The fort commands a noble view, placed as it is on a commanding bluff at the junction of the Mississippi and the St. Peters rivers. The valley of the St. Peters, sloping upward, with its sunny fields, its aromatic grasses, and noble groves, stretches onward in its beauty as far as the eye can reach. In this valley is found the fine red stone of which the Indians make the bowls of their pipes; the red paint the Sioux use so much, and the blue and green clay used in painting, are also found here. This lovely valley had recently been the scene of a bloody battle between the Sioux and Chippewas, and the driver told Norman that he had seen some of wounded Indians carried through St. Anthony by some of their tribe. From the earliest times these two nations have been at war; a feud transmitted from generation to generation. How few of these Indians have learned the great lessons of loving kindness which the white men ought to have taught them. Steadily retreating from their broad prairies, their great lakes and rivers, before the advancing tread of the white man, they have not, as they gave up their beautiful homes, got a title to a grander and more glorious inheritance in the spirit land. How many have received firewater and fire-arms, at the hand of the white man! how few have taken from him the cup of salvation! Some of the customs of the Sioux seem to indicate that they have come from Asia, across the narrow straits that divide the two continents. They offer sacrifices and prayers to an unknown God; they have feasts of thanksgiving after deliverance from danger; they offer meat and burnt-offerings; they burn incense. These customs, together with their peculiar countenances and utterances, their own traditions, and the testimony of other nations, have convinced careful observers that they are descendants of a race of Asiatics.[3] Footnote 3: Pike’s Expedition. The road winds around the hill on which the fort is built, and Norman saw many swallows flying into nests excavated in the banks of white sand-stone. Crossing the river by a rope ferry, they ascended the opposite bank, and drove rapidly onward till they stopped to visit Carver’s Cave. There are several large rooms rounded in the white sand-stone, which crumbles at the touch. The floor was of pure white fine sand, powdered, while through the cave flowed a stream clear as crystal. Norman stooped and drank freely of the cool refreshing water. He was delighted. “How beautiful these arched walls are,” he exclaimed; “how curious to have such rooms hollowed out of the earth.” There were other apartments to be reached, through a narrow passage, but the driver had no torch with him, and it was not advisable to venture in the darkness. Norman broke off a piece of the sand-stone as a memorial of the cave, and then hastened to the carriage.