost, and had, in addition, to pay a note I had given on the lots. On February 11th I went to Cassville, journeying thither on the ice. This village had flourished greatly, in the expectation of becoming the territorial and state capital, expectations doomed, as we have seen, to disappointment. It is romantically situated amidst picturesque bluffs, some of which tower aloft like the walls and turrets of an ancient castle, a characteristic that attaches to much of the bluff scenery along this point. PRAIRIE DU CHIEN.