"We are now on missionary ground, and are surrounded by those dark people of whom we often talked at your fireside last winter. I doubt not you will still think and talk about them, and pray for them also. And surely your grandchildren will not be forgotten. "We reached this station two weeks since, after enjoying Lieutenant Ogden's hospitality a few days, and were kindly welcomed by Mr. Stevens' family, with whom we remain until a house, now occupied by the school, can be prepared, so that we can live in a part of it. Then we shall feel still more at home, though I hope our rude habitation will remind us that we are pilgrims on our way to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. "The situation of the mission houses is very beautiful,--on a little eminence, just upon the shore of a lovely lake skirted with trees. About a mile north of us is Lake Calhoun, on the margin of which is an Indian village of about twenty lodges. Most of these are bark houses, some of which are twenty feet square, and others are tents, of skin or cloth. Several days since I walked over to the village, and called at the house of one of the chiefs. He was not at home, but his daughters smiled very good-naturedly upon us. We seated ourselves on a frame extending on three sides of the house, covered with skins, which was all the bed, sofa, and chairs they had. "Since our visit at the village, two old chiefs have called upon us. One said, this was a very bad country,--ours was a good country,--we had left a good country, and come to live in his bad country, and he was glad. The other called on Sabbath evening, when Mr. Riggs was at the Fort, where he preaches occasionally. He inquired politely how I liked the country, and said it was bad. What could a courtier have said more? "The Indians come here at all hours of the day without ceremony, sometimes dressed and painted very fantastically, and again with scarcely any clothing. One came in yesterday dressed in a coat, calico shirt, and cloth leggins, the only one I have seen with a coat, excepting two boys who were in the family when we came. The most singular ornament I have seen was a large striped snake, fastened among the painted hair, feathers, and ribbons of an Indian's head-dress, in such a manner that it could coil round in front and dart out its snake head, or creep down upon the back at pleasure. During this the Indian sat perfectly at ease, apparently much pleased at the astonishment and fear manifested by some of the family." "June 26.