It had rained copiously during the afternoon, and everything in the shape of kindling stuff had become so completely saturated with moisture, that it was quite an enterprise in the men to light a camp-fire. Lieut. Allen did not reach our encampment this night, having been misled in Allen's Lake, and, being driven ashore by the tempest, he encamped in that quarter. Presuming him to be in advance, I had pushed on, to a late hour, and encamped under this impression. [184] Professor D. B. Douglas. The next morning (20th), we set off from our camp betimes, and, having now a full flowing river, made good speed. The river passes for a dozen or more miles through a willowy low tract, on issuing from which there begins a series of strong rapids. Twenty-four of these rapids were counted, which were called the Metunna Rapids. Lieut. Allen estimates that they occupy thirty miles of the channel of the river. Below these rapids, the river extends to a mean width of three hundred feet. At this locality we were overtaken by Mr. Allen, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, and were thus first apprised of the fact that he had been all the while in our rear instead of in front. Twenty miles below the Metunna Rapids, Leaf River flows in from the right, by a mouth of forty yards wide. This stream originates in Leaf Lake, and is navigable sixty miles in the largest craft used by the traders.[185] The volume of the Crow-Wing River is constantly increased in width and velocity by these accessions, which enabled us fearlessly to make a large day's journey. We encamped together after sunset, on an elevated pine bank, having descended ninety miles. [185] The angle of country above Leaf River, on the Crow-Wing, has been proposed as a refuge for the Menomonee tribe, of Wisconsin, for whom temporary arrangements, at least, are now made, on the head of Fox River, of that State. The 21st, we were early in motion, the river presenting a broad rushing mass of waters, every way resembling the Mississippi itself. On reaching within twenty miles of its mouth, we passed, on the right bank, the mouth of the Long Prairie River,[186] a prime tributary flowing from the great Ottertail slope, which has been, time out of mind, the war road between the Chippewas and Sioux; and between this point and the confluence coming in we passed, on the left bank, the confluence of the Kioshk, or Gull River, through which there is a communication, by a series of portages, with Leech Lake.[187] [186] This river has been assigned as the residence of the Winnebago Indians. It is the present seat of the United States agency, and of the farming and mechanical establishment for that tribe. [187] Mr. J. J. Nicolet pursued this route in 1836, on his visit to the sources of the Mississippi. _Vide_ Senate Doc. No. 237. Washington, D. C., 1843.