CHAPTER III.
ROCK RIVER .-- OREGON .-- ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE .-- GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE .-- WESTERN FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION .-- WOMEN IN THE WEST .-- KISHWAUKIE .-- BELVIDERE .-- FAREWELL.
In the afternoon of this day we reached the Rock River, in whose neighborhood we proposed to make some stay, and crossed at Dixon's Ferry.
This beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks, traversing a distance of near two hundred miles, to reach the Mississippi.

Great part of the country along its banks is the finest region of Illinois, and the scene of some of the latest romance of Indian warfare.

To these beautiful regions Black Hawk returned with his band "to pass the summer," when he drew upon himself the warfare in which he was finally vanquished.

No wonder he could not resist the longing, unwise though its indulgence might be, to return in summer to this home of beauty.
Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked, that it bears the character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled like the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in landscape-gardening.

The villas and castles seem to have been burnt, the enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower-gardens, the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of Nature.
Especially is this true of the Rock River country.