This week on the Upper Mississippi was one of quiet joy. We had been nearly three months on our way from Mary's home in Massachusetts. God had prospered us all the way. Wherever we had stopped we had found or made friends. The Lord, as we believed, had signally interfered in our behalf, and helped us to "remember the Sabbath day," and to give our testimony to its sacred observance. The season of the year was inspiring. A resurrection to new life had just taken place. All external nature had put on her beautiful garments. And day after day--for the boat tied up at night--we found ourselves passing by those grand old hills and wonderful escarpments of the Upper Mississippi. We were in the wilds of the West, beyond the cabins of the pioneer. We were passing the battle-fields of Indian story. Nay, more, we were already in the land of the Dakotas, and passing by the _teepees_ and the villages of the red man, for whose enlightenment and elevation we had left friends and home. Was it strange that this was a week of intense enjoyment, of education, of growth in the life of faith and hope? And so, as I said in the beginning, on the first day of June, 1837, Mary and I reached, in safety, the mouth of the Minnesota, in the land of the Dakotas. CHAPTER II. 1837.--First Knowledge of the Sioux.--Hennepin and Du Luth.--Fort Snelling.--Lakes Harriet and Calhoun.--Three Months at Lake Harriet.--Samuel W. Pond.--Learning the Language.--Mr. Stevens.--Temporary Home.--That Station Soon Broken Up.--Mary's Letters.--The Mission and People. Native Customs.--Lord's Supper.--"Good Voice."--Description of Our Home.--The Garrison.--Seeing St. Anthony.--Ascent of the St. Peters.--Mary's Letters.--Traverse des Sioux.--Prairie Travelling.--Reaching Lac-qui-parle.--T. S. Williamson.--A Sabbath Service.--Our Upper Room Experiences.--Church at Lac-qui-parle.--Mr. Pond's Marriage.--Mary's Letters.--Feast. About two hundred and forty years ago, the French voyagers and fur traders, as they came from Nouvelle, France, up the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, began to hear, from Indians farther east, of a great and warlike people, whom they called Nadouwe or Nadowaessi, _enemies_. Coming nearer to them, both trader and priest met, at the head of Lake Superior, representatives of this nation, "numerous and fierce, always at war with other tribes, pushing northward and southward and westward," so that they were sometimes called the "Iroquois of the West."